d
have an especial regard for him.

The disastrous end of Laperouse's expedition before he had completed
his task prevented him from adequately realising his possibilities as a
discoverer. As pointed out in the preceding pages, if he had completed
his voyage, he would in all probability have found the southern coasts
of Australia in 1788. But the work that he actually did is not without
importance; and he unquestionably possessed the true spirit of the
explorer. When he entered upon this phase of his career he was a
thoroughly experienced seaman. He was widely read in voyaging
literature, intellectually well endowed, alert-minded, eager,
courageous, and vigorous. The French nation has had no greater sailor
than Laperouse.

De Lesseps, the companion of his voyage as far as Kamchatka, has left a
brief but striking characterisation of him. "He was," says this
witness, "an accomplished gentleman, perfectly urbane and full of wit,
and possessed of those charming manners which pertained to the
eighteenth century. He was always agreeable in his relations with
subordinates and officers alike." The same writer tells us that
when Louis XVI gave him the command of the expedition he had the
reputation of being the ablest seaman in the French navy.

Certainly he was no common man to whose memory stands that tall
monument at Botany Bay. It was erected at the cost of the French
Government by the Baron de Bougainville, in 1825, and serves not only
as a reminder of a fine character and a full, rich and manly life, but
of a series of historical events that are of capital consequence in the
exploration and occupation of Australia.

It will be appropriate to conclude this brief biography with a tribute
to the French navigator from the pen of an English poet. Thomas
Campbell is best remembered by such vigorous poems as "Ye Mariners of
England," and "The Battle of the Baltic," which express a tense and
elevated British patriotism. All the more impressive for that very
reason is his elegy in honour of a sailor of another nation, whose
merits as a man and whose charm as a writer Campbell had recognised
from his boyhood. The following are his.

LINES WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF LAPEROUSE'S "VOYAGES"

Loved Voyager! whose pages had a zest
More sweet than fiction to my wondering breast,
When, rapt in fancy, many a boyish day
I tracked his wanderings o'er the watery way,
Roamed round the Aleutian isles in waking dreams,
Or plu