HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



57 



charge. As Norfolk Island had been praised by Cook for its fertility, it was thought 

 desirable to commence farming operations there ; and being overrun with flax a commodity 

 in great demand it was believed that the convicts could secure in its growth and pre- 

 paration a very respectable sum to contribute to their support. Lieutenant King was 

 therefore sent to the 

 island with fifteen con- 

 victs, nine soldiers, a sur- 

 geon, and two free men 

 who understood flax dress- 

 ing. The settlement pros- 

 pered, and thirty - nine 

 persons more were sent 

 over a few months later. 



It was in the month 

 of March that La Perouse 

 sailed from Botany Bay.. 

 What became of him, or 

 his two well-appointed ves- 

 sels and their crews, was 

 a mystery unsolved for 

 thirty-eight years, though 

 the French sent an expe- 

 dition to search for their 

 celebrated sailor. But in 

 the year 1826 Captain 

 Peter Dillon, of the East 

 India Company's service, 



was cruising in these seas, and on the coast of Vanikoro, the most southerly island of 

 the Santa Cruz Group, he came upon unmistakable signs of shipwreck. These were the 

 remains of La Perouse's expedition, and they told its fate. In 1883 Lieutenant Benier, 

 in the Hriiat, recovered some guns, anchors, chains and other relics, and took them to 

 France, where they were deposited in the Museum of Paris. In memory of the cele- 

 brated Frenchman, a monument was erected by the people of Sydney on the north 

 shore of Botany Bay, near the last place where he is known to have touched the land. 

 Not far from the same place there was buried the French priest, M. Le Receveur, who 

 accompanied La Perouse as naturalist, and who, while prosecuting his researches, had 

 been speared by the natives of the Navigator's Islands, but had lingered on till he died 

 of his wounds, when he received a grave on Australian soil. 



The glowing prospects entertained by Governor Phillip died away very quickly when 

 the colonists settled down into stern reality after the novelty of their arrival. Famine 

 was the great danger, and a series of unlucky accidents made it doubtful for a time 

 whether the colony was to survive this initial trouble. A piece of land at Rose Hill now 

 called Parramatta, at the head of a deep salt-water reach popularly regarded as a river- 

 was placed under crop, but the prospect it afforded was not at all one of lavish 



JEAN FRANCOIS GALAUP, COMTE DE LA PEROUSE. 



