The Anger Of The Frenchmen At The Treachery Of The Islanders Was
Not Less Than Their Grief At The Loss Of Their Companions.
Laperouse,
on the first impulse, was inclined to send a strongly-armed party
ashore to avenge the massacre.
But two of the officers who had escaped
pointed out that in the cove where the incident occurred the trees came
down almost to the sea, affording shelter to the natives, who would be
able to shower stones upon the party, whilst themselves remaining
beyond reach of musket balls.
"It was not without difficulty," he wrote, "that I could tear myself
away from this fatal place, and leave behind the bodies of our murdered
companions. I had lost an old friend; a man of great understanding,
judgment, and knowledge; and one of the best officers in the French
navy. His humanity had occasioned his death. Had he but allowed himself
to fire on the first natives who entered into the water to surround the
boats, he would have prevented his own death as well as those of eleven
other victims of savage ferocity. Twenty persons more were severely
wounded; and this event deprived us for the time of thirty men, and the
only two boats we had large enough to carry a sufficient number of men,
armed, to attempt a descent. These considerations determined my
subsequent conduct. The slightest loss would have compelled me to burn
one of my ships in order to man the other. If my anger had required
only the death of a few natives, I had had an opportunity after the
massacre of sinking and destroying a hundred canoes containing
upwards of five hundred persons, but I was afraid of being mistaken in
my victims, and the voice of my conscience saved their lives."
It was then that Laperouse resolved to sail to Botany Bay, of which he
had read a description in Cook's Voyages.
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