1803.
August.
(Atlas,
Plate I.)
visit the south-west coast of New Caledonia; and he might have encountered in the night, as we did, some one of the several reefs which lie scattered in this sea.[1] Less fortunate than we were, he probably had no friendly sand bank near him, upon which his people might be collected together and the means of existence saved out of the ships; or perhaps his two vessels both took the unlucky direction of the Cato after striking, and the seas which broke into them carried away all his boats and provisions; nor would La Pérouse, his vessels, or crews be able, in such a case, to resist the impetuosity of the waves more than twenty-four hours. If such were the end of the regretted French navigator, as there is now but too much reason to fear, it is the counterpart of what would have befallen all on board the Porpoise and Cato, had the former ship, like the Cato, fallen over towards the sea instead of heeling to the reef.
An opinion that La Pérouse had been lost in this neighbourhood, induced me when examining the main coast to seek carefully at every place, amongst the refuse thrown upon the shores, for indications of shipwreck to windward; and could the search have been then prosecuted to the 15th, or 12th degree of latitude, I am persuaded it would not have been in vain. Besides the extensive reefs which skirt the western side of New Caledonia, and the Barrier Reefs on the opposite coast of New South Wales, we are now ac-- ↑ La Pérouse says, in his letter to M. de Fleurieu, dated Feb. 7, 1789 from Botany Bay, "You will doubtless be glad to learn, that I have not allowed this misfortune (the massacre of captain De l'Angle and eleven others at the Navigator's Isles) to derange the plan of the remaining part of my voyage." This plan, as expressed in a preceding letter of Sept. 7, 1787, at Avatscha, was to "employ six months in visiting the Friendly Islands to procure refreshments, the south-west coast of New Caledonia, the island of Santa Cruz of Mendana, the southern coast of the land of the Arsacides, with that of Louisiade as far as New Guinea." Voyage of La Pérouse, Translation, London, 1799, Vol. II. p. 494-5, 502-3.
As La Pérouse did not reach the Friendly Isles, it is probable that he began with New Caledonia; and that upon the south-west coast, or in the way to it, disaster befel him.
