BY THOMAS DUNBABIN, M.A. 151 



tain. In these earlier days the French sometimes thought 

 that the English ideas about expansion in the South Seas 

 were far more definite than was actually the case. Bou- 

 gainville, writing from the Falkland Islands, apparently in 

 1764, says: ''The views of the English about forming estab- 

 "lishments in the South Seas and in the neighbouring coun- 

 "tries have long been known, but it is above all since the 

 "relation of the voyages of Anson that the English have 

 "decided to follow seriously the execution of these views." 

 Bougainville states that they intended to seize the Island 

 of Juan Fernandez. 



Though Bougainville did not visit Australia, he an- 

 ticipated a proposal made when the British did actually begin 

 to think of settling in Australia. It was urged by James 

 Maria Matra in 1783 that the American Loyalists expelled 

 from the United States should be sent as settlers to Aus- 

 tralia. Owing to delays and to other causes the idea came 

 to nothing, though one or two United Empire Loyalists did 

 reach Australia. We are, for instance, told of James Reid, 

 who came out as a superintendent of convicts in 1789, that 

 he had been a planter in America. Bougainville's idea was 

 to use the Acadians of Longfellow's "Evangeline," expelled 

 from the maritime province of Canada by the English, to 

 found a new French Colony in the far south. He wrote 

 in 1763: "As the modest funds of the owners of the vessel 

 "do not allow them to embark, at their own cost, large crews, 

 "they would ask the King for forty men, half soldiers and 

 "half Acadians. The soldiers should be men who have 

 "served in Canada, and are therefore accustomed to live in 

 "the woods, to rove and to traverse unknown countries. The 

 "Acadians are sailors and fishermen, and are the more re- 

 "commended by the strong and constant proofs of attachment 

 "to France given since the Peace of Utrecht. They are 

 "most suitable men for founding a flourishing settlement. 

 "The Acadians who had made the voyage would determine 

 "their compatriots to transfer themselves to the south." 



Bougainville had served under Montcalm in Canada, and 

 had conceived the idea of indemnifying France for her losses 

 in the New World by calling into existence French colonies 

 in the "third part of the world" in th3 south. Unluckily, 

 he took his colonising expedition and his Acadian settlers to 

 the Falkland Islands, the lies Malouines of the French, and 

 as the result of Spanish objections the French colony was 

 withdrawn after three years. 



