The French Navigator Remained In
The Harbour From February 23 To March 10 (1788), On Excellent Terms With
Phillip; And
Then, sailing away to pursue his discoveries, "vanished
trackless into blue immensity, and only some mournful mysterious shadow
of him
Hovered long in all heads and hearts." His remark to Captain King,
"Mr. Cook has done so much that he has left me nothing to do but admire
his work," indicated the generous candour of his disposition. His fate
after he sailed from Sydney remained a mystery for forty years, Flinders,
on his voyage inside the Barrier Reef in 1802, kept a lookout for
wreckage that might afford a key to the problem. He wrote: "The French
navigator La Perouse, whose unfortunate situation, if in existence, was
always present to my mind, had been wrecked, as it was thought, somewhere
in the neighbourhood of New Caledonia; and if so the remnants of his
ships were likely to be brought upon this coast by the trade winds, and
might indicate the situation of the reef or island which had proved so
fatal to him. With such an indication, I was led to believe in the
possibility of finding the place; and though the hope of restoring La
Perouse or any of his companions to their country and friends could not,
after so many years, be rationally entertained, yet to gain some
knowledge of their fate would do away with the pain of suspense, and it
might not be too late to retrieve some documents of their discoveries.*
(* Flinders, Voyage 2 48.) The vigilance of Flinders to this end
indicates the fascination which the mysterious fate of the French mariner
had for seamen, until doubts were finally set at rest in 1827, when one
of the East India Company's ships, under Captain Dillon, found at
Manicolo, in the New Hebrides, traces of the wreckage of the vessels of
La Perouse.
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