lso
discovery. I then told him, generally, what our operations had been,
particularly in the two gulphs, and the latitude to which I had ascended
in the largest; explained the situation of Port Lincoln, where fresh
water might be procured; showed him Cape Jervis, which was still in
sight; and as a proof of the refreshments to be obtained at the large
island opposite to it, pointed out the kangaroo-skin caps worn by my
boat's crew, and told him the name I had affixed to the island in
consequence. At parting the captain requested me to take care of his boat
and people in case of meeting with them; and to say to Le Naturaliste
that he should go to Port Jackson so soon as the bad weather set in. On
my asking the name of the captain of Le Naturaliste, he bethought himself
to ask mine; and finding it to be the same as the author of the chart
which he had been criticising, expressed not a little surprise, but had
the politeness to congratulate himself on meeting me.

The situation of the Investigator, when I hove to for the purpose of
speaking captain Baudin, was 35 deg. 40' south and 138 deg. 58' east. No person
was present at our conversations except Mr Brown; and they were mostly
carried on in English, which the captain spoke so as to be understood. He
gave me, besides what is related above, some information of his losses in
men, separations from his consort, and of the improper season at which he
was directed to explore this coast; as also a memorandum of some rocks he
had met with, lying two leagues from the shore, in latitude 37 deg. 1', and
he spoke of them as being very dangerous.

I have been the more particular in detailing all that passed at this
interview from a circumstance which it seems proper to explain and
discuss in this place.

At the above situation of 35 deg. 40' south and 138 deg. 58' east, the
_discoveries_ made by captain Baudin upon the South Coast have their
termination to the west; as mine in the Investigator have to the
eastward. Yet Mons. Peron, naturalist in the French expedition, has laid
a claim for his nation to the discovery of all the parts between _Western
Port_ in Bass Strait, and _Nuyts' Archipelago_; and this part of New
South Wales is called _Terre Napoleon_. My Kangaroo Island, a name which
they openly adopted in the expedition, has been converted at Paris into
_L'Isle Decres_; Spencer's Gulph is named _Golfe Bonaparte_; the Gulph of
St. Vincent, _Golfe Josephine_; and so on along the