"We left the port of Alexandria on the evening of the 17th Ventôse, year VII, on board the "Belle Maltaise", with General Manscourt, citizen Dolomieu and many other French military men and civil servants attached to the Egyptian Army, all furnished with leave on furlough from General Bonaparte. I hoped, if the winds favoured us, and with the aid of our excellent sailing vessel, to escape the English fleet and to reach some port in France in about ten or twelve days. That hope was all the better founded as the Maltese captain who commanded the boat (his name was Félix) declared that after some repairs of trifling importance it could hold out against the roughest weather. We had discussed together the price of these repairs, and he had estimated them at sixty louis. I gave him a hundred. I had therefore good reason to believe that these repairs had been conscientiously carried out: unfortunately they were not.
"We had hardly got outside the harbour before the sea was against us, and a high wind buffeted us about from the first night. When day appeared, after a stormy night, we found that our vessel leaked.
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