60 ADDRESS. 



say nothing of the fate of those from whom no tidings have ever 

 been received, and of whom, in the simple, yet awfully impressive 

 language of a celebrated writer, we know only that " they sailed 

 from their port and were never more heard of;" or in the equally 

 impressive language of the Nantucket memorial, " many ships 

 have gone into those seas, and no soul has returned to tell their fate." 

 When such appeals have been made to other nations, they have 

 not paused to deliberate or calculate the expense. The expedi- 

 tions despatched in quest of La Perouse* reflected more honour 



and, after some trouble, Nute and Holden were got on board. They were kindly 

 tended, and landed at Lintin, whence, by the assistance of brother Americans, they 

 were enabled to reach home. 



The book from which we gather these facts is well written, and contains a great 

 deal of information respecting the habits and customs, and the language of the 

 savages. The author, of course, returned poor, but he has found friends when and 

 where he least expected. The sale of this little volume will assist him much, and it 

 is within the compass of every one's means. It is no fictitious narrative the proofs 

 of all he says are undoubted, and his own body furnishes evidence that his sufferings 

 have not been exaggerated. 



* Voyage in search of La Perouse, performed by order of the Constituent Assembly , in tht 

 years 1791, '92, '93 and 1794, and dravm up by M. Labillardiere : 

 INTRODUCTION. 



Pagexi. "No intelligence had been received for three years respecting the ships 

 Boussole and Astrolabe, commanded by M. de la Perouse, when, early in the year 

 1791, the Parisian Society of Natural History called the attention of the Constituent 

 Assembly to the fate of that navigator and his unfortunate companions. 



"The hope of recovering at least some wreck of an expedition undertaken to promote 

 the sciences, induced the Assembly to send two other ships to steer the same course 

 which those navigators must have pursued, after their departure from Botany Bay. 

 Some of them, it was thought, might have escaped from the wreck, and might be con- 

 fined in a desert island, or thrown upon some coast inhabited by savages. Perhaps 

 they might be dragging out life in a distant clime, with their longing eyes continually 

 fixed upon the sea, anxiously looking for that relief which they had a right to expect 

 from their country. 



" On the 9th of February, 1791, the following decree was passed upon this subject : 



" The National Assembly, having heard the report of its joint committees of Agri- 

 culture, Commerce, and the Marine, decrees : That the King be petitioned to issue 

 orders to all the ambassadors, residents, consuls, and agents of the nation, to apply, in 

 the name of humanity, and of the arts and sciences, to the different Sovereigns at 

 whose courts they reside, requesting them to charge all their navigators and agents 

 whatsoever, and in what places soever, but particularly in the most southerly parts of 

 the South Sea, to search diligently for the two French frigates, the Boussole and the 





