LETTERS OF A CITIZEN. 439 



this expedition. Would you send the same force to fight the 

 King of the Sandwich Islands as you would to humble the Bar- 

 bary powers? Certainly not. And why? Because what was 

 amply sufficient for the one object would be totally inadequate 

 to the other. Very good. Now let us see, sir, what object the 

 French government had in view which Captain Freycinet was 

 despatched in a single corvette to effect. 



" The principal object of the voyage," says Arago, " was to 

 ascertain the figure of the globe by pendulum experiments, and 

 the elements of terrestrial magnetism ; several questions in me- 

 teorology had also been indicated by the academy very worthy of 

 attention." 



Freycinet himself superintended the pendulum experiments, 

 assisted by ten out of seventeen of his officers ; and during the 

 whole voyage not a single series of observations was made in 

 which he did not take the principal share. Thermometrical and 

 hygrometrical observations were made hourly both by day and 

 night ; examinations of the barometer every two hours ; and, at 

 the same intervals, of the temperature of the sea. In the first 

 chapter of the narrative Freycinet says : " Our expedition is, I 

 think, the first maritime voyage which, being destined to the 

 progress of human knowledge, has not had hydrography for its 

 object. The determination of the form of the globe in the south- 

 ern hemisphere, the observation of magnetic and meteorological 

 phenomena, finally, the study of the three kingdoms of Nature, 

 formed the principal object of the mission." 



Thus you perceive, sir, that in this French expedition hydrog- 

 raphy was even less than a secondary object, while in the Ameri- 

 can it is one of the most prominent. In the former, the protec- 

 tion of commerce, the rescue of shipwrecked mariners, the survey 

 of important groups, islands, and harbours, were altogether minor 

 considerations; indeed, were not even named; while these consti- 

 tute important provinces of the latter, and have been especially 

 prayed for in the memorials, upon the representations of which 

 Congress has based its action. Do not these facts show the ab- 

 surdity of attempting to draw a parallel between the two under- 

 takings, and of endeavouring to make the scale of one an argu- 

 ment for the reduction of the other ? To Freycinet was granted 

 the entire selection of his own officers. How will your conduct 



