Address:
M^rs Flinders
      Partney near Spilsby
            Lincolnshire

Annotation:
August 16^th         N^o 27
1806

                        Wilhems Plains in the Isle of France
                                        March 19. 1806

My best love
      The hopes I had entertained of liberty when I last wrote
thee (on Nov. 20. 1805) seem now almost diƒsipated. In continual ex-
-pectation of arrivals from France, I delayed writing from week to week
and at last came an officer with dispatches; soon after arrived a frigate
with other dispatches, and I waited in the utmost anxiety for some orders
or intelligence from general De Caen. At length I learned, that my name
was not mentioned in the letters he had received from the government.
I wrote then to the general, again requesting him to send me to France,
seeing that there was no probability of my situation being remembered
by the French ministers in the midst of the great interests with which
they were occupied. His answer was, "that he could not make any change
"in my situation before he should receive the orders of the marine minister
"; that by every occasion he had requested to receive these orders, and
"that he would again preƒs him upon the subject." It appears that
the minister himself does not chuse [sic] to make the decision, but waits
the opinion of the council of state, which it seems to be too much occupi-
-ed with great events to think of a poor prisoner so far distant.
      At this moment, my hopes are indeed very feeble, I know not upon what
point to fix them. Of themselves, it is most probable, the French government
will do nothing. My letter to M. Fleurieu, and those of my friend to
other considerable men in France, seem to have had no effect; and the
efforts of Sir Joseph Banks, even, seem to have failed; it is, however, poƒ-
-sible, that the Institute wait only for a more convenient time to make
their application, than in the midst of the ^a war in which the Emperor
Napoleon is engaged in person. The idea of being kept here until the
peace, is terrible, since that period is so very uncertain. I have once
thought of thy coming out here, shouldst thou find that no orders have
been given for my return to Europe, and shouldst thou a good conveyance
present itself. But the delicacy of thy health, the danger and inconvenience