18 A NATURALIST IN TASMANIA ch. 



Phillip in 1788. On the very day that Sydney 

 was founded the ill-fated La Perouse sailed into 

 Port Jackson, only to find the English already 

 in occupation ; he seems subsequently to have 

 gone in search of a more southern port, and 

 a bottle containing his dispatches was picked up 

 years later in Adventure Bay ; but neither he 

 nor any of his crew were ever seen again. 



The English were established in New South 

 Wales, but the French still entertained the hope 

 of starting a rival settlement, and their attention 

 was especially directed to Van Diemen's Land, 

 or the southernmost extension of the mainland, 

 as every one then thought. Admiral Bruny 

 D'Entrecasteaux was sent out by the National 

 Assembly in 1791 ; ostensibly to look for La 

 Perouse ; but he evidently had instructions to 

 search diligently for a port in the southern Aus- 

 tralian waters, and his discovery and the beautiful 

 survey which he made of the Derwent Estuary, 

 and the complicated coast-line in the neighbour- 

 hood, were kept strictly secret until the French 

 had given up all hope of gaining a footing on 

 Van Diemen's Land. For we find in 1794 Lieu- 

 tenant John Hayes, in the service of the English 

 East India Company, repeating the French Ad- 

 miral's discovery and survey of the Derwent, 

 and it was Hayes's less accurate chart that Flinders 

 and the early English settlers used. D'Entre- 

 casteaux's explorations were chronicled by the 

 naturalist to the expedition, La Billardiere, who 



