he dangers and fatigues of
the voyage were drawing to an end, but because it would no longer be a
doubt whether New Holland and New Guinea were two separate islands, or
different parts of the same.[86]

[Footnote 86: Here it may be proper to introduce a paragraph from M.
Peron's Historical Relation of a Voyage of Discovery to the Southern
Islands, as presented to the Imperial Institute in June 1806. It will
show his conception of the difficulties attendant on navigating these
parts: "In fact, it is not in voyages on the high seas, however long
they may be, that adverse circumstances or shipwrecks are so much to be
dreaded; those, on the contrary, along unknown shores and barbarous
coasts, at every instant present new difficulties to encounter, with
perpetual dangers. Those difficulties and dangers, the woeful appendage
of all expeditions begun for the purposes of geographic detail, were of
more imminent character from the nature of the coasts we had to explore;
for no country has hitherto been discovered more difficult to
reconnoitre than New Holland, and all the voyages of any extent made for
the purpose in this point, have been marked either by reverses or
infructuous attempts. For example, Paliser on the western coast was one
of the first victims of these shores; Vlaming speaks of wrecks by which
Rottnest island was covered when he landed there in 1697; and we
ourselves observed others of much more recent date. Captain Dampier,
notwithstanding his intrepidity and experience, could not preserve his
vessel from grounding when on the northwest coast of this continent, a
coast already famous for the shipwreck of Vianin; on the east,
Bougainville, menaced with destruction, was constrained to precipitate
flight; Cook escaped by a kind of miracle, the rock which pierced his
ship remaining in the breach it made, and alone preventing it from
sinking; on the south-west, Vancouver and D'Entrecasteaux were not more
fortunate in their several plans of completing its geography, and the
French admiral nearly lost both his ships. Towards the south, but a few
years have elapsed since the discovery of Bass's Straits, and already
the major part of the islands of this strait is strewed with the wrecks
of ships; very recently, and almost before our face, I may say, the
French ship Enterprize was dashed to pieces against the dangerous
islands which close its eastern opening. The relation of our voyage, and
the dangers incurred, will still