fleet, and from his knowledge of French there happened an episode which is a matter not only of Australian, but of European, interest.

While the first fleet were lying at anchor in Botany Bay, two strange sail were seen in the offing.  That official historian, Tench, of the marines, in a little touch of descriptive ability, which he sometimes displayed, described the incident:—­

“The thoughts of removal” (in search of a better site for a settlement) “banished sleep, so that I rose at the first dawn of the morning.  But judge of my surprise on hearing from a sergeant, who ran down almost breathlessly to the cabin where I was dressing, that a ship was seen off the harbour’s mouth.  At first I only laughed, but knowing the man who spoke to me to be of great veracity, and hearing him repeat his information, I flew upon deck; and I had barely set my foot, when the cry of ’Another sail!’ struck on my astonished ear.  Confounded by a thousand ideas which arose in my mind in an instant, I sprang upon the baracado, and plainly descried two ships of considerable size standing in for the mouth of the bay.  By this time the alarm had become general, and everyone appeared in conjecture.  Now they were Dutchmen sent to dispossess us, and the moment after storeships from England with supplies for the settlement.  The improbabilities which attended both these conclusions were sunk in the agitation of the moment.  It was by Governor Phillip that this mystery was at length unravelled, and the cause of the alarm pronounced to be two French ships, which, it was recollected, were on a voyage of discovery in the Southern Hemisphere.  Thus were our doubts cleared up, and our apprehensions banished.”

[Illustration:  GOVERNOR KING.  From a heliotype published in “The Historical Records of New South Wales” [Sydney, 1889, etc.], after a portrait in the possession of the Hon. P.G.  King. To face p. 138.]

The two ships were the Boussole and the Astrolabe, the French expedition under the illstarred La Perouse.  Phillip was at Port Jackson selecting a site for the settlement, and the English ships, before the Frenchmen had swung to their anchors, were on their way round to the new harbour.  But certain courtesies were exchanged between the representatives of the two nations, and King was the officer employed to transact business with them.  La Perouse gave him despatches to send home by the returning transports.  These letters and the words spoken to and recorded by King ("In short, Mr. Cook has done so much that he has left me nothing to do but admire his work”) were the last the world heard from the unfortunate officer, whose fate from that hour till forty years later remained a mystery of the sea.

Norfolk Island was discovered by Cook in October, 1774, and in his one day’s stay there he noted its pine-trees and its flax plant.  The people at home thought that the flax and the timber of New Zealand might be used for naval purposes, and as Cook’s report said that Norfolk Island contained similar products, the colonization of the island as an adjunct to the New South Wales settlements no doubt suggested itself.  Phillip was therefore ordered to “send a small establishment thither to secure the same to us and prevent its occupation by any other European power.”