coverer of the south coast of Australia! The Englishman did not divine that French names were to displace, in every instance, those which had been affixed to the capes, bays, and islands, by the man who for the first time had descried them, and whose indefatigable industry of examination had left scarcely any thing for any subsequent navigator to descry; and that the whole stretch of land from Bass's Strait to Nuyts's Archipelago, about half the length of the south coast, and comprehending his discoveries, was to become Terre Napoléon, of which Terre Napoléon, all Europe was to be made to believe that no civilized man had touched an atom before Monsieur Baudin.

It was remarkable that Peron's work came out unaccompanied with the appropriate apparatus of charts; these were promised to follow, and how it was meant they should be obtained, became well understood in due time. When, after the lapse of many years, they did follow, they appeared to be, what they were expected to be, as to the parts of the coast delineated by himinferior imitations of his.

There is now, however, no dispute or question in existence about the whole matter, or any part of it. All the Frenchman's pretensions to discovery, on the south coast, were necessarily confined within the space between the western side of Bass's Strait and the point where he was met by the Investigator. But, even within these limits, only a small portion had been left him for a priority of examination, (if that were the proper word to apply to Baudin's manner of making a coasting voyage,) since another Englishman, Captain Grant, had preceded, by a year or two, both the voyagers, having surveyed, in 1800, the coast from Bass's Strait far on toward the place of the meeting of Le Geographe and the Investigator*. As to the comparative degrees of authority, between the respective surveys of the same tracts of coast by Flinders, and the man so impudently set up by the French Institute and Government, not as a rival but as a thief, they might be safely left to the practical decision of any nautical man in Europe. We may be perfectly sure, there is not one commander of a ship in the navy of France itself, that, in the event of having to venture close along the Australian coast, would feel a moment's hesitation which it would be the safest to depend upon, if he any where found a difference between the two voyagers, in the recorded or delineated circumstances of the coast. As to delineations, indeed, i is a sufficiently remarkable fact, that the French did not con

Of this, the French expedition, and among them Peron, who subsequently composed the narration of it, were informed at Port Jackson, 1802.

struct any chart at sea; that small concern was left for Parisian manufacture.

Our Author comments in a just and manly tone on this piece of shameless baseness, in which Baudin, Peron, the Institute, and Bonaparte, all co-operated in worthy partnership. As a contrast, he was, on his own part, very scrupulous to do justice to the Frenchman, carefully retaining the names affixed by him to the points of the very short tract where he really had the claim of precedence.

Twelve weeks were most actively employed in refitting in Port Jackson, where one of the two French discovery ships was already found in harbour, and the other, with Baudin on board, and a crew in an inconceivably wretched condition, soon arrived. They experienced there every possible form of aid and hospitality.

The adventurous mariner now set out with ardour undiminished, to run up the whole eastern coast, on which there were a number of points which Cook's wider plans had not allowed time for accurately examining. These he investigated, verifying in the intervals many of Cook's observations. He took his infirm vessel along withinside the formidable series of coral isles and rocks called the Great Barrier Reefs, attempting at various chasms to find a passage through into the open sea. This critical part of the enterprise occupied him fourteen days. The detail of this long course, from Port Jackson to Torres' Strait, is purely nautical. It is just of the nature of a useful commentary on a chart. In a very few instances, a handful of black naked savages come into the account, but with little more interest than the large cockle shells, and small pugnacious crabs, mentioned in other situations. It may be observed, however, that the inhabitants of the more northern coasts, few and and utterly naked and savage as they are, rank considerably higher than the southerns, in masculine appearance, intelligence, and mastery of the sea. A useful native of Port Jackson, who accompanied the Captain, evidently shrunk in a consciousness of comparative insignificance in the presence of a party of them that came on board. They were much the same sort of men as the before-mentioned inhabitants of Darnley's Island.

After various traverses and observations in Torres' Strait, our Author steered down the eastern side of the great Gulf of Carpentaria, to Wellesley's Islands. Here it became necessary to have a thorough examination of the condition of the ship. The result was very mortifying and alarming, with such a prospect of further and long protracted operations as the Commander had in his commission and in his design. A very large portion of the fabric was found literally and totally rotten. The conclusion of the report officially given

by the officers and carpenters employed in the examination, was, that if the vessel remain in fine weather, and happen no accident,' she might keep afloat six months longer. In such a service, it was fearful to consider what a probable abridgement of the term was implied in such a condition. The passage in which the Captain expresses his mortification at receiving the account, describes also the ambitious extent of his design, and the manner in which he had thus far executed it..

'I cannot express the surprise and sorrow which this statement gave me. According to it, a return to Port Jackson was almost immediately necessary; as well to secure the journals and charts of the examination already made, as to preserve the lives of the ship's company; and my hopes of ascertaining completely the exterior form of this immense, and in many points interesting country, if not destroyed, would at least be deferred to an uncertain period. My leading object had hitherto been, to make so accurate an investigation of the shores of Terra Australis, that no future voyage to this country should be necessary; and with this always in view, I had ever endeavoured to follow the land so closely, that the washing of the surf upon it should be visible, and no opening, nor any thing of interest, escape notice. Such a degree of proximity is what navigators have usually thought neither necessary nor safe to pursue, nor was it always persevered in by us; sometimes because the direction of the wind or shallowness of the water made it impracticable, and at other times because the loss of the ship would have been the probable consequence of approaching so near to a lee shore. But when circumstances were favourable, such was the plan I pursued; and with the blessing of God, nothing of importance should have been left for future discoverers, upon any part of these extensive coasts. But with a ship incapable of encountering bad weather, which could not be repaired if sustaining injury from any of the numerous shoals or rocks upon the coast,-which, if constant fine weather could be insured, and all accidents avoided, could not run more than six months;-with such a ship, I knew not how to accomplish the task.'

The winds prevailing at the season, rendered a return to Port Jackson by either the east or the west extremely perilous; and after what must have been a very painful deliberation, the Commander decided to finish, if possible, the survey of the Gulf of Carpentaria, by the time of the conclusion of which it was hoped the wind might enable him to return by the west and south coasts, or otherwise to reach the nearest port in the East Indies. Accordingly, a protracted careful survey was accomplished, of the shore all round this deep gulf; and the description has more points of interest than that of any former line of coast, chiefly from the repeated rencounters with the knavish but not very formidable natives, who are inferior in strength, courage, and weapons, to those of the islands in Torres' Strait. They appeared, however, to be no novices in the business of Cain; precaution was requisite in the neigh

bourhood of any considerable number of them; and in one instance they provoked an affray which cost the life of several of them. Among a number of not very explicable relics and traces of human existence and customs, was the following:

'Several skeletons were found, standing upright in the hollow stumps of trees; and the skulls and bones being smeared or painted, partly red and partly white, made a very strange appearance.'

The people appeared to be of the same race as those of Port Jackson and King George's Sound, places at nearly the too ' opposite extremities of Terra Australis ;' the difference of personal appearance and condition not exceeding the probable effect of a more copious or more scanty supply of food. On the subject of language, he says,

'I do not know that the language at any two parts of Terra Australis, however near, has been found to be entirely the same; for even at Botany Bay, Port Jackson, and Broken Bay, not only the dialect, but many words, are radically different; and this confirms one part of an observation, the truth of which seems to be generally admitted; that although similarity of language in two nations proves their origin to be the same, yet dissimilarity of language is no proof of the contrary position.'

Here

The completing of the survey of the Gulf of Carpentaria consumed three of the six months of the calculated existence of the Investigator. By this time, also, the health of the ship's company, and of the Captain himself, had become very much injured, by their hard course of labours in a hot climate. of then, just as the winds were become favourable for a survey some portion of the north-west coast, our accomplished mariner was compelled to abandon the undertaking. It was with the severest regret he yielded to this necessity, feeling, as he confesses, as if his life was here losing all its value, but expressing a, sentiment of submission to the appointments of Infinite Wisdom. After briefly touching, for refreshments, at Coepang in Timor, he set off for the long run by the west and south, round more than half the circuit of the continent, through Bass's Strait to Port Jackson, where he arrived, with a very sickly crew, on the 9th of June, 1803, about six months and a half from the time of the judgement passed on the ship in the Gulf of Carpentaria. One of the first proceedings after the arrival, was another examination of her condition, and of course an absolute condemnation, with no little wonder, on the part of the examiners, how she could ever have come so far to receive judgement, and, we may presume, with no less wonder that the Sovereign proprietors should ever, on such a purpose, have sent her so far.

Upon this, the Captain anxiously cast about for any means

of prosecuting onward his favourite and thus far successful enterprise. But the slight marine of the colony afforded no sufficient means. The only expedient that remained to him, was to take his passage for England, with some of his officers and crew, in a small vessel named the Porpoise, in order to present to the Admiralty the results of his exertions, and solicit another ship for the accomplishment of what remained. But a different allotment awaited hin."

After running to the northward for about a week, on a track in which they had expected to be quite clear of the grand plague of southern navigation, the coral reefs, they were one evening suddenly alarmed with breakers a-head. Almost immediately the vessel was carried among them and struck, followed very speedily in the same fate by a ship in company, the Cato, while a third and large vessel, an extra East Indiaman, commanded by Captain Palmer, very narrowly escaped both the reef, and a dreadful collision with the Cato in crossing before the latter struck. The two crews were saved to see the morning, when they very naturally expected to see also Captain Palmer coming to their relief, which bis situation relatively to the reef allowed him to do with perfect safety. When they saw him steering away till the ship disappeared, they waited for his re-appearance, as hardly believing it possible that an English commander could abandon his fellow-mariners in such a situation. But they waited in vain. He had coolly gone on his way, to report in the East Indies that he had seen them all perish, while an indignant officer of his ship was compelled to leave it for declaring the truth. No one on earth knows where his voyage ended: the Bridgewater sailed for Europe from Bombay, and was heard of no more. How dreadful,' says Captain Flinders, must have been his reflections at the time his 'ship was going down!' His conduct was the more infamous, as it was a manœuvre critically made by the Cato, while in the tremendous predicament of driving toward the reef, that saved him from the meeting and concussion that would have been in all probability fatal.

With the exception of three persons, the two wrecked crews were saved, and the greater part of the lading of the Porpoise, including the results, so eminently valuable to hydrography, of our Author's long and hazardous labours, while every thing in the Cato, but the men, was lost. Every thing in both ships, the men included, would have perished, leaving but some small monumental relics, to serve as a kind of deadly welcome to some future victims sent to meet their doom on the same spot, had not the Porpoise, contrary to the Cato, heeled to the reef,' to use the technical phrase, presenting the bottom and side to the breakers. And it was a remarkable fact, that in the search