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Updated: May 13, 2025
How resourcefully these children of the sea could handle affairs was shown in this voyage of the Benjamin. While in the Indian Ocean young Silsbee fell in with a frigate which gave him news of the beginning of war between England and France. He shifted his course for Mauritius and there sold the cargo for a dazzling price in paper dollars, which he turned into Spanish silver.
At length, on the 12th of September, she arrived at Tamatavé; broken down, and unutterably weary and worn, but still alive. Ill as she was, she hastened to embark on board a ship that was on the point of sailing for the Mauritius; and reaching that pleasant island on the 22nd, met with a warm welcome from her friends to whom, indeed, she was as one who had been dead and was alive again.
A small schooner, the Cumberland, was given him in which to sail for England; but she was too leaky, and too small a vessel to carry food for so long a voyage; so that he was forced to put into the Mauritius, which then belonged to France.
We had received orders to the effect that as soon as the hired transport steamships Cleopatra and Mauritius were ready, we would embark for Halifax, Nova Scotia. The commanding officer informed me that I could not have my leave, and those already on leave would be recalled immediately.
Before quitting the Mauritius, in August 1838, I had written to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, reporting my intention to proceed to the Swan River, and then, as circumstances might guide me, either to return from thence at once to the north-west coast, or, should that not be feasible, to await further instructions from England; adding that, in the latter event, I should attempt in the meantime to pass the range to the north-east of the Swan, and endeavour to ascertain in what direction the streams thrown off from this range towards the interior might flow.
Sir Joseph Banks, who had been kept well informed by Flinders about the work which he had performed, and who had done all that was possible to obtain his release from Mauritius, was influential in scientific circles throughout Europe. Fortunately, he had ample material at his disposal.
We arrived in Halifax, N.S., on January 11th, and quartered in Wellington barracks. We were now waiting the arrival of the left wing, which sailed a few days later but did not reach Halifax till the 10th of February. The gale we encountered spent itself on the Mauritius. She came into port with masts and bulwarks carried away. No one was drowned or injured in the storm.
Colonel Gordon arrived at the Mauritius at the end of May 1881, and he left in March 1882, so he was only for about ten months on the island. He went out to command the Royal Engineers, but as the officer commanding the island was promoted and sent home, he succeeded by seniority to the chief command.
On the outward passage they encountered a heavy gale off the Cape of Good Hope, which sprung the mainmast and otherwise injured the ship, which determined the captain to bear up for the Mauritius, where he arrived in safety; a quarrel having taken place on the passage out between Lafitte and the captain, he abandoned the ship and refused to continue the voyage.
Trincomalee was the only one, and its unique strategic value was heightened by being to windward, during the fine season, of the principal scene of war. The English harbor of Bombay on the west coast was too distant to be considered a local base, and rather falls, like the French islands Mauritius and Bourbon, under the head of stations on the line of communications with the mother-country.
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