BY THOMAS nUNBABIN, MA. 149 



River), and coasted the country for some distance, keeping 

 two or three leagues off shore, and finding an open sea, 

 though such charts of this region as they had showed a mass 

 of rocks and reefs extending for 12 or 15 leagues out to sea. 

 "According to appearance the lands are habitable and im- 

 "portant," wrote De Voutron. He asserted that the Dutch 

 knew much more of this country than they chose to tell, and 

 states that their pilot had been strictly forbidden on pain of 

 punishment to give to foreigners any information about these 

 coasts. He asked for two vessels of medium size and a 

 smaller craft for use in shallow water, and mentioned the 

 end of April or the beginning of May as the best time for 

 an exploring expedition to set out from France. De Voutron 

 urged that a port on the Australian coast would be of great 

 value to the French trade with the far East. 



On October 8, 1699, de Voutron renewed his request. 

 His scheme was backed by one Renan, who describes him as 

 a "man of stout heart who would not be repelled by difficul- 

 "ties, one accustomed to deep sea voyages, as he had been 

 "several times to the Indies." 



SOUTH SEA BUBBLES. 



It was in this same year that the British Admiralty 

 sent out William Dampier in. the Roebuck to explore the 

 Australian coast, but de Voutron was less persuasive, or 

 less fortunate than that eminent buccaneer. Interest in 

 de Voutron's suggestion was apparently revived a few years 

 later. Bouvet states in a memorandum written in 1735, 

 that but for the death of du Vivier, the Captain who was to 

 have taken command, a French vessel would in 1708 have 

 been sent to explore the "land discovered by Dampier." 



The year 1699 was marked by a great stirring of French 

 interest in Southern exploration. Another document of 

 that year is a "Memorandum on the Discovery of the Terres 

 Australes" by Saint_ Marie. Saint Marie accepts as correct 

 the alleged discovery m 1503 by a NormaTi Sea Captain 

 named de Gonneville of a Southern Land which he, like 

 others, is inclined to identify with Australia. De Gonne- 

 ville stated that he had brought back to France a native of 

 the new-found land named Essomeric, a chief's son, who 

 settled in France and founded a faihily there. But even 

 in France the de Bonneville story found critics. In a docu- 

 ment written in 1738* Bernard de la Harpe claims that the 

 story contains contradictions and impossibilities, and con- 

 siders it more pfo^aWe "that dfe *Gonneville, if he made the 



