518 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



letter, sending immense quantities of fresh beef, eggs, milk, 

 vegetables, and poultry on board, and then declining to hand in 

 the bill. On the 24th, every thing being in readiness, the ves- 

 sels started upon their route across the Pacific, the intention of 

 Laperouse being to make for Macao, on the Chinese coast. He 

 hoped on his way to make many discoveries of islands upon this 

 unknown sea, — the Spaniards, in their single beaten track from 

 Acapulco to Manilla, never varying more than thirty miles to 

 the north or south of their usual and average latitude. He also 

 hoped not to find, in the longitude marked against it, a very 

 doubtful island named Nostra Senora de la Gorta, that he might 

 erase it from the charts. This he was unable to do, for the 

 winds did not allow him to pass within a hundred miles of its 

 supposed position. When half-way across the Pacific, he dis- 

 covered a naked, barren rock, to which he gave the name of 

 Necker, after the French Minister of Finance. He arrived 

 at Macao on the 3d of January, 1787, after a voyage entirely 

 free from incident or adventure. He spent three months here 

 and at Manilla, and finally, on the 10th of April, started for 

 the scene of the most important portion of his mission, — the 

 coasts of Tartary and of Japan, — the waters which separate the 

 mainland of the former from the islands of the latter being 

 very imperfectly known to Europeans. 



Early in June, Laperouse entered a sea never before ploughed 

 by a European keel ; and, as it was only known from Japanese 

 or Corean charts, published by the Jesuits, it was his first object 

 either to verify their surveys or to correct their errors. As 

 the Jesuits travelled and made their calculations by land, La- 

 perouse added hydrographic details and observations to their data, 

 which he found quite generally correct. His voyage in these 

 latitudes set many doubts at rest. After several months spent 

 in these labors, the expedition arrived at Petropaulowski in 

 September of the same year. The officers were grievously 

 disappointed in not finding letters and despatches from France, 



