368 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



He founds a 

 colony in 

 the Falk- 

 lands, 1763. 



Byron's 

 voyage, 

 1764-1766. 



Wallis's 

 voyage, 

 1766-1768. 



and nothing is impossible to her efforts, as often as she 

 will think herself equal at least to any nation in the world." 



Bougainville's offer was accepted. He chose for his 

 colonists " several Acadian families, a laborious intelligent 

 set of people, who ought to be dear to France on account 

 of the inviolable attachment they have shown, as honest 

 but unfortunate citizens " ; and with them he founded the 

 first French colony in the South. In the middle of the 

 fort he erected a small obelisk. " The King's effigy," 

 he wrote, " adorned one of its sides, and under its founda- 

 tions we buried some coins, together with a medal, on one 

 side of which was graved the date of the undertaking, 

 and on the other the figure of the King, with the words 

 ' Tibi serviat ultima Thule.' ' 



But the British Government also was thinking about 

 " ultima Thule." The Falklands, it was explained, had 

 been discovered by Englishmen in the days of Elizabeth, 

 and the claim was good though old. So in 1764 it sent 

 Byron with instructions to take possession, and then to 

 proceed on a voyage of discovery in the Pacific. Byron 

 came to the Falklands in January 1765, " touched to the 

 Westward of our settlement," says Bougainville, " and 

 took possession of these islands for the Crown of England, 

 without leaving a single inhabitant there ! " Then Byron, 

 promising his sailors double pay for a big and dangerous 

 venture, sailed through the straits in weather " dreadful 

 beyond all description." Taking a West-North- West 

 course he came to the Northern end of the Society Islands, 

 but missed Tahiti. Thence he sailed North-West for 

 the Ladrones. He discovered a few small islands, but, 

 writes Besant, " like Magellan, he seemed to avoid dis- 

 covering the archipelagos between which he passed by 

 a kind of miracle." He came home in 1766. 



His ship, the Dolphin, was sent out again in the same year 

 under Wallis. With her sailed the Swallow under Carteret, 

 who in vain pointed to the fact that the ship was rotten. 

 They also took the route through the straits, and spent 

 four months in passing them ! The Swallow sailed so 

 badly, that Wallis in the Dolphin got far ahead, and never 



