pjcemiau Ludovico X V Galliarum
' “ ' reg ey et d. * de Boy fies
regi a Secretis ad res
tnaritimas annis 1772 et
J7 7 3 *
From this infcription, it is clear, that we were not the firil
Europeans who had been in this harbour. I fuppofed it to
be left by Monfieur de Boifguehenneu, who went on ihore
in a boat on the 13th of February 1772, the fame day that
Monfieur de Kerguelen difcovered this land ; as appears by
a Note in the French Chart o f the Southern Hemifphere,
publiihed the following year f.
As
* The / d) , no doubt is a contraâion o f the word Domino. The French Secre-
tary o f the Marine was then Monfieur de Boynes.
f On perufing this paragraph o f die Journal, it will be natural to afk, How could
Monfieur de Boifguehenneu, in the beginning of 1772, leave an infcription, which,
upon the very face of it, commemorates a tranfa&ion o f the following year ? .Captain
Cook’s manner o f exprefling,himfelf here, ftrongly marks, that, he made this fuppofi-
tion, only for want o f information to enable him to make any other. He had no
idea that the French had vifited this land a fécond time ; and, reduced to the necelfity
o f trying to accommodate what he faw himfelf, to what little he ha'd heard o f their
proceedings, he confounds a tranfa&ion which we, who have been better inflruited
know, for a certainty, belongs-to the fécond Voyage, with a fimilar one, which his
Chart of the Southern Hemifphere has recorded, and which happened in a different
year, and at a different place.
T h e bay, indeed, in which Monfieur de Boifguehenneu landed, is upon the Weft
fide of this land, -confiderabjy to the South of Cape Louis, and not far from another
more Southerly promontory, called Cape Bourbon ; a part o f the coaft which our ihips
were not upon. Its fituation is marked upon our Chart ; and a particular view o f the
bay du Lion Marin (for fo Boifguehenneu called it), with the foundings, is preferved
by Kerguelen.
But if the bottle and infcription found by Captain Cook’s people, were not left here
by Boifguehenneu, by whom and when were they left ? This we learn mofl fatif-
faGlorily, from the accounts of Kerguelen’s fécond Voyage, as publiihed by himfelf and ‘
Monfieur de Pages, which prefent us. with the following particulars : That they arrived
on the Weft fid,e of this land on the 14th of December 1773 5 that, fleering to the
North
As a memorial of our having been in this harbour, I '¿fo*.
wrote on the other fide of the parchment, . j
North Ea-ft, they difcovered, on the 16th, the I p de Reunion, and the other fmall
¡¡lands as mentioned'above; that, on the 17 th, they had before them the principal
land (which they’were fare was connected with that feen by them on the 14th),
and a high point of that land, named by them Cape François; that beyond this
Cape, the coaft topic a South Eaiterly direéiion, and behind it they found a bay, called
by them Baie de l'Oifeau, from the name of their frigate ; that they then endeavoured
to enter it, but were prevented by contrary winds and blowing weather, which drove -
them off the coaft Eaftward ; but that, at laft, on the 6th of January, Monfieur de Roi-
nevet, Captain of the Oifeau, was able to fend his boat on ihore into this bay, under the
command of Monfieur de Rochegude, one of his officers, who took pojfepon o f that hay,
and o f a ll the country, in the name o f the King o f France, with all the requifite formalities.”
Here then we trace, by the moft unexceptionable evidence, the hiftory o f the bottle
and inicription ; the leaving of which was, no doubt, one of the requifite formalities
ohferved by Monfieur de Rochegude on this occafion. And though he did not land till
the 6th of January 1774, yet, as Kerguelen’s ihips arrived upon the coaft on the 14th
o f December 1773, and had difcovered and looked into this very bay on the 17th of
o f that month, it was with the ftrifteft propriety and truth that 1773, and not 1774,
was mentioned as the date of the difcovcry.
W e need only look at Kerguelen’s and Cook’s Charts, to judge that the Baie de
TOifeau, and the harbour where the French infcription was. found, is one and the
fame place. But befides this agreement as to.the general pofition, the'fame conclu-
fion refults more decifively ftill, from another circumftance. worth mentioning; The
French, as well as the Engliih vifiters of this bay and harbour, have given us a particular
Plan of it ; and whoever compares ours, publiihed in this Volume, with
that to be met with in Kerguelen’s and de Pagés’s Voyages, muft be ft ruck with a
refemblance that could only be produced by copying one common original with fidelity.
Nay, even the foundings are the fame upon the fame.fpots in both Plans
being forty-five fathoms between the two Capes, before the entrance of the bay ; fixteen
fathoms farther in, where the fhores. begin to contraâ ; and eight fathoms up, near the
bottom of the harbour.
T o thefe particulars, which throw abundant light on this part of our Author’s
Journal, I ihall only add, that the diftance of our harbour from that where Boifguehenneu'landed
in 177-4, is forty leagues'. -For this we. have the authority o f Kerguelen,
in the following paffage. : “ Monfieur de Boifguehenneu defcendit le 13 de
“ Février 1772, dans un baie,- qu’il nomme. Baie du Lion Marin, & prit poffeffion
“ t,fc cette “ rre au nom de Roi ; il n’y vit aucune trace d’habitants. Monfieur de
Rochegude,. en 1774, a defcehdu dans .un autre baie, que nous avons nommé
t( Baie de l ’Oifeau, & cette -fécondé rade eft à quarantes lieues de -la premiere.
Il eh -a également pris pbfîèffion, êc il n’y trouva également aucune trace d’habitants.”
Kerguelen, p. 92.
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