happened that I had not been present when the crime was committed. Our two friends in the civil department also attempted to interfere in their favour, but were silenced by authority, the insult being deemed of a public nature, and striking at the dignity of the republic. Admiral Bligh now declared, that if the young gentlemen were to be thus driven from the mess, he and I should look upon ourselves as included in the expulsion. This they would willingly have prevented, and wished to draw a line of distinction; but the Admiral’s manly resolution cut short debate, and, on their refusing to yield the point, he and I directly quitted them with contempt; and with two spoons belonging to our servants, and a pocket-knife each, which constituted our whole stock of utensils, we set up our mess forthwith, demanding our rations, but refusing to receive any more _traitement_. Now was to be seen, for the first time, in a civilized enemy’s country, a British Admiral, whose seat was a trunk, and whose table was a trunk, eating a salt herring laid on a scrap of paper, from want of a plate; or supping at the same board, with a candle stuck in an ink-horn, on a second herring; or dipping his spoon in a tub that held our soup, which was part of that made for the ship’s company, sometimes of beef, and sometimes of horse-beans and oil. Breakfast, however, by having a little tea and brown sugar of our own, with the addition of some salt butter, which we had procured from the shore for our servants, was a repast of real luxury. This miserable fare, and want of common necessaries, lasted but two days, when we got leave to employ the cook to market for us, and dress our provisions. It brought me, however, perfectly acquainted with the extent of the French allowance, and likewise with the prices of different commodities on shore, which we found enormously high, and every day rising. To console us, however, the value of gold, in exchange for _assignats_, more than kept pace in its increase.----Here I take my leave of the good ship La Normandie, and her worthy inmates, in full trust that, in the course of our future correspondence, neither her name, nor theirs, will ever again pollute my paper! My observations since I left Brest could not be numerous; but, as I feel an interest in them, they shall not be suppressed.