"Vous quittez aujourd'hui la France Mais vous emportez tous nos voeux, Et deja vos succes heureux Partout sont applaudis d'avance.
Sur le coeur de tous les mortels Votre gloire a jamais se fonde, Il n'est pas de pays au monde Ou le savoir n'ait des autels."
The poet who thus applauded success in advance, probably lived long enough to realise that it is much easier to make fair verses than a true prediction.
There was another banquet at Havre while the ships were awaiting a fair wind, when again high hopes were expressed concerning the results to be achieved by the expedition, and where one of the toasts was proposed by a Chinese, Ah Sam, who had been found on board a captured English frigate, and was, by Bonaparte's orders, being taken by Baudin to Mauritius, whence he was to be shipped to his own country. Ah Sam's toast descended from ethereal altitudes and took a purely personal view of the situation. He drank "Aux Francais, bons amis d'A Sam."* (* Moniteur, 21st Vendemiaire.) The Chinaman had reason to be grateful, for the First Consul had, by an order over his own signature, directed that he should be placed under Baudin's charge, and conveyed to his own country at the expense of the Government, and that there should be shown to him that consideration which he merited, both because he was a stranger and because of his good conduct while residing within the territories of the Republic.* (* Correspondence of Napoleon, 1861 collection Volume 6, letter dated 7th Vendemiaire, Revolutionary Year 9 (September 29, 1800).) The treatment of Ah Sam was an example of that kindness which Napoleon, ruthless in war, so often displayed towards those who touched his sympathies.* (* Peron mentioned Ah Sam's case (1 11), but Freycinet, in his second edition, cut out the paragraph, in pursuance of his policy of suppressing references to Napoleon; Peron having written that the Chinaman had reason to bless the generosity and goodness of the First Consul. It was not politic in 1824 to talk about Napoleon's generosity and goodness. But how paltry was the spirit thus displayed!)
The expedition sailed from Havre on the morning of October 19, 1800, amidst cordial popular demonstrations from the inhabitants of that bustling seaport, and many wishes that fortune might crown the efforts of the explorers with success. The captain of the English frigate Proselite, which was watching the harbour mouth, scrutinised the passports and permitted the ships to pass; and, with a fair wind to fill his sails, Baudin put out into the Channel and steered for the open ocean, bound due south.