It was now the beginning of May; our cotton harvest was completely finished, but it was not so productive as we had hoped. The rains had not been abundant the preceding year, which caused the deficiency in our crop. We now became more economical than ever, to be able to pass the bad season which had set in. We now lived entirely on the food of the negroes; we also put on clothing more suitable to our situation than that we had hitherto worn. A piece of coarse cotton, wrought by the negroes, served to make us dresses, and clothes for the children; my father was habited in coarse blue silk. On purpose to ameliorate our condition, he sent on Sundays to Senegal a negro to purchase two or three loaves of white bread. It was, in our melancholy condition, the finest repast we could procure.
One Sunday evening, as all the family were seated round a large fire eating some small loaves which had been brought from Senegal, a negro from the main land gave my father a letter; it was from M. Renaud, Surgeon-Major at Bakal in Galam, announcing to us, to complete the sum of our misfortunes, that the merchandize he had sent to Galam the preceding year had been entirely consumed by fire. "Now," cried my unhappy father, "my ruin is complete! Nothing more wretched can touch us. You see, my dear children, that Fortune has not ceased persecuting us. We have nothing more to expect from her, since the only resource which remained has been destroyed."
This new misfortune, which we little expected, plunged all our family in the deepest distress. "What misfortunes! what mortifications!" cried I; "it is time to quit this land of wretchedness! Leave it then, return to France; there only we will be able to forget all our misfortunes. And you, cruel enemies of my father, whom we have to reproach for all the misery we have experienced in these lands, may you, in punishment for all the evil you have done us, be tortured with the keenest remorse!"
It cost all the philosophy of my father to quiet our minds after the fatal event. He comforted us by saying, that Heaven alone was just, and that it was our duty to rely upon it. Some days after, our friends from Senegal came to pay us a visit, and testified for us the greatest sorrow. They agreed among themselves to engage all the Europeans in the colony in a voluntary subscription in our behalf; but my father opposed it by saying, he could not receive assistance from those who were so truly his friends. The generous M. Dard, director of the French school, was not the last nor least who took an interest in us. As soon as he heard of the unfortunate news, he cordially offered my father all the money he had, and even endeavoured to get provisions for us from the government stores, but he failed. After the visit of my father's friends, we were not so unhappy, and yet enjoyed some tranquillity in our humble cottage. He bought a barrel of wine, and two of flour, to support us during the rainy season or winter, a period so fatal to Europeans who inhabit the torrid zone.