520 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



mischance would now compel him to disarm one frigate in order 

 to refit the other. It was late in January, 1788, that he arrived 

 at Botany Bay, in New Holland, — the last place in which he 

 was ever seen, alive or dead. 



His last letter to the Minister of Marine was dated at Botany 

 Bay, the 7th of February. In this he stated the route by 

 which he intended to return home, and the dates of his antici- 

 pated arrivals at various points. His plan was to visit the 

 Friendly Islands, New Guinea, and Van Diemen's Land, and to 

 he at the Isle of France, near Madagascar, at the beginning of 

 December. His letter arrived in due course at Paris, where the 

 public mind was too much agitated by the throes of revolution 

 to pay much heed to matters of such remote interest. At last, 

 in the year 1791, the Society of Natural History called the 

 attention of the Constituent Assembly to the fate of Lape'rouse 

 and his companions. The hope of recovering at least some 

 wreck of an expedition undertaken to promote the sciences 

 induced the Assembly to send two other ships to Botany Bay, 

 with orders to steer the same course from that place that 

 Lape'rouse had traced out for himself. Some of his followers, 

 it was thought, might have escaped from the wreck, and might 

 loe confined on a desert island or thrown upon some savage 

 €oast. Two ships were therefore fitted out, and placed under 

 the command of Rear-Admiral d'Entrecasteaux. 



The ships returned in two years, without having obtained the 

 slightest clue to the fate of Lape'rouse : their commander had 

 died of scurvy at Java. At the Friendly Islands, the first 

 landing that Laperouse was to make after leaving Botany Bay, 

 the inhabitants, who remembered Cook perfectly, and who knew 

 the difference between French and English, declared that La- 

 pe'rouse had not visited them. As they were the most civilized 

 and hospitable of all the Pacific islanders, it was thought im- 

 probable that he had ever sailed as far as the very first station 

 of his route, — an opinion which was confirmed by finding no 



