The speculations of Laperouse concerning the origin of these peoples, are interesting, and deserve consideration by those who speak and write upon the South Seas.  He was convinced that they are all derived from an ancient common stock, and that the race of woolly-haired men to be found in the interior of Formosa were the far-off parents of the natives of the Philippines, Papua, New Britain, the New Hebrides, the Friendly Islands, the Carolines, Ladrones, and Sandwich Groups.  He believed that in those islands the interior of which did not afford complete shelter the original inhabitants were conquered by Malays, after which aboriginals and invaders mingled together, producing modifications of the original types.  But in Papua, the Solomons and the New Hebrides, the Malays made little impression.  He accounted for differences in appearance amongst the people of the islands he visited by the different degrees of Malay intermixture, and believed that the very black people found on some islands, “whose complexion still remains a few shades deeper than that of certain families in the same islands” were to be accounted for by certain families making it “a point of honour not to contaminate their blood.”  The theory is at all events striking.  We have a “White Australia policy” on the mainland to-day; this speculation assumes a kind of “Black Australasia policy” on the part of certain families of islanders from time immemorial.

The Friendly Islands were reached in December, but the commander had few and unimportant relations with them.  On the 13th January, 1788, the ships made for Norfolk Island, and came to anchor opposite the place where Cook was believed to have landed.  The sea was running high at the time, breaking violently on the rocky shores of the north east.  The naturalists desired to land to collect specimens, but the heavy breakers prevented them.  The commander permitted them to coast along the shore in boats for about half a league but then recalled them.

“Had it been possible to land, there was no way of getting into the interior part of the island but by ascending for thirty or forty yards the rapid stream of some torrents, which had formed gullies.  Beyond these natural barriers the island was covered with pines and carpeted with the most beautiful verdure.  It is probable that we should then have met with some culinary vegetables, and this hope increased our desire of visiting a land where Captain Cook had landed with the greatest facility.  He, it is true, was here in fine weather, that had continued for several days; whilst we had been sailing in such heavy seas that for eight day, our ports had been shut and our dead-lights in.  From the ship I watched the motions of the boats with my glass; and seeing, as night approached, that they had found no convenient place for landing, I made the signal to recall them, and soon after gave orders for getting under way.  Perhaps I should have lost much time had I waited for a more favourable opportunity:  and the exploring of this island was not worth such a sacrifice.”