ish me with the
means."

Rodriguez, knowing better than any one how well founded my apprehensions
were, set himself at once to the work.

He went to the captain-general, and made him feel what would be the
danger of his position if I should disappear in a popular riot, or even
if he were forced to give me up. His observations were so much the
better comprehended, as no one could then predict what might be the
issue of the Spanish revolution. "I will undertake," said the
captain-general Vives to my colleague Rodriguez, "to give an order to
the commander of the fortress, that when the right moment arrives, he
shall allow M. Arago, and even the two or three other Frenchmen who are
with him in the castle of Belver, to pass out. They will then have no
need of the means of escape which they have procured; but I will take no
part in the preparations which will become necessary to enable the
fugitives to leave the island; I leave all that to your responsibility."

Rodriguez immediately conferred secretly with the brave commander
Damian. It was agreed between them that Damian should take the command
of a half-decked boat, which the wind had driven ashore; that he should
equip it as if for a fishing expedition; that he should carry us to
Algiers; after which his reentrance at Palmas, with or without fish,
would inspire no suspicion.

All was executed according to agreement, notwithstanding the
inquisitorial surveillance which Don Manuel de Vacaro exercised over the
commander of his "Mistic."

On the 28th July, 1808, we silently descended the hill on which Belver
is built, at the same moment that the family of the minister Soller
entered the fortress to escape the fury of the populace. Arrived at the
shore, we found there Damian, his boat, and three sailors. We embarked
at once, and set sail. Damian had taken the precaution of bringing with
us in this frail vessel the instruments of value which he had carried
off from my station at the Clop de Galazo. The sea was unfavourable;
Damian thought it prudent to stop at the little island of Cabrera,
destined to become a short time afterwards so sadly celebrated by the
sufferings which the soldiers of the army of Dupont experienced after
the shameful capitulation of Baylen. There a singular incident was very
near compromising all. Cabrera, tolerably near to the southern extremity
of Majorca, is often visited by fishermen coming from that part of the
island. M. Berthemie feared, just