Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/106

82 of trees, acquainted us, that Captain Bligh had anchored in this bay in the month of February 1792; when he was on his voyage to the Society Islands for bread-fruit trees, which he was to carry to the English colonies in the West Indies lying between the tropics.

Bligh had with him two botanists, who sowed, at a little distance from the shore, cresses, a few acorns, celery, &c. We saw three young fig trees, two pomegranate trees, and a quince tree they had planted, which had thriven very well: but it appeared to us, that one of the trees they had planted in this country had already perished, for the following inscription, which we found on the trunk of a large tree near, mentions seven:

The other inscriptions were couched in nearly similar terms. They all displayed the same marks of deference which the English botanists paid the Commander of their ship, by putting only the initial letters of their own names, and expressing that the Captain himself had sowed and planted the various vegetable productions, which he had carried from Europe. I am much inclined