32 PHILLIFS COMMISSION. 1787 Alarm on board Uie Fleet. Southern coast open to French explorers. Tench, for instance^ in the lively account he gives of the unexpected appearance of the strangers, says : — "By this time the alarm had become general, and everyone appeared lost in conjecture. Now they were Dutchmen sent to dispossess us, and the moment after, store-ships from England, with supplies for the settlement. The improbabilities which at- tended 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 now recollected, were on a voyage of discovery in the southern hemisphere. Thus were our doubts cleared up and our apprehensions banished."^ It seems to have been forgotten that, if the French Go- vernment had intended at that time to take possession of any part of the east coast of New Holland, there was nothing to prevent La Perouse from exploring to the south- ward of Point Hicks, and hoisting the French flag at any place he pleased in that direction. The country of which Captain Cook took possession on the 21st August, 1770, extended from latitude 38° — Point Hicks — ^to latitude lOJ south ; but although the territory claimed in Phillip's Com- mission covered the whole of the coastline from Cape York to the South Cape, and all the country inland westward as far as the 135th degree of east longtitude, it was still open to the French to claim, by virtue of prior discovery, any
- Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay, p. 50. — The latest reference
to French deaions appeared in an article publiBhed in the London Olobe newspaper on uie 26th January, 1888, on the occasion of the New South Wales Centenary, in which the writer said : — **It is not generally realised that a matter of no more than three days prevented New South Wales from becoming French instead of British territory, and very possibly from remain* ing BO to this hour — ^to the exceeding simplification of the question of reci- divists and Noumton 4vad4s, It was a race to Botany Bay between Ci^tain Phillip, riding for England, and de La Pdrouse, nding for France ; and Captom Phillip's fleet beat the Boussole and the Astrolabe by just three days. De la Pdrouse arrived to find the first English Qovemor m posses- aion ; submitted to the inevitable with national courtesy ; and sailed off — to be lost on a coral reef, and to have his fate wrapned in mystery for forty years. The birth of New South Wales, as a colony, took place there- fore under more than ordinary romantic circumstances. . . The whole past history of Anstralasiay in the largest sense, has hung upon that accident." Digitized by Google
