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Along the coast were many crabs and huge lizards. The course afterwards passed by the islands of Madanino and Guadeloupe and Maria Galante, of which I have spoken at length in my First Decade.
Domingo, four at Guadeloupe, ten in Cayenne, nine at Ile de France, and eleven at l'Ile Reunion and in Madagascar. The mortality among the officers and men has been in proportion. An anecdote is related of Pichegru, which does honour to the memory of that unfortunate general.
"The only chance of bringing them to action," he wrote to the Admiralty on the 26th of April, "was to be off that port before them, where the fleet now is, in daily expectation of their arrival." The French represent that he avoided them, but as they assert that they came out best on the 17th, and yet admit that he appeared off Guadeloupe, the claim is not tenable.
Robinson found that he would have to go on business to a coffee plantation near Basse Terre, on the French island of Guadeloupe, and as he had heard there were also rare orchids to be obtained them, he wanted to stay a few days after his trade matters had been attended to. "But I did want to start for Sea Horse Island, and begin my plan to liberate your father," he said to Inez.
"Worth millions; rich enough to fit out vessels worth four hundred thousand livres; rich enough to have sacks of diamonds and emeralds and fine pearls!" cried the Gascon, whose eyes sparkled and nostrils dilated, while his hands clinched. "But I tell you that she is rich enough to buy Martinique and Guadeloupe if she were so pleased," said the captain.
It was no longer so; it could no longer be said that two-thirds of colonial commerce was with the tobacco and sugar plantations, or that Jamaica took off more English exports than the middle and northern colonies combined; but it could be said, and was now being loudly proclaimed when it was a point of debate whether to keep Canada or Guadeloupe that the northern colonies had already outstripped the islands as consumers of English commodities.
Who can deny that the government which with one hand strengthened its fainting allies on the continent with the life-blood of money, and with the other drove its own enemies off the sea and out of their chief possessions, Canada, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Havana, Manila, gave to its country the foremost rôle in European politics; and who can fail to see that the power which dwelt in that government, with a land narrow in extent and poor in resources, sprang directly from the sea?
The Admiral followed, at first, the direction of east-northeast, and afterwards due northeast. He sailed about six hours in this direction, and thus made seven leagues and a half. He gave orders that every sailor should draw lots as to who should make a pilgrimage to Santa Maria of Guadeloupe, to carry her a five-pound wax candle.
Guadeloupe, in fact, consists of two islands, separated by a narrow arm of the sea Riviere Salee which divides it by a channel of from one hundred to four hundred feet in width. "Whether they arrived is of course open to question," said Jack. "I'm inclined to think they didn't, or we'd have heard from them. The storm came before the ship got anywhere near there.
From Deseada or Guadeloupe, however, the Flota steered north-west, passing Santa Cruz and Porto Rico on the north, and sighting the little isles of Mona and Saona, as far as the Bay of Neyba in Hispaniola, where the ships took on fresh wood and water.
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