nt 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."

A separate command like this had to be entrusted to a reliable man, and
Phillip, though no doubt loth to lose the close-at-hand service of King,
yet felt the importance of the work, and so chose him for it. King left
for the island on February 15th, 1788, in the _Supply_, taking with him
James Cunningham, master's mate; Thomas Jamison, surgeon's mate; Roger
Morley, a volunteer adventurer, who