Every Australian Reader
Will Like Him The Better For That.
Not many months before his own life
ended in tragedy and mystery, he visited the island where the great
English sailor was slain.
When he reflected on the achievements of that
wonderful career, he sat down in his cabin and wrote in his Journal the
passage of which the following is a translation. It is given here out
of its chronological order, but we are dealing with the influences that
made Laperouse what he was, and we can see from these sincere and
feeling words, what Cook meant to him:
"Full of admiration and of respect as I am for the memory of that great
man, he will always be in my eyes the first of navigators. It is he who
has determined the precise position of these islands, who has explored
their shores, who has made known the manners, customs and religion of
the inhabitants, and who has paid with his blood for all the light
which we have to-day concerning these peoples. I would call him the
Christopher Columbus of these countries, of the coast of Alaska, and of
nearly all the isles of the South Seas. Chance might enable the most
ignorant man to discover islands, but it belongs only to great men like
him to leave nothing more to be done regarding the coasts they have
found. Navigators, philosophers, physicians, all find in his Voyages
interesting and useful things which were the object of his concern.
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