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ST. LỖ, THE BIRTHPLACE OF FEUILLET

22 IS IHL BISLÄLIIGE OF EENITTEL

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quite young, the confidence they had placed in him. Toward the close of that sad year, the French Antilles were taken by the English, or were delivered up to them by the insurgent colonists. The Marquis de Champcey d'Hauterive (JacquesAuguste), whom the orders of the Convention had not then attainted, commanded at that time the frigate Thetis, which had cruised in these waters for three years.

"A large number of French colonists scattered through the Antilles had acquired large fortunes, with the loss of which they were now daily threatened. They contrived, with the aid of Commandant Champcey, to organize a flotilla of light transports, to which they transferred all their movable property, hoping to return to their native land, protected by the guns of the Thetis. I had long before received orders to sell the plantation which I had managed since my father's death, at any price, in view of the impending troubles. On the night of the 14th of November, 1793, I secretly quitted Saint-Lucie, already occupied by the enemy, alone in a boat from Cape Mome-auSable. I carried with me the sum for which I had sold the plantation, in English bank-notes and guineas. M. de Champcey, thanks to the minute knowledge he had gained of these coasts, had been able to elude the English cruisers, and had taken refuge in the difficult and obscure channel of the GrosIlet. He had ordered me to join him there this very night, and only waited my coming on board before issuing from the channel with the flotilla under his escort, and heading for France. On the way thither, I had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the English. My captors, masters in treachery as they are, gave me the choice to be shot immediately, or to sell them, by means of the million which I had in my possession, and which they would abandon to me, the secret of the channel where the flotilla lay. I was young, the temptation was too strong; a half-hour later the Thetis was sunk, the flotilla taken, and M. de Champcey grievously wounded. A year passed, a sleepless year. I became mad, and I resolved to revenge myself on the accursed English for the torments which racked me. I went to Guadaloupe, I changed my name, and devoting the greater part of the price of my treason to the purchase of an armed brig, I fell upon the English. For fifteen years I washed

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