Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/383

Port Louis.]

I knew it and still intended to make the observations expressed in my journal; upon this incorrect and worst supposition I have, I think, an example of similar conduct in your own nation; unless you can assure me that the captains Baudin and Hamelin made no such remarks upon Port Jackson, for it was a declared war at the time they lay in that port. But were they forbidden to make such remarks and notes upon the state of that English colony? Upon its progress, its strength, the possibility of its being attacked with advantage, and the utility it might afford to the French nation? I tell you, general De Caen, No. The governor in chief at Port Jackson knew too well the dignify of his own nation, either to lay any prohibition upon these commanders, or to demand to see what their journals might contain.

I shall next appeal to you as being the representative in this place of a great nation, which has hitherto shown itself forward to protect and encourage those sciences by which the knowledge of mankind is extended or their condition ameliorated. Understand then, Sir, that I was chosen by that patron of science sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society of London, and one well known by all the literati throughout the world, to retrace part of the track of the immortal captain Cook,—to complete what in New Holland and its neighbourhood he had left unfinished,—and to perfect the discovery of that extensive country. This employment, Sir, as it was congenial to my own inclinations, so I pursued it with avidity; upon it, as from a convex lens, all the rays of knowledge and science which my opportunities have enabled me to collect, were thrown. I was unfortunate in that my ship decayed before the voyage was completed; but the captain-general at Port Jackson, who is also the senior naval officer there, was so sensible of the importance of the voyage and of the zeal with which I had pursued it (for the truth of which I appeal to his letters now in your possession), that he gave me a colonial ship of war to transport me with my officers, charts, &c. to England, that I might obtain another ship in which the voyage might be completed. In this second ship I was a passenger; and in her, shipwreck and the loss of charts which had cost me much labour and many risks to make perfect, were added to my first misfortune; but my zeal suffered no abatement. I returned to Port Jackson (734 miles) in an open boat, and got a merchant ship which was bound to China, hired to carry my officers and people to England by that circuitous route; but desirous of losing no time,