THE MYSTERY, AND THE SECRET OF THE SEA.
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, passing 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, noble 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
passed; 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 Assembly that, amidst many
turbulent projects and boiling passions, 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 passed 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 cluster 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, Bass 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 mass 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 passage
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!