150 FRANCE AND AUSTRALIA, 



voyage at all, reached some point on the South American 

 coast. 



In a later memorandum, undated, but written after 

 1745, since it states that in that year the English sent two 

 vessels, the George and the California, to seek for a north- 

 west passage to the Pacific, de la Harpe tells us that at the 

 beginning of the 18th century there was a very active 

 French trade with the Pacific coast of South America. He 

 states that between 1703 and 1720 the inhabitants of St. 

 Malo sent ninety-two vessels to the South Pacific. One of 

 these, the Francois, was commanded by Marion du Fresne, 

 no doubt of kin to the more famous Marion who visited 

 Tasmania and New Zealand in 1772, and was the first white 

 man to meet the aborigines of Tasmania. This earlier 

 Marion was at Concepcion in Chile in 1714, when the Captain 

 of a Spanish vessel told him that 400 leagues to the west 

 and in latitude 38 deg. south he had fallen in with a high 

 land and coasted along it for a day. De la Harpe received 

 without question the theory that there was a great southern 

 continent, quite distinct of course from Australia, a belief 

 generally held until Cook proved that such a continent, if 

 it existed, was confined to the Antarctic regions. Of this 

 continent New Zealand, de la Harpe thought, formed part, 

 and he conjectured that its inhabitants had crossed from 

 Australia or Van Diemen's Land to New Zealand. Like 

 de Voutron, he thought that a French Settlement in these 

 Southern lands would largely control the trade "with India, 

 "China, and the South Seas." 



While de la Harpe was sceptical, Bouvet fully accepted 

 the de Gonneville story. Bouvet tells us that in 1734 he 

 had, in the Dauphin, bound to the East Indies, run down the 

 easting till he sighted the Australian coast, "as almost all 

 "the English now do." He urged the planting of a colony 

 in the Terres Australes du Saint Esprit. In 1738 Bouvet 

 set out in two vessels to search for the great southern 

 continent armed in a model form for taking possession. But 

 he searched in the stormy seas southward of the Cape of 

 Good Hope, and found only Bouvet Island. Tn a memo- 

 randum written in 1767, Bouvet proposed another voyage, 

 but nothing came of it. Incidentally Bouvet complains that 

 Bougainville had stolen his ideas. 



ACADIANS FOR SOUTHERN COLONIES. 



In later years the English suspected the French of 

 designs on Australia which apparently they did not enter- 



