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Among the prisoners was a young French royalist named La Bourdonnais: when forced by the conscription to enter Napoleon's service, he chose to serve with the chaloupes "because of his conviction that all these flotillas were nothing but bugbears and would never attempt the invasion so much talked of and in which so few persons really believe."
Among the prisoners was a young French royalist named La Bourdonnais: when forced by the conscription to enter Napoleon's service, he chose to serve with the chaloupes "because of his conviction that all these flotillas were nothing but bugbears and would never attempt the invasion so much talked of and in which so few persons really believe."
These were pleasant bodings, yet perhaps did not altogether, in the minds of the soldiers, counterbalance the sense of insecurity impressed on them by the prospect of being packed together in these miserable chaloupes, and exposed to the fire of an enemy so superior at sea, that during the chief consul's review of the fortifications, their frigates stood in shore with composure, and fired at him and his suite as at a mark.
Referring to the cowardice of his associates who, in order to escape, he says, provided their boats with small chaloupes, Jones writes: "For myself I took no precautions. I saw that I must conquer or die." Jones's bitterness, partly justified by the facts, seems at this time to have reached almost the point of madness, and the quarrel between him and his associates increased in virulence.
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