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