BY JAMES B. WALKKR. 117 



of Dijon half" a century Ijefore, :ind rofleoted with some 

 hitterne.ss iiow amply the prophecy had bsen fullilied. 



The French Coiuniaiider's answer to Governor Kini^'s 

 letter is worthy of notice as showinj^ tiiat tiie Fn^nch had 

 by no means relinquished their claim to a share ot 

 Australian territory. His letter is dated from the 

 Otof/raphe, and bears date the 3rd of the month iNivose, 

 in the 1 1th year of the French Republic (2-}rd DecenilxM-, 

 1802). He tells Kini^ that the arrival of the CiniiherbiiKl, 

 and especially the letter wliich the Goveiwior hud done liiin 

 the honour to write, would have surprised hinj if Mr. 

 Robbins had not, by his conduct, made clear to him tlie 

 true motive of the expedition which had been despatched 

 after him in such headlong haste. " But pei"haj)s," says 

 the Commodore, " after all it may have come too late, for 

 several days before the gentleman ulio commands it 

 thought proper to hoist his flag above our tents, we had 

 taken care to j)lace in four pi-omincnt parts of this island — • 

 which I intend siiall continue to bear your name — j)roofs 

 sufficient to show the priority of our visit." He then 

 declares that the report — of which they suspected Captain 

 Anthony Fenn Kemp to have been the author — u'as 

 entirely without foundati(jn, and lie does not believe that 

 his ofticei's or scientific men had by their conduct given 

 any ground for it. " But," he concludes, " in any case, 

 ywu ought to have been perfectly certain that if the Fi-ench 

 Ctovei-nnient had given mo orders to establish myself in 

 any jilace, cither at the north <jr at the south of IJiemen's 

 Land — discovered by Al>el 'lasman — I should have done 

 so without keojiing it a secret from you."'* 



A week after the date of iiis letter to King (31st 

 December), Jiaudin sailed from King's Island for the 

 (iulf of Carpentaiia, and from thence made his way to 

 Mauritius, wher(! he died. Snrvi^yor-General Grim; s and 

 Flemniing spent some six weeks in a thorough exj)loration 

 of King's Island. f Their re])ort of the island as a place 



* See Aj)j)eiulix U for Buulin's lt!tt<*r. 



t Tlie island was in those tiays a I'avoiirit*' resort, of sealers. 

 Pero'i says tlij,t when tliey reached Sea Rlephant JJay the Ixvdh 

 was covered with sea eleplinnts, tlicir brown cojour making' theiii 

 strikiiifrly visible on the wliite .strand, \\liere they lay hke preat 

 black r.).'ks. At tlie appro.i.h ol tlie l''re:ie!i some of the animals 

 planned into tlie sea, loarinj; frigiitiidly, wldle othirs reni.iin.d 

 niotuinless on the sand ^aziii;; on their \i.iitors wiili u plueid and 

 indiilerent air. In the sinje year ('ai'tiiin Campbell, of the .Sm.m- 



