We proceeded up for two days, examining every cove or other place which we found capable of receiving ships; the country was also particularly noticed, and found greatly superior in every respect to that round Botany-bay.  The governor, being satisfied with the eligibility of this situation, determined to fix his residence here, and returned immediately to the ships.

On the 25th, we received the time-keeper from the Supply, which I am sorry to say, had been let down while on board her, during the passage from the Cape of Good Hope; and the same day, the governor sailed in the Supply, with a detachment of marines, to the new harbour, which Captain Cook had observed as he sailed along the coast, and named Port Jackson; he did not enter it, and therefore was uncertain of there being a safe harbour here:  it has the appearance from sea of being only an open bay.

The convoy was again left to my care, the masters of the ships having had previous orders from Captain Phillip to prepare for sea.  On the 26th, I made the signal for the transports to get under way.  We perceived this morning two large ships in the offing, standing in for the bay, under French colours:  these ships had been observed two days before, but the wind blowing fresh from north-west, they were not able to get in with the land.  I sent a boat with an officer to assist them in, and about an hour after, a breeze sprung up from the south-east, and they were safely anchored in the bay.  I then got under way, and with the transports worked out of the bay, and the same evening anchored the whole convoy in Port Jackson.

The two strangers proved to be the Bussole and Astrolabe, which sailed from Brest in June, 1785, upon discoveries, and were commanded by Mons. de la Perouse; Mons. de L’Angle, who commanded one of the ships when they left France, had been lately, when the ships were at the Islands of Navigators, murdered, with several other officers and seamen, by the natives; who had, before that unfortunate day, always appeared to be upon the most friendly and familiar terms with them.  This accident, we understood, happened when their launches were on shore filling water, on the last day which they intended remaining at those islands:  during the time they were employed in filling their water-casks, having the most perfect confidence in the friendly disposition of the natives, the sailors had been inattentive to the keeping the boats afloat; some misunderstanding having happened between some of the seamen and the natives, an insult had been offered by one or other, which was resented by the opposite party; a quarrel ensued, and the impossibility of moving the boats, exposed the officers and crews to the rage of the multitude, who attacked them with clubs and showers of stones, and would inevitably have massacred the whole, if there had not been a small boat at hand, which picked up those, who depending on their swimming, had quitted the shore.