These French officers had heard and believed that we sunk or
burned every ship we took, _with all on board_, and received the
Paymaster rather coolly at first, but became quite cordial when they
observed we were _Christians_, and did not commit this wholesale murder.
_Sunday, December 6th_.--Another lonely Sabbath-day--lonely, though in
the midst of one hundred and fifty people. Away, away from home, by half
the circumference of the globe! One of the most frequent and unpleasant
of my experiences since I entered the China Sea, is an _oppressive_
sense of _great_ distance from home, and the utter strangeness of
everything around me, almost as though I had entered another planet.
_Monday, December 7th_.--The commander of the island, M. Bizot, visited
me to-day. He is an agreeable and intelligent young man of twenty-four
or five years of age, and appeared very friendly and expressed sympathy
for our cause. His position is a flattering one for a man of his age and
rank, and he seems to have entered upon his duties with pride and zeal.
He brought me a chart of the island, surveyed last year. The French have
been in possession two years and a half. He spoke of my having hoisted
the English flag upon first anchoring, and seemed surprised that we had
not heard of the possession of the island by the French, which, he said,
had been notified to all the Powers. I pleasantly told him that I had
had some notion of taking possession of it myself, but that I had found
the French ahead of me.
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