So little was the Russian title recognized for some time, that, when
the unfortunate expedition of La Pérouse, with the frigates Boussole
and Astrolabe, stopped on this coast in 1786, he did not hesitate
to consider the friendly harbor, in latitude 58° 36´, where he was
moored, as open to permanent occupation. Describing this harbor,
which he named Port des Français, as sheltered behind a breakwater of
rocks, with a calm sea and a mouth sufficiently large, he announces
that Nature seemed to have created at the extremity of America a port
like that of Toulon, but vaster in plan and accommodations; and then,
considering that it had never been discovered before, that it was
situated thirty-three leagues northwest of Los Remedios, the limit of
Spanish navigation, about two hundred and twenty-four leagues from
Nootka, and a hundred leagues from Prince William Sound, the mariner
records his judgment, that, “if the French Government had any project
of a factory on this part of the coast of America, no nation could
pretend to have the slightest right to oppose it.”[4] Thus quietly
was Russia dislodged. The frigates sailed further on their voyage,
and never returned to France. Their fate was unknown, until, after
fruitless search and the lapse of a generation, some relics from them
were accidentally found on an obscure island of the Southern Pacific.
The unfinished journal of La Pérouse, recording his visit to this
coast, had been sent overland, by way of Kamtchatka and Siberia, to
France, where it was published by a decree of the National Assembly,
thus making known his supposed discovery and his aspiration.