They were detained by the Dutch at Sourabaya for several
months, as prisoners of war, and did not reach Europe till March, 1796.
Their mission had been abortive.
Five French Captains who brought expeditions to Australia at this
period all ended in misfortune. Laperouse was drowned; de Langle was
murdered; Dentrecasteaux died miserably at sea; Kermadec, the fourth,
had expired shortly before; and Baudin, the fifth, died at Port Louis
on the homeward voyage.
Nor is even that the last touch of melancholy to the tale of tragedy.
There was a young poet who was touched by the fate of Laperouse. Andre
Chenier is now recognised as one of the finest masters of song who have
enriched French literature, and his poems are more and more studied and
admired both by his own countrymen and abroad. He planned and partly
finished a long poem, "L'Amerique," which contains a mournful passage
about the mystery of the sea which had not then been solved. A
translation of the lines will not be attempted here; they are mentioned
because the poet himself had an end as tragic, though in a
different mode, as that of the hero of whom he sang. He came under the
displeasure of the tyrants of the Red Terror through his friends and
his writings, and in March, 1794, the guillotine took this brilliant
young genius as a victim.
J'accuserai les vents et cette mer jalouse
Qui retient, qui peut-etre a ravi Laperouse
so the poem begins. How strangely the shadow of Tragedy hangs over this
ill-starred expedition; Louis XVI the projector, Laperouse and de
Langle the commanders, Dentrecasteaux and Kermadec the searchers, Andre
Chenier the laureate: the breath of the black-robed Fury was upon them
all!
Chapter IX.
CAPTAIN DILLON'S DISCOVERY.
The navigators of all nations were fascinated by the mystery attaching
to the fate of Laperouse. Every ship that sailed the Pacific hoped to
obtain tidings or remains. From time to time rumours arose of the
discovery of relics. One reported the sight of wreckage; another that
islanders had been seen dressed in French uniforms; another that a
cross of St. Louis had been found. But the element of probability in
the various stories evaporated on investigation. Flinders, sailing
north from Port Jackson in the INVESTIGATOR in 1802, kept a sharp
lookout on the Barrier Reef, the possibility of finding some trace
being "always present to my mind." But no definite news came.
A new French voyage of exploration came down to the Pacific in 1817,
under the command of Louis de Freycinet, who had been a lieutenant in
Baudin's expedition in 1800-4. The purpose was not chiefly to look for
evidence concerning Laperouse, though naturally a keen scrutiny was
maintained with this object in view.
An extremely queer fact may be mentioned in connection with this
voyage. The URANIE carried a woman among the crew, the only one of her
sex amidst one hundred men.
