ages." Cook
himself was annoyed by the decorating of his story, and resented the
treatment strongly.

Laperouse knew this, and was very anxious that nobody in France should
Hawkesworthify him. He did not object to being carefully edited, but he
did not want to be decorated. He wrote excellent French narrative
prose, and his work may be read with delight. Its qualities of clarity,
picturesqueness and smoothness, are quite in accord with the fine
traditions of the language. But, as it was likely that part of the
history of his voyage might be published before his return, he did not
want it to be handed over to anybody who would trick it out in
finery, and he therefore wrote the following letter:

"If my journal be published before my return, let the editing of it by
no means be entrusted to a man of letters; for either he will sacrifice
to the turn of a phrase the proper terms which the seaman and man of
learning would prefer, but which to him will appear harsh and
barbarous; or, rejecting all the nautical and astronomical details, and
endeavouring to make a pleasing romance, he will for want of the
knowledge his education has not allowed him to acquire, commit mistakes
which may prove fatal to those who shall follow me. But choose an
editor versed in the mathematical sciences, who is capable of
calculating and comparing my data with those of other investigators, of
rectifying errors which may have escaped me, and of guarding himself
against the commission of others. Such an editor will preserve the
substance of the work; will omit nothing that is essential; will give
technical details the harsh and rude, but concise style of a seaman;
and will well perform his task in supplying my place and publishing the
work as I would have done it myself."

That letter is a rather singular effect of Laperouse's study of Cook,
which might be illustrated by further examples. The influence of the
great English sailor is the more remarkable when we remember that there
had been early French navigators to the South Seas before Laperouse.
There was the elder Bougainville, the discoverer of the Navigator
Islands; there was Marion-Dufresne, who was killed and eaten by Maoris
in 1772; there was Surville--to mention only three. Laperouse knew of
them, and mentioned them. But they had little to teach him. In short
and in truth, he belonged to the school of Cook, and that is an
excellent reason why English and especially Australian people shoul