Laperouse Part 4

The BOUSSOLE and the ASTROLABE sailed from Botany Bay on March 10, 1788. After recording that fact we might well inscribe the pathetic last words of Hamlet, "the rest is silence."

We know what Laperouse intended to do. He wrote two letters to friends in France, explaining the programme to be followed after sailing from Botany Bay. They do not agree in every particular, but we may take the last letter written to express his final determination. According to this, his plan was to sail north, pa.s.sing between Papua ( New Guinea) and Australia by another channel than Endeavour Strait, if he could find one. During September and October he intended to visit the Gulf of Carpentaria, and thence sail down the west and along the south of Australia, to Tasmania, "but in such a manner that it may be possible for me to stretch northward in time to arrive at Ile-de-France in the beginning of December, 1788." That was the programme which he was not destined to complete--hardly, indeed, to enter upon. Had he succeeded, his name would have been inscribed amongst the memorable company of the world's great maritime explorers. As it is, the glint on his brow, as he stands in the light of history, is less that of achievement than of high promise, n.o.ble aims, romance and mystery.

One of the letters sent from Sydney concluded with these words: "Adieu!

I shall depart in good health, as are all my ship's company. We would undertake six voyages round the world if it could afford to our country either profit or pleasure." They were not the last words he wrote, but we may appropriately take them as being, not merely his adieu to a friend, but to the world.

Time sped on; the date given for the arrival at Ile-de-France was pa.s.sed; the year 1789 dawned and ticked off the tally of its days. But nothing was heard of Laperouse. People in France grew anxious, one especially we may be sure--she who knew so well where the ships would anchor in Port Louis if they emerged out of the ocean brume, and who longed so ardently that renewed acquaintance with scenes once sweetly familiar would awaken memories meet to give wings to speed and spurs to delay. Not a word came to sustain or cheer, and the faint flush of hope faded to the wan hue of despair on the cheek of love. By 1791 all expectation of seeing the expedition return was abandoned. But could not some news of its fate be ascertained? Had it faded out of being like a summer cloud, leaving not a trace behind? Might not some inkling be had, some small relics obtained, some whisper caught, in those distant isles,

"Where the sea egg flames on the coral, and the long-backed breakers croon Their endless ocean legend to the lazy, locked lagoon."

France was then in the throes of her great social earthquake; but it stands to the credit of the National a.s.sembly that, amidst many turbulent projects and boiling pa.s.sions, they found time and had the disposition to cause the fitting out of a new expedition to search for tidings of those whose disappearance weighed heavily on the heart of the nation. The decree was pa.s.sed on February 9, 1791.

Two ships, the RECHERCHE and the ESPERANCE, were selected and placed under the command of Dentrecasteaux. He had already had some experience in a part of the region to be searched, had been a governor of Ile-de-France, and during a South Sea voyage had named the cl.u.s.ter of islands east of Papua now called the D'Entrecasteaux Group. The second ship was placed under the command of Captain Huon Kermadec. The Huon River in Tasmania, and the Kermadec Islands, N.E. of New Zealand, are named after him.

Fleurieu again drew up the instructions, and based them largely upon the letter from Laperouse quoted above, pointing out that remains of him would most probably be found in the neighbourhood of coasts which he had intended to explore. It was especially indicated that there was, south of New Holland, an immense stretch of coastline so far utterly unknown. "No navigator has penetrated in that part of the sea; the reconnaissances and discoveries of the Dutch, the English and the French commenced at the south of Van Diemen's Land."

Thus, for the second time, was a French navigator directed to explore the southern coasts of Australia; and had Dentrecasteaux followed the plan laid down for him he would have forestalled the discoveries of Grant, Ba.s.s and Flinders, just as Laperouse would have done had his work not been cut short by disaster.

It has to be remembered that the instructions impressed upon Dentrecasteaux that his business primarily was not geographical discovery, but to get news of his lost compatriots. But even so, is it not curious that the French should have been concerned with the exploration of Southern Australia before the English thought about it; that they should have had two shots at the task, planned with knowledge and care, officially directed, and in charge of eminently competent navigators; but that nevertheless their schemes should have gone awry?

They made a third attempt by means of Baudin's expedition, during the Napoleonic Consulate, and again were unsuccessful, except in a very small measure. It almost seems as if some power behind human endeavours had intended these coasts for British finding--and keeping.

The full story of Dentrecasteaux' expedition has not yet been told. Two thick books were written about it, but a ma.s.s of unpublished papers contain details that were judiciously kept out of those volumes.

When the whole truth is made known, it will be seen that the bitter strife which plunged France in an agony of blood and tears was not confined to the land.

The ships did not visit Sydney. Why not? It might have been expected that an expedition sent to discover traces of Laperouse would have been careful to make Botany Bay in the first instance, and, after collecting whatever evidence was available there, would have carefully followed the route that he had proposed to pursue. But it would seem that an European settlement was avoided. Why? The unpublished papers may furnish an answer to that question.

Neither was the south coast of Australia explored. That great chance was missed. Some excellent charting--which ten years later commanded the cordial admiration of Flinders--was done by Beautemps-Beaupre, who was Dentrecasteaux' cartographer, especially round about the S.W.

corner of the continent. Esperance Bay, in Western Australia, is named after one of the ships of this expedition. But from that corner, his ships being short of fresh water, Dentrecasteaux sailed on a direct line to Southern Tasmania, and thence to New Zealand, New Caledonia, and New Guinea. Touch with the only European centre in these parts was--apparently with deliberation--not obtained.

Dentrecasteaux died while his ships were in the waters to the north of New Guinea. He fell violently ill, raving at first, then subsiding into unconsciousness, a death terrible to read about in the published narrative, where the full extent of his troubles is not revealed. Kermadec, commander of the ESPERANCE, also died at New Caledonia. After their decease the ships returned to France as rapidly as they could. 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 pa.s.sage 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 s.e.x amidst one hundred men. Madame de Freycinet, the wife of the commandant, joined at Toulon, dressed as a ship's boy, and it was given out in the newspapers that her husband was very much surprised when he found that his wife had managed to get aboard in disguise. But Arago, one of the scientific staff, tells us in his Memoirs, published in 1837, that--as we can well believe--Freycinet knew perfectly who the "young and pretty" boy was, and had connived at her joining the ship as a lad, because she wanted to accompany her husband, and the authorities would have prevented her had they known. She continued to wear her boy's dress until after the ships visited Gibraltar, for Arago informs us that the solemn British Lieutenant-Governor there, when he saw her, broke into a smile, "the first perhaps that his features had worn for ten years." If that be true, the little lady surely did a little good by her saucy escapade. But official society regarded the lady in trousers with a frigid stare, so that henceforth she deemed it discreet to resume feminine garments. It does not appear that she pa.s.sed for a boy when the expedition visited Sydney, and of course no hint of Madame's presence is given in the official history of the voyage.

We now reach the stage when the veil was lifted and the mystery explained. In 1813 the East India Company's ship HUNTER, voyaging from Calcutta to Sydney, called at the Fiji Islands. They discovered that several Europeans were living on one of the group. Some had been shipwrecked; some had deserted from vessels; but they had become accustomed to the life and preferred it. The HUNTER employed a party of them to collect sandal wood and beche-de-mer, one of her junior officers, Peter Dillon, being in charge. A quarrel with natives occurred, and all the Europeans were murdered, except Dillon, a Prussian named Martin Bushart, and a seaman, William Wilson. After the affray Bushart would certainly have been slain had he remained, so he induced the captain of the HUNTER to give him a pa.s.sage to the first land reached. Accordingly Bushart, a Fiji woman who was his wife, and a Lascar companion, were landed on Barwell Island, or Tucopia.

Thirteen years later Peter Dillon was sailing in command of his own ship, the ST. PATRICK, from Valparaiso to Pondicherry, when he sighted Tucopia. Curiosity prompted him to stop to enquire whether his old friend Martin Bushart was still alive. He hove to, and shortly after two canoes put off from the land, bringing Bushart and the Lascar, both in excellent health.

Now, Dillon observed that the Lascar sold an old silver sword guard to one of the ST. PATRICK'S crew in return for a few fish hooks. This made him inquisitive. He asked the Prussian where it came from. Bushart informed him that when he first arrived at the island he saw in possession of the natives, not only this sword guard, but also several chain plates, iron bolts, axes, the handle of a silver fork, some knives, tea cups, beads, bottles, a silver spoon bearing a crest and monogram, and a sword. He asked where these articles were obtained, and the natives told him that they got them from the Mannicolo (or Vanikoro) cl.u.s.ter of islands, two days' canoe voyage from Tucopia, in the Santa Cruz group.

"Upon examining the sword minutely" wrote Dillon, "I discovered, or thought I discovered, the initials of Perouse stamped on it, which excited my suspicion and made me more exact in my inquiries. I then, by means of Bushart and the Lascar, questioned some of the islanders respecting the way in which their neighbours procured the silver and iron articles. They told me that the natives of Mannicolo stated that many years ago two large ships arrived at their islands; one anch.o.r.ed at the island of Whanoo, and the other at the island of Paiou, a little distance from each other. Some time after they anch.o.r.ed, and before they had any communication with the natives, a heavy gale arose and both vessels were driven ash.o.r.e. The ship that was anch.o.r.ed off Whanoo grounded upon the rocks.

"The natives came in crowds to the seaside, armed with clubs, spears, and bows and arrows, and shot some arrows into the ship, and the crew in return fired the guns and some musketry on them and killed several.

The vessel, continuing to beat violently against the rocks, shortly afterwards went to pieces. Some of the crew took to their boats, and were driven on sh.o.r.e, where they were to a man murdered on landing by the infuriated natives. Others threw themselves into the sea; but if they reached the sh.o.r.e it was only to share the fate of their wretched comrades, so that not a single soul escaped out of this vessel."

The ship wrecked on Paiou, according to the natives' story, was driven on a sandy beach. Some arrows were fired into her, but the crew did not fire. They were restrained, and held up beads, axes, and toys, making a demonstration of friendliness. As soon as the wind abated, an old chief came aboard the wrecked ship, where he was received in friendly fashion, and, going ash.o.r.e, pacified his people. The crew of the vessel, compelled to abandon her, carried the greater part of their stores ash.o.r.e, where they built a small boat from the remains of the wreck. As soon as this craft was ready to sail, as many as could conveniently be taken embarked and sailed away. They were never heard of again. The remainder of the crew remained on the island until they died.

Such was the information collected by Captain Peter Dillon in 1826. He took away with him the sword guard, but regretted to learn that the silver spoon had been beaten into wire by Bushart for making rings and ornaments for female islanders.

When he reached Calcutta, Dillon wrote an account of his discovery in a letter to the government of Bengal, and suggested that he should be sent in command of an expedition to search the Vanikoro cl.u.s.ter in the hope of finding some old survivor of Laperouse's unhappy company, or at all events further remains of the ships. He had prevailed upon Martin Bushart to accompany him to India, and hoped, through this man's knowledge of the native tongue, to elicit all that was to be known.

The Government of British India became interested in Dillon's discovery, and resolved to send him in command of a ship to search for further information. At the end of 1826 he sailed in the RESEARCH, and in September of the following year came within sight of the high-peaked island Tucopia. The enquiries made on this voyage fully confirmed and completed the story, and left no room for doubt that the ships of Laperouse had been wrecked and his whole company ma.s.sacred or drowned on or near Vanikoro. Many natives still living remembered the arrival of the French. Some of them related that they thought those who came on the big ships to be not men but spirits; and such a grotesque bit of description as was given of the peaks of c.o.c.ked hats exactly expressed the way in which the appearance of the strangers would be likely to appeal to the native imagination:--"There was a projection from their foreheads or noses a foot long."

Furthermore, Dillon's officers were able to purchase from the islands such relics as an old sword blade, a rusted razor, a silver sauce-boat with fleur-de-lis upon it, a bra.s.s mortar, a few small bells, a silver sword-handle bearing a cypher, apparently a "P" with a crown, part of a blacksmith's vice, the crown of a small anchor, and many other articles. An examination of natives brought out a few further details, as for example, a description of the chief of the strangers, "who used always to be looking at the stars and the sun and beckoning to them," which is how a native would be likely to regard a man making astronomical observations. Dillon, in short had solved the forty years'

mystery. The Pacific had revealed her long-held secret.

It happened that a new French expedition in the ASTROLABE, under the command of Dumont-D'Urville, was in the southern hemisphere at this time. While he lay at Hobart on his way to New Zealand, the captain heard of Dillon's discoveries, and, at once changing his plans, sailed for the Santa Cruz Islands. He arrived there in February, 1828, and made some valuable finds to supplement those of the English captain. At the bottom of the sea, in perfectly clear water, he saw lying, encrusted with coral, some remains of anchors, chains, guns, bullets, and other objects which had clearly belonged to the ships of Laperouse.

One of his artists made a drawing of them on the spot. They were recovered, and, together with Dillon's collection, are now exhibited in a pyramid at the Marine Museum at the Louvre in Paris, in memory of the ill-fated commander and crew who perished, martyrs in the great cause of discovery, a century and a quarter ago.

It is interesting to note that descendants of Captain Dillon are residents of Sydney to this day.

Chapter X.

THE FAME OF LAPEROUSE.

Intellectually, and as a navigator, Laperouse was a son of James Cook, and he himself would have rejoiced to be so described. The allusions to his predecessor in his writings are to be numbered by scores, and the note of reverent admiration is frequently sounded. He followed Cook's guidance in the management of his ships, paying particular attention to the diet of his crews. He did not succeed in keeping scurvy at bay altogether, but when the disease made its appearance he met it promptly by securing fresh vegetable food for the sufferers, and was so far successful that when he arrived in Botany Bay his whole company was in good health.

The influence of the example and experience of Cook may be ill.u.s.trated in many ways, some of them curious. We may take a point as to which he really had little to fear; but he knew what had occurred in Cook's case and he was anxious that the same should not happen to him. The published story of Cook's first South Sea Voyage, as is well known, was not his own. His journal was handed over to Dr. Hawkesworth, a gentleman who tried to model his literary style on that of Dr. Johnson, and evolved a pompous, big-drum product in consequence. Hawkesworth garnished the manly, straightforward navigator's simple and direct English with embellishments of his own. Where Cook was plain Hawkesworth was ornate; where Cook was sensible Hawkesworth was silly; where Cook was accurate, Hawkesworth by stuffing in his own precious observations made the narrative unreliable, and even ridiculous. In fact, the gingerbread Johnson simply spoiled Cook.

Dr. Johnson was by no means gratified by the ponderous prancings of his imitator. We learn from Boswell that when the great man met Captain Cook at a dinner given by the President of the Royal Society, he said that he "was much pleased with the conscientious accuracy of that celebrated circ.u.mnavigator, who set me right as to many of the exaggerated accounts given by Dr. Hawkesworth of his voyages." Cook himself was annoyed by the decorating of his story, and resented the treatment strongly.

Laperouse knew this, and was very anxious that n.o.body in France should Hawkesworthify him. He did not object to being carefully edited, but he did not want to be decorated. He wrote excellent French narrative prose, and his work may be read with delight. Its qualities of clarity, picturesqueness and smoothness, are quite in accord with the fine traditions of the language. But, as it was likely that part of the history of his voyage might be published before his return, he did not want it to be handed over to anybody who would trick it out in finery, and he therefore wrote the following letter:

"If my journal be published before my return, let the editing of it by no means be entrusted to a man of letters; for either he will sacrifice to the turn of a phrase the proper terms which the seaman and man of learning would prefer, but which to him will appear harsh and barbarous; or, rejecting all the nautical and astronomical details, and endeavouring to make a pleasing romance, he will for want of the knowledge his education has not allowed him to acquire, commit mistakes which may prove fatal to those who shall follow me. But choose an editor versed in the mathematical sciences, who is capable of calculating and comparing my data with those of other investigators, of rectifying errors which may have escaped me, and of guarding himself against the commission of others. Such an editor will preserve the substance of the work; will omit nothing that is essential; will give technical details the harsh and rude, but concise style of a seaman; and will well perform his task in supplying my place and publishing the work as I would have done it myself."