Project Gutenberg Australia a treasure-trove of literature treasure found hidden with no evidence of ownership

BROWSE the site for other works by this author (and our other authors) or get HELP Reading, Downloading and Converting files) or SEARCH the entire site with Google Site Search

BOOK 1. - AUSTRALIAN DISCOVERY BY SEA

XIV. LAPÉROUSE IN THE PACIFIC

[LOUIS XVI of France was greatly interested in the discovery voyages of Captain Cook, as he was in all matters relating to exploration and navigation. He desired that the French should participate in the pursuit of further discoveries in the South Seas, and for this purpose he instigated the voyage of Lapérouse*, who sailed from France in 1785. His instructions contained no reference to Botany Bay, and it had not been his intention originally to make a call at that place, of which, however, he had read an account in Cook's Voyages. The reason why he determined to visit Botany Bay is made clear in the following extract from his own narrative of his experiences in the Pacific. The massacre of Captain de Langle and part of his drew at the Navigator Islands, and the destruction of his long-boats determined Lapérouse to sail to some place where he would not be in danger of quarrels with natives while his men were engaged in putting together two new long-boats, the parts of which he carried in the hold. His vessels arrived at Botany Bay on January 26th, 1788. Captain Arthur Phillip and the "First Fleet" for the English settlement had arrived on January 18th; but Phillip speedily came to the conclusion that Botany Bay was an unsuitable site for the settlement, and chose Port Jackson, where the town of Sydney was built. The statement frequently made that "England won Australia by six days" has no foundation. Lapérouse had no thought of settlement; he merely wanted a quiet place for effecting his repairs. These pages give his own story of the tragedy at the Society Islands, and of his experiences at Botany Bay.]

[* These events are part of the biography Lapérouse by the author, available in full on the Project Gutenberg Australia website at Scott's listing]

On the first of November (1787), being in 26° 27' north latitude, and 175° 38' east longitude, we saw a great number of birds; among others, curlews and plovers, two species which never fly far from land. The weather was thick and squally; but all the parts of the horizon successively cleared up, except towards the south, where some large clouds remained constantly fixed; which made me think it likely that there was land in that point of the compass. I steered my course accordingly, and for two or three days we continued to see birds. By degrees, however, the signs of land left us; but it is probable that we passed by some island or flat rock of which we did not get sight, but which chance will perhaps present to future navigators. We now began to enjoy a serene sky, and it became at last possible to find the longitude by lunar observations, which we had not been able to do since our departure from Kamtschatka. The longitude by observation was a degree farther west than that which was given by our time-keeper No. 19.

We caught several doradoes and two sharks, and found them delicious eating, because we were all reduced to salt pork, which began to suffer from the influence of a burning clime. We repeated our lunar observations, and the difference was constantly the same. Having at length reached the tropic, the sky became clearer, and our horizon was of great extent; but we perceived no land, though we every day saw birds, which are never met with at a great distance from the shore. On the 4th of November, being in 23° 40' north latitude, and in 175° 58' 47" of west longitude, according to a series of observations made that very day, we caught a golden plover, which was still moderately fat, and which could not have been wandering long at sea. The 5th we crossed our own tract from Monterey to Macao; the 6th that of Captain Clerke from the Sandwich Islands to Kamtschatka, by which time the birds had entirely disappeared. Our ships laboured exceedingly by reason of a heavy swell from the east, which, like that from the west in the Atlantic Ocean, constantly pervails in this vast sea. Neither bonetas nor doradoes came in our way, nor anything, indeed, but a few flying fish; a grievous circumstance, as our fresh provision was entirely consumed in consequence of our depending rather too much upon the salt element for the improvement of our unpalatable fare. The 9th we passed by the south point of the shoal, or flat of Villa Lobos, according at least to the position assigned to it in the charts presented to me by M. Fleurieu. I proportioned my canvas in such a way as to cross its latitude in the day-time; but as we perceived neither birds nor weeds, I am inclined to think that, if such a shoal exist, it must be in a more western position, the Spaniards having always placed their discoveries in the great Pacific Ocean too near to the American coast. At this time the sea became somewhat smoother, and the breezes more moderate; but the sky was covered with thick clouds, and scarcely had we reached the 10th degree of north latitude, when it began to rain almost incessantly, at least during the day; for the nights were tolerably fine. The heat was suffocating, and the hygrometer had never indicated more humidity since our departure from Europe. We were breathing an air destitute of elasticity, which, joined to unwholesome aliments, diminished our strength, and would have rendered us almost incapable of exertion if circumstances had required it. I redoubled my care to preserve the health of the crew during this crisis, produced by too sudden a passage from cold to heat and humidity. I had coffee served out every day for breakfast; and I ordered the ship to be dried and ventilated between decks; while the rain-water served to wash the sailors' shirts. Thus did we turn to account even the unfavourable temperature of the climate which we were obliged to cross, and of which I dreaded the influence more than that of all the high latitudes that had occurred in the course of our voyage. On the 6th of November, for the first time we caught eight bonetas, which furnished a good repast to the whole crew, and to the officers, who, as well as myself, had no longer any provision but that of the hold. The rain and storms ceased, and the heavy sea subsided about the 15th, when we had reached the S' of north latitude. We then enjoyed a clear sky; a very extensive horizon made us easy about the night's run; and the air was so pure, the heavens so serene, and the light thence resulting so strong, that we could have perceived any danger as plainly as in open day. This fine weather accompanied us beyond the equator, which we crossed on the 21st of November, for the third time since we took our departure from Brest. We had been three times at the distance of about 60° from it to the north or south; and, according to the further plan of our voyage, we were not to revisit the northern hemisphere till we should enter the Atlantic Ocean in our way back to Europe. Nothing interrupted the monotony of this long run. We were steering a course nearly parallel to that which we had steered the preceding year in our passage from Easter Island to those that bear the name of Sandwich. During that passage we had been constantly surrounded with birds and bonetas, which afforded us wholesome and abundant food: in the present one, on the contrary, a vast solitude reigned around us, both the air and water of this quarter of the globe being nearly destitute of inhabitants. On the 23rd, however, we caught two sharks, which afforded two meals to the crew, and we shot on the same day a very lean curlew, apparently much fatigued. We supposed that it came from the Duke of York's island, from which we were about 100 leagues distant. It was hashed up and eaten at my table, and was scarcely better than the sharks. In proportion as we advanced in the southern hemisphere, the noddies, man-of-war birds, terns, and tropic birds flew more frequently round the ships. We took them for the harbingers of some island, which we were exceedingly impatient to fall in with; and murmured much at the fatality that had prevented our making the smallest discovery in the long line we had run down since our departure from Kamtschatka. These birds, which became innumerable when we had reached the fourth degree of south latitude, inspired us every moment with the hopes of making land; but, although the horizon was of prodigious extent, none could we see. We made, it is true, but little way. While we were under the second degree of south latitude, the breeze abandoned us, and was succeeded by light airs of wind from N. to W.N.W., of which I availed myself to gain a little easting, being afraid of falling to leeward of the Friendly Islands. During these calms we caught several sharks, which we preferred to salt meat, and shot sea-birds, which we hashed. Though very lean, and smelling and tasting of fish to a degree that was insupportable, they appeared to us, in our present want of fresh provisions, almost as good as woodcocks. Black goelettes, and others entirely white, which I believe peculiar to the South Sea, as I never saw any in the Atlantic Ocean, were so plenty that we killed more of them than of noddies or man-of-war birds. And yet the latter flew round the ships in such numbers, especially during the night, that we were stunned by the noise they made, and could with difficulty hear each other speak upon the quarter-deck. Our sport, which was tolerably successful, punished their insults, and afforded us tolerable food; but when we had passed the 6° they entirely disappeared. The light winds from N.W. to W., which had set in about the 3rd degree of south latitude, then gathered strength, and did not give over blowing till we had reached the 12th. A heavy swell from the west rendered our navigation exceedingly fatiguing; our cordage, rotted by the constantly wet weather we had experienced while exploring the coast of Tartary, kept breaking every moment; and, as we were fearful of exhausting our stock, was not replaced till the last extremity. Till the 2nd of December, when we reached 10° 50', squalls, storms, and rain constantly accompanied our course. The wind, though still blowing from the west, then grew more moderate; and as the weather cleared up, we were enabled to make lunar observations, in order to rectify the error of our timekeepers. Since our departure from Kamtschatka, they appeared to have lost five minutes of time, or, in other words, to indicate the longitude 1° 15' too far east. According to the above astronomical observations, of which the result was 170° 7' of longitude west, we passed exactly over the spot where Byron's islands of Danger are laid down; for we were exactly in their latitude; but as we neither saw land, nor the smallest sign of there being any near us, it is evident that their longitude has been mistaken; which was the more easy, as Byron regulated his navigation by the defective method of a dead-reckoning. The following day, December the 2nd, we were in 11° 34' 47" south latitude, and 170° 7' 1" longitude west, according to astronomical observation, precisely in the same parallel of latitude as Quiros's Island of the Handsome Nation, and one degree farther east. I would willingly have run a few degrees westward in order to fall in with it; but the wind blew directly from that quarter; and the island is laid down in too uncertain a manner to be sought for by working to windward. I therefore thought it better to avail myself of the western gale in order to reach the parallel of Bougainville's Navigators Islands, a discovery due to the French, where we might hope to procure fresh provision, of which we were in the greatest want.

On the 6th of December, at three in the afternoon, we got sight of the most easterly island of that Archipelago; stood towards it till eleven in the evening, and then stood on and off during the rest of the night. As I purposed anchoring, in case I met with a proper place, I passed through the channel between the great and the little islands that Bougainville left to the south. It is scarcely a league wide; but it appeared entirely free from danger. We were in mid-channel at noon, and at a mile's distance from the shore found the latitude by observation to be 14° 7' south, the southern point of one of the islands bearing south 36° west. That point is consequently situated in 14° 8' south latitude.

Though we did not perceive any canoes till we were in the channel, we had seen habitations on the windward side of the island, and a considerable group of Indians sitting in a circle under cocoanut trees, and appearing quietly to enjoy the sight afforded them by our frigates. They did not then launch a single canoe, or did they follow us along shore. This island, of about two hundred toises elevation, is very steep, and covered to the top with large trees, among which we distinguished a great number of the cocoa-nut kind. The houses are built about halfway down the declivity, a situation in which the islanders breathe a cooler air than alongshore. Near them we remarked several spots of cultivated ground, planted probably with sweet potatoes or yams; but, upon the whole, the island appeared far from fertile, and in any other part of the South Sea I should have thought it uninhabited. My mistake would have been the greater, as even two little islands, that form the western side of the channel through which we passed, have their inhabitants. We saw five canoes set out from them, and join eleven others that came from the eastern island. After having paddled several times round the two ships with an air of distrust, they at last ventured to approach, and make some exchanges with us, but of so trifling a kind that we only obtained about twenty cocoa-nuts and two blue gallinules. These islanders, like all those of the South Sea, were dishonest in their dealings; and after receiving the price of their cocoa-nuts beforehand, seldom failed to paddle away without fulfilling their part of the agreement. The amount of their thefts was, it is true, of little importance, a few bead necklaces with some scraps of red cloth, being hardly worth asking for again. We sounded several times in the channel with a line of a hundred fathoms, but got no ground, though at less than a mile's distance from the shore. We continued our course in order to double a point behind which we hoped to meet with shelter; but found that the island was not of the breadth indicated by M. de Bougainville's plan. It terminates, on the contrary, in a point, its greatest diameter being at most a league. We found that the east wind raised a surf upon the coast, which is surrounded with reefs; and saw plainly that it would be vain to seek an anchorage there. We then stood out of the channel, with the intention of running along the two islands to the west, which are both together nearly equal in extent to the more eastern one. A canal less than a hundred toises wide separates them, and at their western extremity is a small island, which I should have called a large rock had it not been covered with trees. Before we doubled the two southern points it fell dead calm, and we were tossed about by a heavy swell, which made me fearful of running foul of the Astrolabe. Luckily some little puffs of air soon extricated us from that disagreeable situation, which had not permitted us to attend to the harangue of an old Indian, who held a branch of kava in his hand and delivered a discourse of considerable length. We knew, by reading a variety of voyages, that it was a sign of peace; and, while throwing him a few pieces of cloth, answered him by the word tayo, which, in the language of several nations inhabiting the islands of the South Sea, means friend; but we had not as yet had sufficient practice to understand and pronounce distinctly the words of the vocabularies that we had extracted from Cook's Voyages.

At length, when the breeze reached us, we made sail, in order to stand away from the coast and get out of the region of calms. All the canoes then came up alongside. In general they sail pretty well, but row very indifferently; and, as they overset at every moment, would be useless to anybody but such excellent swimmers as these islanders are. They are no more surprised or uneasy at such an accident than we are at the fall of a hat. Taking up the canoe on their shoulders, they empty the water out of it, and then get in again, with the certainty of having the same operation to perform half an hour after, it being almost as difficult to preserve an equilibrium in such ticklish vessels as upon the tight-rope. These islanders are in general tall, their mean height appearing to me to be five feet seven or eight inches. The colour of their skin nearly resembles that of the Algerines, or other nations of the coast of Barbary: their hair is long, and tied up on the top of their heads: their cast of countenance far from agreeable. I saw no more than two women; and even their features did not appear to be more delicately formed. The younger, who might be about eighteen years of age, had a dreadful and disgusting ulcer upon her leg. Several of the men also had large sores about their persons, possibly a beginning of leprosy; for I remarked two among them whose legs, covered with ulcers, and swelled to the size of their bodies, did not admit of a doubt as to the nature of their disease. They approached us with fear and without arms, every thing bespeaking them as peaceable as the inhabitants of the Society and Friendly Islands. At one time we thought they had entirely taken leave of us, and their apparent poverty easily reconciled us to their absence; but the wind having fallen in the afternoon, the same canoes, accompanied by several others, came two leagues into the offing to traffick with us anew. After quitting us they hail gone ashore, and now returned rather more richly laden than before. We obtained from them at different times several curious articles of dress, five fowls, ten gallinules, a small hog, and the most beautiful turtle-dove we had ever seen. Its body was white, its head of the finest purple, its wings green, and its breast checkered with red and black spots, like the leaves of the anemony. This charming bird was tame, and ate out of the hand and mouth; but it was not probable that we could convey it to Europe alive. And so it proved, its death only permitting us to preserve its feathers, which soon lost all their splendour. As the Astrolabe was constantly ahead in this day's run, all the canoes began their traffick with M. de Langle, who purchased two dogs, which we found excellent eating.

Although the canoes of these islanders are well constructed, and furnish a good proof of the skill with which they work in wood, we could never prevail on them to accept our hatchets or any other instrument of iron. They preferred a few glass beads, that could be of no use to them, to all the hardware and stuffs we offered them; and gave us in return, among other things, a wooden vessel filled with cocoa-nut oil, exactly of the shape of our earthen pots, and such as no European workman would undertake to fashion by any other means than a turning lathe. Their ropes are round, and twisted like our watch-chains: their mats are very fine; but their stuffs are inferior to those of the Easter and Sandwich Islands. It seems also that they are very scarce; for all the islanders were absolutely naked, and only sold us two pieces. As we were sure of meeting with a much more considerable island farther west, where we flattered ourselves we should at least find shelter, if not a port, we deferred making more extensive observations till after our arrival at that island, which, according to M. Bougainville's plan, is only separated from the last island we had upon our beam at nightfall by a channel eight leagues wide. I ran only three or four leagues to the westward after sunset, and passed the rest of the night in standing off and on under easy sail. At break of day I was very much surprised not to see the land to leeward, nor did I get sight of it till six o'clock in the morning, because the channel is infinitely wider than that laid down in the plan that served me as a guide. It is a great pity that the charts of a voyage which yields to none but that of Captain Cook in accuracy of observation, and in extent and importance of discoveries, should not have been drawn up with greater care and upon a larger scale.

We did not find ourselves opposite the north-east point of the island of Maouna till five o'clock in the evening. Intending to seek an anchorage there, I made a signal to the Astrolabe to haul her wind, that we might stretch backward and forward to windward of the island during the night, and have the whole of the next day before us to explore it in every part. Though we were three leagues from the land, two or three canoes came alongside the same evening, bringing with them hogs and fruit, which they exchanged for beads. Hence we conceived a high opinion of the riches of the island.

The next morning I approached the land, and stretched along it at the distance of half a league. It is surrounded by a reef of coral, on which the sea broke with great fury; but that reef was almost close inshore, and in the creeks formed by several small projections of the coast there was room for canoes, and probably for our barges and long-boats to enter. We discovered a number of villages at the bottom on each creek, whence came innumerable canoes, laden with hogs, cocoa-nuts, and other fruit, which we purchased with glass ware. Such great abundance increased my desire to anchor, especially as we saw water falling in cascades from the tops of the mountains to the bottom of the villages. So many advantages made me little scrupulous as to an anchorage. We hauled closer inshore, and having found at four o'clock, at a mile from land, and in thirty fathoms water, a band composed of rotten shells and a very little coral, we let go our anchors; but we were tost about by a very heavy swell that set inshore, although the wind blew from the land. We immediately hoisted out our boats; and the same day, M. de Langle and several officers, with three boats manned and armed by the two frigates, landed at a village, where they were received by the inhabitants in the most friendly manner. As night was coming on when they went ashore, the Indians made a great fire to light the place of debarkation; and brought down birds, hogs, and fruit. After an hour's stay, our boats returned on board. Everyone seemed satisfied with this reception, our only concern being to see our frigates anchored in so bad a roadstead, where they rolled as if in the open sea. Though we were sheltered from the easterly winds, the calm thence resulting sufficed to expose us to the greatest danger in case our cables should part, while the impossibility of getting out left us no resource against a strong breeze from the north-west. We knew by the relations of preceding navigators that the trade winds are very uncertain in these seas, and that it is almost as easy to sail east as west, a circumstance which favours the natives in their long excursions to leeward. We had ourselves experienced this inconstancy of the wind, the western breeze having only left us in the latitude of 12°. These reflections made me pass a very bad night, especially as a storm was gathering to the northward, whence the wind was blowing fresh, but fortunately, however, the land breeze prevailed.

The next morning, as the rising of the sun announced a fair day, I resolved to avail myself of it, in order to reconnoitre the country, observe the inhabitants at their own homes, fill water, and then get under way, prudence forbidding me to pass a second night at that anchorage, which M. de Langle had also found too dangerous for a longer stay. It was therefore agreed upon that we should sail in the afternoon, and that the morning, which was very fine, should be in part employed in trading for hogs and fruit. As early as the dawn of day the islanders had surrounded the two frigates with two hundred canoes full of different kinds of provision, which they would only exchange for beads—in their estimation diamonds of the first water. Our axes, our cloth, and all our other articles of commerce they disdained. While a part of the crew was occupied in keeping them in order, and in trading with them, the rest filled the boats with empty casks, in order to go ashore to water. Our two boats, armed, and commanded by Messrs. de Clonard and Colinet, and those of the Astrolabe commanded by Messrs. de Monti and Bellegarde, set out with that intention at five o'clock in the morning for a bay about a league distant, and a little way to windward; a convenient situation, as it enabled them, when loaded with water, to come back with the wind large. I followed close after Messrs. Clonard and Monti in my pinnace (biscayenne), and landed at the same time as they did. Unfortunately M. de Langle resolved to make an excursion in his jolly-boat to another creek, about a league distant from our watering-place. This excursion, whence he returned delighted with the beauty of the village he had visited, was, as will be seen hereafter, the cause of our misfortune. The creek, towards which the long-boats steered, was large and commodious; both they and the other boats remained afloat at low water, within half a pistol-shot of the beach; and the water was both fine and easily procured. Messrs. de Clonard and de Monti preserved the best order possible. A line of soldiers was posted between the beach and the Indians, who amounted to about two hundred, including a great many women and children. We prevailed upon them all to sit down under cocoa trees, that were not more than eight toises distant from our boats. Each of them had by him fowls, hogs, parrots, pigeons, or fruit, and all wished to sell them at once, which occasioned some confusion.

The women, some of whom were very pretty, offered their favours, as well as their fowls and fruit, to all those who had beads to give them; and soon tried to pass through the line of soldiers, who opposed but a feeble resistance to their attempts. Europeans who have made a voyage round the world, especially Frenchmen, have no arms to ward off similar attacks. Accordingly the fair savages found little difficulty in breaking the ranks; the men then approached; and the confusion was growing general, when Indians, whom we took for chiefs, made their appearance with sticks in their hands, and restored order, everyone returning to his post, and our traffick beginning anew, to the great satisfaction of both buyers and sellers. In the meantime a scene had passed in our long-boat which was a real act of hostility, and which I was desirous of repressing without effusion of blood. An Indian had gotten upon the stem of the boat, had laid hold of a mallet, and had aimed several blows at the arms and back of one of our sailors. I ordered four of the strongest seamen to lay hold of him, and to throw him into the sea, which was immediately done. The other islanders appearing to disapprove of the conduct of their countryman, this squabble was attended with no bad consequences. Perhaps an example of severity would have been necessary to awe these people still more, by letting them know how much the force of our fire-arms was beyond their individual strength; for their height of about five feet ten inches, and their muscular limbs of colossal proportions, gave them an idea of their own superiority, which rendered us by no means formidable in their eyes; but having very little time to remain among them, I thought it right not to inflict a severer penalty upon him who had offended us; and, by the way of giving them some idea of our power, contented myself with buying three pigeons, which were thrown up into the air, and shot in the presence of the whole assembly.

While all this was passing with the greatest tranquillity, and our casks were filling with water, I thought I might venture to the distance of two hundred yards to visit a charming village, situated in the midst of a wood, or rather of an orchard, all the trees of which were loaded with fruit. The houses were placed upon the circumference of a circle, of about a hundred and fifty toises in diameter, the interior forming a vast open space, covered with the most beautiful verdure, and shaded by trees, which kept the air delightfully cool. Women, children, and old men accompanied me, and invited me into their houses. They spread the finest and freshest mats upon a floor formed of little chosen pebbles, and raised about two feet above the ground in order to guard against the humidity. I went into the handsomest of these huts, which probably belonged to a chief; and great was my surprise to see a large cabinet of latticework, as well executed as any of those in the environs of Paris. The best architect could not have given a more elegant curve to the extremities of the ellipsis that terminated the building; while a row of pillars at five feet distance from each other formed a complete colonnade round the whole. The pillars were made of trunks of trees very neatly wrought, and between them were fine mats laid over one another with great art, like the scales of a fish, and drawing up and down with cords like our Venetian blinds. The rest of the house was covered with leaves of the cocoa-palm.

This charming country combines the advantages of a soil fruitful without culture, and of a climate which renders clothing unnecessary. The trees that produce the bread-fruit, the cocoanut, the banana, the guava, and the orange hold out to these fortunate people an abundance of wholesome food; while the fowls, hogs, and dogs, which live upon the surplus of these fruits, afford them an agreeable variety of viands. They were so rich, and had so few wants, that they disdained our instruments of iron and our cloth and asked only for beads. Abounding in real blessings, they were desirous of obtaining superfluities alone.

They had sold at our market more than two hundred woodpigeons, which would only eat out of the hand; and a number of the most beautiful turtle-doves and perroquets, equally tame. What cold imagination could separate the idea of happiness from so enchanting a place? These islanders, said we a hundred times over, are, without doubt, the happiest beings on earth. Surrounded by their wives and children, they pass their peaceful days in innocence and repose: no care disturbs them but that of bringing up their birds, and, like the first man, of gathering, without labour, the fruit that grows over their heads. We were deceived. This delightful country was not the abode of innocence. We perceived, indeed, no arms; but the bodies of the Indians, covered over with scars, proved that they were often at war, or else quarrelling among themselves; while their features announced a ferocity that was not perceptible in the countenances of the women. Nature had, no doubt, stamped this character on their faces by way of showing that the half-savage, living in a state of anarchy, is a more mischievous being than the most ferocious of the brute creation.

The first visit passed without any dispute capable of leading to disagreeable consequences. I learned, however, that there had been quarrels between individuals, but that they had been very prudently appeased. Stones had been thrown at M. Rollin, our surgeon-major; and an Indian, while pretending to admire M. de Monernon's sabre, had attempted to snatch it from him; but finding the scabbard alone left in his hand, he had run off in a great fright at the sight of the naked weapon. I perceived that in general these islanders were very turbulent, and in bad subjection to their chiefs; but as I intended to leave them in the afternoon, I congratulated myself on not having attached any importance to the little instances of molestation we had met with. Towards noon I returned to the ship in my barge, and was very closely followed by the long-boats. I found it difficult to get alongside, both frigates being surrounded by canoes, and our market being as much crowded as ever. When I went ashore I had given the command of the Boussole to M. Boutin, and had left him at liberty to establish such police as he might think proper, either by permitting a few of the islanders to come on board, or by positively opposing their entry, according to the turn circumstances might take. Upon the quarter-deck I found seven or eight Indians, the oldest of whom was presented to me as a chief. M. Boutin told me that he could not have prevented their coming on board unless by firing upon them; that when they compared their bodily strength to ours they laughed at our threats, and made a jest of our sentinels; and that my well-known principles of moderation had made him unwilling to recur to violent measures, which, however, were the only ones capable of keeping them in awe. He added, that, since the chief was present, those had come on board before were grown more quiet and less insolent.

I made the chief a number of presents, and showed him every mark of kindness; but wishing at the same time to inspire him with a high opinion of our power, I ordered several experiments on the use of our weapons to be made in his presence. But their effect impressed him so little that he seemed to think them only fit for the destruction of birds.

Our boats now arrived loaded with water, and I made every preparation to get under way, and profit by a light land breeze which gave us hopes of having time to make a little offing. M. de Langle returned at the same moment from his excursion, and related that he had landed in a noble harbour for boats, situated at the foot of a delightful village, and near a cascade of the most pellucid water. On going on board his own ship he had given orders to get under way, of which he felt the necessity as well as myself; but he insisted in the most urgent manner upon our remaining, standing off and on, at a league from the coast, and upon our getting on board a few long-boat loads of water before we should entirely abandon the island. In vain did I represent to him that we were not in the smallest want of it.—He had adopted Captain Cook's system, and thought water recently shipped a thousand times preferable to that which we had in the hold; and as a few individuals of his crew had slight symptoms of scurvy, he thought, with reason, that we owed them every relief in our power. Besides, no island could be compared with this for abundance of provision: the two frigates had already taken on board more than five hundred hogs, a great number of fowls and pigeons, and a great quantity of fruit; and yet all these valuable acquisitions had only cost us a few glass beads.

I felt the truth of these reflections; but a secret presentiment prevented my immediate acquiescence. I told him that I thought the islanders too turbulent for us to trust our boats on shore when they could not be supported by the fire of the ships; and observed to him that our moderation had only served to embolden men who calculated upon nothing but our personal strength, which was certainly very much inferior to theirs. Nothing, however, could shake M. de Langle's resolution. He told me that my resistance would make me responsible for the progress of the scurvy, which already began to show itself in an alarming manner, and that, besides, the harbour he was speaking of was infinitely more commodious than that of our watering-place. Finally, he begged me to permit him to put himself at the head of the first party, assuring me that in three hours he would return on board with all the boats full of water. M. de Langle was a man of so sound a judgment, and so much capacity, that these considerations, more than any other motive, determined me to give my consent, or rather made my will give way to his. I promised him then that we would stand off and on all night, and that in the morning we would dispatch our two long-boats, and two barges, armed in any way he should think proper, and that the whole should be under his command. The event fully justified our opinion that it was time to get under way. On heaving up the anchor we found one strand of the cable cut by the coral; and in two hours more the whole cable would have been cut through. As we were not under sail till four in the afternoon, which was too late an hour to think of sending our boats on shore, we postponed their departure till next day. The night was stormy, and the wind, which shifted every moment, made me come to a resolution of standing off about three leagues from the coast. At break of day a flat calm did not permit me to approach it; and it was not till nine o'clock that a small breeze sprang up from the northwest, and enabled me to near the island, from which at eleven o'clock we were scarcely a league distant. I then dispatched my long boat and barge, commanded by Messieurs Boutin and Mouton, on board the Astrolabe, to take M. de Langle's orders. All those who had any slight symptoms of the scurvy were put into them, as well as six soldiers armed, with the master at arms at their head. The two boats contained in all twenty-eight men, and carried twenty empty casks, which were meant to be filled at the watering-place. Messieurs de Lamanon and Colinet, though sick, were of the number of those that set off from the Boussole. M. de Langle, on the other hand, set off in his barge, accompanied by M. Vaujuas, a convalescent. M. le Gobien, a. midshipman, commanded the long-boat, and Messrs. de la Martiniere, Lavaux, and Father Receveur made part of the thirty-three persons sent by the Astrolabe. Among the sixty-one individuals, of which the whole party consisted, were the choicest men of both crews. M. de Langle armed all his people with muskets and cutlasses, and ordered six swivels to be mounted upon the long-boats. I had left him perfectly at liberty to provide everything he might think conducive to his safety. The certitude we were in of having had no dispute with the natives, of which they could retain any resentment; the immense number of canoes that crowded round us in the offing; the air of gaiety and confidence that prevailed in our markets; everything, in short, tended to increase his security, and I confess that mine could not well be greater than it was. But it was contrary to my principles to send boats on shore without the greatest necessity, especially in the midst of an immense number of people, when they could not be supported or even perceived by the ships.

The boats put off from the Astrolabe at half-past twelve, and in three-quarters of an hour arrived at the watering-place. What was the surprise of all the officers, and of M. de Langle himself, to find, instead of a vast and commodious bay, a creek full of coral, through which there was no passage but a winding channel less than twenty-five feet wide, and on which the swell broke as upon a bar! When within, they had only three feet water; the long boats grounded, and the barges only continued afloat because they were hauled to the entrance of the channel at a considerable distance from the beach. Unfortunately M. de Langle had examined the bay at high-water only, never imagining that the tide at these islands rose five or six feet. He could not believe his eyes. The first movement of his mind was to quit the creek and repair to that where we had already filled water, which combined every advantage. But the air of tranquillity and good-humour of the crowds waiting for him upon the beach with an immense quantity of fruit and hogs and the women and children he saw among the Indians, who take care to send them out of the way when they have hostile intentions; all these circumstances concurred to banish his first prudent idea, which an inconceivable fatality forbad him to pursue. He put the casks on shore from the four boats with the greatest tranquillity; while his soldiers preserved the best order possible upon the beach, being drawn up in two lines with a space left open for the working party. But this calm was not of long duration. Several of the canoes, which had parted with their provision to the ships, had returned to the island, and had all landed in the bay of the watering-place, so that in a short time it was entirely full. Instead of two hundred natives, including women and children, whom M. de Langle had found there on his arrival at half-past one, there were at three o'clock from a thousand to twelve hundred. The number of canoes, which had traded with us in the morning, was so considerable that we scarcely perceived its diminution in the afternoon; and I gave myself credit for keeping them employed on board in hopes that our boats would be so much the quieter on shore. Great was my mistake! M. de Langle's situation became every moment more and more embarrassing. He found means, however, with the assistance of Messieurs de Vaujuas, Boutin, Colinet, and Gobien, to ship his water; but the bay was almost dry, and he could not hope to get the longboats off before four in the afternoon. He stepped into them, however, as well as his detachment, and took post in the bow with his musket and musketeers, forbidding anyone to fire before he should give the word. He began, however, to be sensible that he should soon be forced to do so. Already the stones began to fly, and the Indians, who were only up to their knees in water, surrounded the longboats at less than six feet distance, the soldiers, who were embarked, making vain efforts to keep them off. If the fear of commencing hostilities, and of being accused of barbarity, had not withheld M. de Langle, he would doubtless have given orders to fire a volley of musketry and swivels, which would not have failed to put the multitude to flight; but he flattered himself that he should be able to keep them in check without effusion of blood, and fell the victim of his humanity. In a very short time a shower of stones, thrown from a small distance with as much force as from a sling, struck almost everyone of those who were in the long-boat. M. de Langle had only time to fire his two shots, when he was knocked down, and unfortunately fell over the larboard side of the boat, where more than two hundred Indians immediately massacred him with clubs and stones. When he was dead they tied him by the arm to one of the rowlocks of the longboat, in order, no doubt, to make surer of spoil. The long-boat of the Boussole, commanded by M. Boutin, was aground at two toises from that of the Astrolabe, leaving in a parallel line between them a little channel unoccupied by the Indians. It was by that channel that all the wounded, who had the good fortune not to fall on the other side, saved themselves by swimming. They got on board the barges, which, having most fortunately been kept afloat, were the means of saving forty-nine persons out of the sixty-one of which the party consisted. M. Boutin had imitated all the movements, and followed every step of M. de Langle: at the same time, and placed in the same manner, and he occupied the same post in the bow of the boat. Although afraid of the bad consequences of M. de Langle's moderation, he did not take upon him to order his detachment to fire till after M. de Langle had begun. It may be supposed that, at the distance of four or five yards, every shot must have killed an Indian, but there was no time to reload. M. Boutin was likewise knocked down by a stone, and by good fortune fell between the two long-boats, on board of which not a single man remained in less than five minutes. Those who saved themselves by swimming to the two barges had received several wounds each, almost all on the head: those, on the contrary, who were unfortunate enough to fall over on the side of the Indians were instantly dispatched by their clubs. But the rage for plunder was such that the islanders hastened to get possession of the long-boats, and jumped on board to the number of three or four hundred, tearing up the seats and breaking the inside to pieces in order to seek for our supposed riches. While this was going on they no longer paid much attention to the barges; which gave time to Messieurs de Vaujuas and Mouton to save the rest of our people, and to ascertain that nobody remained in the hands of the Indians but those who had been massacred and killed in the water by the blows of their patows.

The crews of the barges, who till then had fired upon the islanders and killed a good many, now began to throw their water-casks overboard in order that everybody might find room. They had, besides, almost exhausted their ammunition; and their retreat was become a matter of some difficulty, with such a number of persons dangerously wounded, who lay stretched out upon the thwarts and hindered the working of the oars. To the prudence of M. Vaujuas, to the good order which he established, and to the strict discipline kept up by M. Mouton, who commanded the Boussole's barge, we were indebted for the preservation of the forty-nine persons of both crews who escaped, M. Boutin, who had five wounds on the head and one in the breast, was kept above water by the cockswain of the long-boat, who was himself wounded. M. Colinet was found lying in a state of insensibility upon the grapnel-rope of the barge, having an arm fractured, a finger broken, and two wounds on the head. M. Lavaux, surgeon-major of the Astrolabe, was so grievously wounded that he was obliged to suffer the operation of the trepan. He had, however, swum to the barges, as well as M. de la Martiniere, and Father Receveur, who had received a violent contusion on the eye. M. de Lamanon and M. de Langle were massacred with unexampled barbarity, with Talin, master at arms of the Boussole, and nine other persons belonging to the two crews. The savage Indians, after having killed them, still continued to wreak their fury upon the inanimate bodies with their clubs. M. le Gobien, who commanded the Astrolabe's long-boat under the orders of M. de Langle, did not abandon his post till he found himself entirely alone. After having exhausted his ammunition, he leaped into the water on the side of the little channel left between the two boats, which, as I have said above, was unoccupied by the Indians; and notwithstanding his wounds, found means to save himself on board one of the barges. That of the Astrolabe was so deeply laden that it grounded. This even inspired the natives with the idea of disturbing the wounded in their retreat. They came down accordingly in great numbers towards the reefs at the entrance, within ten feet of which the barges were necessarily obliged to pass. The little ammunition that remained was exhausted upon the infuriated crowd; and at length the boats extricated themselves from a place, more dreadful on account of its deceitful situation and the cruelty of its inhabitants than the dens of wild beasts.

At five o'clock they came on board, and informed us of this disastrous event. We had round us at that moment not less than a hundred canoes, in which the natives were selling their provisions with a security which sufficiently proved their innocence. But they were the brothers, the children, the countrymen of the barbarous assassins; and I confess that it was necessary to call up all my reason to repress the anger that transported me, and to hinder the crew from putting them to death. The soldiers were already casting loose the guns and laying hold of their muskets. I stopped these movements, which were, however, pardonable enough; and ordered a single gun loaded with powder to be fired as a warning to the canoes to depart. A small boat that came from the coast informed them, without doubt, of what had just passed; for in less than an hour not a canoe remained in sight. An Indian who was upon the quarter-deck when our barge came on board was arrested by my orders and put in irons. The next day, having approached the coast, I permitted him to jump overboard, the confidence with which he had remained on board being an unequivocal proof of his innocence.

My first project was to send another party on shore to revenge the death of our unfortunate companions and to recover the wrecks of our boats. With that intention I stood on the westward in search of an anchorage; but I found nothing but the same bottom of coral, with a swell that set inshore and broke upon the reefs. The creek in which the massacre took place was, besides, very deeply indented in the side of the island, and it did not appear possible to approach it within cannon shot. M. Boutin, whose wound confined him to his bed, but who retained the full command of his mind, represented to me also that the situation of the bay was such, that if our boats should unfortunately run aground (a thing very possible), not a single man would return alive; for the trees, which are close to the sea-side, while protecting the Indians against our musketry, would leave the men whom we might debark exposed to a shower of stones, so much the more difficult to avoid as, being thrown with uncommon force and address, they produced almost the same effect as our bullets, and had the advantage of succeeding one another with greater rapidity. M. de Vaujuas was of the same opinion. I would not, however, accede to it till I had fully ascertained the impossibility of anchoring within gun-shot of the village. I passed two days in working to windward opposite the bay, and could perceive the wrecks of our long-boats aground upon the sand, and round them an immense number of Indians. What will no doubt appear incredible is, that during this time five or six canoes came off from the shore with hogs, pigeons, and cocoa-nuts to offer us in exchange. I was obliged every moment to curb my anger lest I should give orders to send them to the bottom. The Indians, not knowing that we had any arms of longer range than our muskets, remained without the least apprehension at fifty toises distance from the ships, and offered us their provisions with great apparent security. Our gestures gave them no encouragement to approach, and in this way they passed a whole hour in the afternoon of the 12th of December. Their offers of barter were succeeded by raillery, and ere long I perceived several other canoes quit the beach in order to join them. As they had no suspicion of the range of our guns, and as everything indicated that I should soon be forced to depart from my principles of moderation, I ordered a shot to be fired into the midst of them. My orders were executed with the utmost precision. The ball dashed the water into the canoes, and they instantly made the best of their way to the shore, being joined in their flight by those that had left the beach a little while before.

It was with difficulty that I could tear myself from this fatal spot and leave the dead bodies of our murdered companions. In M. de Langle I lost an old friend, a man of sense, judgment, and information, and one of the best officers in the French navy. His humanity was the cause of his death. Had he allowed himself to fire upon the first Indians who came into the water in order to surround his boats, he would have saved his own life and those of M. de Lamanon and ten other victims of Indian ferocity. There were, besides, twenty persons belonging to the two frigates grievously wounded; this event deprived us for the moment of thirty-two hands, and two long-boats, the only ones we had capable of containing a sufficient number of armed men to attempt a descent. These considerations were the guide of my future conduct. The smallest check would have forced me to burn one of the two frigates to man the other. I had indeed the frame of a long-boat on board; but I could not put it together without going into port. If, to satisfy my revenge, I had only wished for the massacre of a few Indians, I had an opportunity of destroying, sinking, blowing to pieces a hundred canoes, containing more than five hundred persons; but I was afraid of being mistaken in the choice of my victims, and the voice of conscience saved their lives. Those whom this narrative may remind of the catastrophe of Captain Cook should bear in mind that his ships were anchored in the bay of Karakakooa; that their guns rendered them masters of the beach and that they could give the law to the Indians by threatening to destroy the canoes that remained at the water-side, as well as the villages that skirted the coast. We, on the contrary, were at sea, out of gun-shot, and obliged to keep off the coast, where a calm might have been attended with the greatest danger. A heavy swell drifted us constantly towards the reefs, outside of which we might, without doubt, have anchored with iron chains; but still we should have been out of gun-shot of the village, besides that the swell was sufficient to cut our cable at the hawse-holes, and thereby to expose us to the most imminent hazard. I exhausted every calculation of probability before I left this fatal island; being at length convinced that anchoring was impracticable, and that a descent unsupported by the frigates would be rashness in the extreme. Even success would have been useless, since it was certain that not a single man remained alive in the hands of the Indians, and that our boats, which we had the means of replacing, were broken to pieces and aground. I steered, in consequence, on the 14th, for a third island which was in sight, bearing W. by N., and which M. de Bougainville had only seen from the masthead, being driven off by bad weather. This island is separated from that of Maouna by a channel only nine leagues wide. The Indians had given us the names of ten islands that composed their archipelago, and had rudely traced their situation upon a sheet of paper. Although no great dependence is to be placed upon the plan they drew, yet to me it appears probable that the people of these different islands are in a kind of confederacy with one another, and that they keep up a frequent intercourse. The farther discoveries we have made leave no doubt of this archipelago being more considerable than the Society Islands, while it is equally well-peopled, and abounds in provision no less than they. It is even probable that very good harbours might be found there; but having no boat, and knowing the exasperated state of mind of my crew, I resolved not to anchor till I came to Botany Bay, in New Holland, where I purposed putting together the frame of the new long-boat that I had on board. It was my intention, nevertheless, for the sake of advancing the science of geography, to explore the different islands I might meet with, and to determine their latitude and longitude with precision. I hoped also to be able to traffick with the inhabitants by lying to at a small distance from the coast. I willingly abandon to others the care of writing the uninteresting history of such barbarous nations. A stay of twenty-four hours, and the relation of our misfortunes, suffice to show their atrocious manners, and their arts, as well as the productions of one of the finest countries of the universe.

The 13th December we got sight of Norfolk Island and of the two islets at its south point. The sea was very big h, and had so long continued so that I had little hope of meeting with shelter on the north-east coast. On approaching it, however, I found smoother water, and determined to let go the anchor at a mile from the land, in twenty-four fathoms water, over a bottom of hard sand mixed with a little coral. I had no other object than to obtain a knowledge of the soil and productions of this island by means of our naturalists and botanists, who, since our departure from Kamtschatka, had had very few opportunities of entering any new observations in their journals. We, however, saw the sea break with fury round the island; but I flattered myself that our boats would find a shelter behind the large rocks that skirt the coast. As we had learned, however, to our cost, never to depart from the rules of prudence, I charged M. de Clonard, a post-captain, and the second officer in the expedition, with the command of four small boats dispatched by the frigates, and I strictly enjoined him not to risk a landing, under any pretence whatever, should there be the smallest risk of our pinnaces being overset by the surf. His punctuality and prudence left me without fear or apprehension. No one indeed could better deserve my confidence than that officer, whom I destined to the command of the Astrolabe as soon as we should arrive at Botany Bay. Our frigates were anchored abreast of two points situated at the northern extremity of the north-east coast of the island, and opposite to the place where we supposed that Captain Cook had debarked. Our boats stood towards this kind of inlet; but they found a surf breaking upon the rocks with a fury which rendered all approach impossible. . . . They coasted along shore within half musket-shot, pulling up to the south-east, and went half a league in that direction without finding a single spot where it was possible to land. They perceived that the island was surrounded by a wall formed of the lava which had flowed from the summit of the mountain, and which, having cooled in its descent, had formed in a number of places a kind of roof projecting several feet over the coast of the island. Even if landing had been practicable, it would still have been impossible to penetrate into the interior, unless by stemming for the space of fifteen or twenty toises the rapid course of some torrents that had formed ravines. Beyond these natural barriers the island was covered with pines and carpeted with the most beautiful verdure. We should probably have found there several culinary plants; and that hope added still to our desire of visiting an island where Captain Cook had debarked with the greatest facility. It is true that he was there in fine weather that had lasted several days, while we had constantly navigated in so high a sea that for eight days we had not dared to open our ports or cabin windows. From the ship I followed with my telescope the motions of the boats; and seeing that at the fall of night they had not found a convenient place of debarkation, I made a signal to recall them, and soon after gave orders to get under way. I should perhaps have lost a great deal of time in waiting for a more favourable moment, and the survey of the island was not worth such a sacrifice. While I was preparing to make sail, a signal from the Astrolabe, indicating that she was on fire, threw me into a state of the utmost anxiety. I immediately dispatched a boat in all haste to her assistance, but by the time it had gotten half-way, another signal informed me that the fire was extinguished; and shortly after M. de Monti hailed me with a speaking trumpet, and told me that a box of acids and other chemical liquors, belonging to Father Receveur, and deposited under the quarter-deck, had taken fire of itself, and spread so thick a smoke below that it had been difficult to discover whence it proceeded. At length means were found to throw the box overboard, and the accident was attended with no farther consequences. It is probable that a bottle of acid, having burst in the inside of the box, occasioned the fire, which afterwards extended itself to bottles of spirits of wine either broken or ill-corked. I now gave myself credit for having, at the very beginning of the voyage, ordered a similar box, belonging to the Abbé Monges, to be placed in the open air upon the forecastle of the ship, where danger from fire was not much to be apprehended.

Norfolk Island, though very steep, is scarcely more than seventy or eighty toises above the level of the sea. The pines with which it is covered are probably of the same species as those of New Caledonia or New Zealand. Captain Cook says that he met with a great many cabbage trees; and the hope of procuring some contributed not a little to our desire of landing. It is probable that the palm which bears these cabbages is very small, for we could not perceive a single tree of that species. As this island is not inhabited, it is covered with sea-fowl, particularly tropic birds, none of which are without their long red feathers. There were also a great many boobies and gulls, but not a single man-of-war bird. A bank of sand, over which there are twenty or thirty fathoms water, extends three or four leagues to the northward and eastward of the island, and perhaps all round it; but we did not sound on the western side. While we lay at anchor we caught some red fish upon the bank of the kind called capitaine at the Isle of France, or farde, which afforded us an excellent repast. At eight o'clock in the evening we were under way. I first stood west-northwest, and then bore away by degrees to south-west by west, under easy sail, and sounding continually upon the bank, where it was possible we might meet with shoals; but the bottom was, on the contrary, exceedingly even, and the water deepened foot by foot in proportion as we left the land. At eleven o'clock in the evening we got no ground with a line of sixty fathoms, being then ten miles west-north-west of the most northerly point of Norfolk Island. The wind had settled at east-south-east, with rather thick squalls; but in the intervals between them the weather was very clear. At daybreak I crowded sail towards Botany Bay, which was now at no more than three hundred leagues distance. The 14th, in the evening, after the sun was beneath the horizon, I made the signal to bring to, and to sound with two hundred fathoms of line. The flat bank of Norfolk Island had made me imagine that bottom might be found all the way to New Holland; but this conjecture proved false, and I continued my course with an error the less in my mind; for I had been strongly persuaded of the truth of my opinion. The wind from east-south-east to north-east continued to blow till we came within sight of New Holland. We made a great deal of way by day and very little by night, because no navigator had preceded us in the track along which we were running.

On the 17th, being in 31° 28' south latitude, and 159° 15' east longitude; we were surrounded by innumerable gulls, which made us suspect that we were passing near some island or rock; and several bets were laid on the discovery of new land before our arrival at Botany Bay, from which we were only a hundred and eighty leagues distant: these birds followed us till within eighty leagues of New Holland, and it is probable enough that we had left some islet or rock behind us which serves them as an asylum, for they are much less numerous near an inhabited country. From Norfolk Island till we got sight of Botany Bay we sounded every evening, with two hundred fathoms of line, and did not find bottom till within eight leagues of the coast in ninety fathoms water. We got sight of it on the 23rd of January. The land is of very moderate elevation, and can hardly be seen at more than twelve leagues distance. The wind then became very variable, and, like Captain Cook, we met with currents which drifted us every day fifteen miles to the southward of our reckoning; so that we passed the whole day of the 24th in plying to windward in sight of Botany Bay without being able to double Point Solander, which bore north distant one league. The wind blew strong from that quarter, and our ships sailed too badly to be able to overcome the force of both wind and currents. We had this day a sight entirely new to us since our departure from Manilla. It was an English fleet at anchor in Botany Bay, of which we could distinguish the colours and pendants.

Europeans are all fellow-countrymen at such a distance from home, and we felt the greatest impatience to get into an anchorage; but the weather was so hazy the following day that it was impossible to distinguish the land; and we did not get in till the 26th, at nine in the morning, when I let go the anchor at a mile from the north coast in seven fathoms water, over a bottom of fine grey sand, abreast of the second bay. At the moment I was at the mouth of the channel, an English lieutenant and a midshipman were sent on board my ship by Captain Hunter, commander of the English frigate the Sirius. They offered me in his name all the services in his power, adding, however, that as he was on the point of getting under way in order to run to the northward, circumstances would not permit him to furnish us either with provision, ammunition, or sails; so that his services were confined to wishes for the farther success of our voyage. I sent an officer to return my thanks to Captain Hunter, who was already apeak, with his top-sails hoisted. I intimated to him that my wants did not extend beyond wood and water, of which we should find plenty in the bay; and that I was sensible that ships destined to establish a colony at so great a distance from Europe could afford no succour to navigators. We learned from the lieutenant that the English fleet was commanded by Commodore Phillips, who had gotten under way the evening before in the Spy sloop, accompanied by four transports, in order to seek farther to the northward for a more convenient place for his settlement. The English lieutenant appeared to make a great mystery of Commodore Phillips's plan, and we did not take the liberty of asking him any question on the subject; but we could have no doubt of the projected establishment being very near Botany Bay; for several boats and launches were under sail in their way thither; and the passage must needs have been short indeed to render it unnecessary to hoist them into the ships. Soon after the crew of the English boat, who were less cautious than their officers, told our sailors that they were only going to Port Jackson, sixteen miles to the north of Cape Banks, where Commodore Phillips had himself found out a very good harbour, running in ten miles to the south-west, and allowing vessels to anchor within pistol-shot of the land, in water as smooth as that of a basin. We had, in the sequel, but too many opportunities of hearing news of the English settlement from deserters, to whom we were indebted for a great deal of trouble and embarrassment.

This site is full of FREE ebooks - Project Gutenberg Australia