the island of Juan Fernandes. My
lieutenant told me also, that a boy in the French boat said he had been
upon that island two years, and that while he was there, an English
frigate put into the road, but did not anchor, mentioning the time as
well as he could recollect, by which it appeared that the frigate he had
seen was the Swallow. On the boy's being asked how he came to be so long
upon the island of Juan Fernandes, he said that he had been taken upon
the Spanish coast in the West Indies in a smuggling party, and sent
thither by the Spaniards; but that by the French ship, in whose boat he
came on board us, having touched there, he had regained his liberty.
After having received this information from my lieutenant, I could
easily account for M. Bougainville's having made a tack to speak to me,
and for the conversation and behaviour of my visitor; but I was now more
displeased at the questions he had asked me than before, for if it was
improper for him to communicate an account of his voyage to me, it was
equally improper for me to communicate an account of my voyage to him:
And I thought an attempt to draw me into a breach of my obligation to
secrecy, while he imposed upon me by a fiction that he might not violate
his own, was neither liberal nor just. As what the boat's crew told my
people, differs in several particulars from the account printed by M.
Bougainville, I shall not pretend to determine how much of it is true;
but I was then very sorry that the lieutenant had not communicated to me
the intelligence he received, such as it was, before my guest left me,
and I was now very desirous to speak with him again, but this was
impossible; for though the French ship was foul from a long voyage, and
we had just been cleaned, she shot by us as if we had been at anchor,
notwithstanding we had a fine fresh gale, and all our sails set.[61]

[Footnote 61: Bougainville passes over the circumstance of meeting with
the Swallow in a very cursory manner: "The 28th we perceived a ship to
windward, and a-head of us; we kept sight of her during the night, and
joined her the next morning; it was the Swallow. I offered Capt. C. all
the services that one may render to another at sea. He wanted nothing;
but upon his telling me that they had given him letters for France at
the Cape, I sent on board for them. He presented me with an arrow which
he had got in one of the isles he had found in his voyage round the
world, _a voyage that he