Note 2 — LETTER FROM ADMIRAL CORNISH TO LORD ANSON

Le Gentil (Voyage, Paris, 1781, ii, pp. 247, 248), says of these Frenchmen: “The English, on arriving at Manila, had with them about three hundred and fifty Frenchmen, enrolled by force. These people formed a plan to desert them at the first opportunity. The English had not yet finished their battery, when the little French troop sent two trusty men to confer with the place and to agree with them for a sortie, during which the French troop would take the side of the Spaniards. Two men were sacrificed; they went without weapons, their arms crossed, to present themselves at the gate of the city. Instead of opening it to them, they were allowed to be massacred by the Indians who did not know them. At Manila, innumerable chimerical ideas have been formed as to the sudden arrival of these two men. But what can two men who come without weapons and with crossed arms to present themselves at the gate of a city do? What is there to fear from them to refuse to receive them? I believe that they were taken for English at Manila, and that a poorly understood religious motive was the reason for the very great fault of not opening the gate to them. Whatever it was, this treatment did not engage others to sacrifice themselves. But the English, having some doubt of some resolution on the part of the French, put it out of their power to attempt anything to their prejudice, by placing them between the Sepoys and their national troops, with orders to fire on these French, if they were seen to comport themselves differently than the others.” ↑