THEPACIFICOCEAN. 55 



would be fo obliG;ine as to communicate it to me. Accord- ^ '776- 



" " - December. 



ingly, jufl before we failed from Santa Cruz bay, he fent 

 me the following account of it, 'viz. " That the Pilot of the 

 *' BoufTole, who was in the voyage with Monfieur de Ker- 

 " giielen, had given him the latitude and longitude of a 

 " little ifland, which Monfieur de Kcrguelen called the 

 " Ifle of Rendezvous, and which lies not far from the 

 *' great ifland which he faw. Latitude of the little ifle, by 

 *' feven obfervations, 48" 26' South ; longitude, by feven ob- 

 " fcrvations of the diftance of the Sun and Moon, 64° 57' 

 *' Eaft from Paris." I was very forry I had not fooner known 

 that there v/as on board the frigate at TenerifFe, an officer 

 who had been with Monfieur de Kerguelen, efpecially the 

 Pilot ; becaufe from him I might have obtained more in- 

 tcrefting information about this -land than the fituation 

 alone, of which I was not before entirely ignorant*. 



My 



* Captain Cook's proceedings, as related in the remaining part of this Chapter, 

 and in the next, being upon a coaft newly dilcovered by the French, it could not but 

 be an objedt of his attention to trace the footfteps of the original explorers. But no 

 fuperiority of profeflionah fkill, nor diligence in exerting it, could poffibly qualify him 

 to do this fuccefsfully, without poiTeffing, at the fame time, full and authentic intelli- 

 gence of all that had been performed here by his predeceflbrs in the difcovery. But 

 that he was not fo fortunate as to be thus fufficiently inftrudled, will appear from the 

 following f'.fts, which the Reader is requefted to attend to, before he proceeds to the 

 perufal ofthis part of the Journal. 



How very little was knov/n, with any precifion, about the operations of Kerguelen, 

 when Captain Cook failed in I 776, may be inferred from the following paragraph of 

 his Inftrudlions : " You are to proceed in fearch of fome idznds/aiii to have been lately 

 " feen by the French in the latitude of 48" South, and in the meridian of JVlauri- 

 " tins [a]." This was, barely, the amount of the very indefinite and imperfecSt in- 

 formation, which Captain Cook himfelf had received from Baron Plettenberg at the 

 Cape of Good Hope, in November 1772 [b) ; in the beginning of which year Ker- 

 guelen's _^r/? voyage had taken place. 



(a) See the Inftruflions in the Intiodufllon. 

 {k) Sec Cartain Cook's Voyage,, Vol, i. p. 16, 



The 



