148 cook's voyage to ec. 



As a memorial of our having been in this harbour, 

 I wrote on the other side of the parchment, 



Naves Resolution 



et Discovery 



de Rege Magnce Britannia?, 



JDecembris, 177 6. 



I then put it again into a bottle, together with a 

 silver two-penny piece of 177^ 5 and having covered 



de Pages, which present us with the following particulars: That 

 they arrived on the west side of this land on the 14th of December, 

 1773 ; that, steering to the north-east, they discovered, on the 

 16th, the Isle de Reunion, and the other small islands as mentioned 

 above ; that, on the 17th, they had before them the principal land 

 (which they were sure was connected with that seen by them on 

 the 14th), and a high point of that land, named by them Cape 

 Francois ; that beyond this Cape the coast took a south-easterly 

 direction, and behind it they found a bay, called by them Bale de 

 V Oiseau, from the name of their frigate; that they then en- 

 deavoured to enter it, but were prevented by contrary winds and 

 blowing weather, which drove them off the coast eastward ; but 

 that, at last, on the 6th of January, Monsieur de Rosnevet, Captain 

 of the Oiseau, was able to send his boat on shore into this bay, 

 under the command of Monsieur de Rochegude, one of his officers, 

 who took possession of that bay, and of all the country, in the name 

 of the King of France, tvith all the requisite formalities. 



Here, then, we trace, by the most unexceptionable evidence, the 

 history of the bottle and inscription; the leaving of which was, no 

 doubt, one of the requisite formalities observed by Monsieur de 

 Rochegude on this occasion. And though he did not land till the 

 6th of January, 1774, yet, as Kerguelen's ships arrived upon the 

 coast on the 14th of December, 1773, and had discovered and 

 looked into this very bay on the 17th of that month, it was with 

 the strictest propriety and truth that 1773, and not 1774, was men- 

 tioned as the date of the discovery. 



We need only look at Kerguelen's and Cook's charts, to judge 

 that the Baie de V Oiseau, and the harbour where the French in- 

 scription was found, is one and the same place. But besides this 

 agreement as to the general position, the same conclusion results 

 more decisively still, from another circumstance worth mentioning: 

 the French, as well as the English visitors of this bay and harbour, 

 have given us a particular plan of it ; and whoever compares ours, 

 published in this volume, with that to be met with in Kerguelen's and 

 de Pages's voyages, must be struck with a resemblance that could 

 only be produced by copying one common original with fidelity. 



