so, it is only
necessary for me to refer to the instructions which preface the published
voyage of the unfortunate La Perouse, by the judicious Fleurieu. Your
Excellency will there see, that the much lamented navigator was ordered
to make particular observations upon the trade, manufactures, strength,
situation, etc. of every port where he might touch; so that, if the
example of your own nation be taken as a standard of propriety, the plea
for making me a prisoner is altogether untenable. Upon the supposition
even of its being war, and that I knew it and still intended to make the
observations expressed in my journal; upon this incorrect and worst
supposition I have, I think, an example of similar conduct in your own
nation; unless you can assure me that the captains Baudin and Hamelin
made no such remarks upon Port Jackson, for it was a declared war at the
time they lay in that port. But were they forbidden to make such remarks
and notes upon the state of that English colony? Upon its progress, its
strength, the possibility of its being attacked with advantage, and the
utility it might afford to the French nation? I tell you, general De
Caen, No. The governor in chief at Port Jackson knew too well the dignity
of his own nation, either to lay any prohibition upon these commanders,
or to demand to see what their journals might contain.

I shall next appeal to you as being the representative in this place of a
great nation, which has hitherto shown itself forward to protect and
encourage those sciences by which the knowledge of mankind is extended or
their condition ameliorated. Understand then, Sir, that I was chosen by
that patron of science sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society
of London, and one well known by all the literati throughout the world,
to retrace part of the track of the immortal captain Cook--to complete
what in New Holland and its neighbourhood he had left unfinished--and to
perfect the discovery of that extensive country. This employment, Sir, as
it was congenial to my own inclinations, so I pursued it with avidity;
upon it, as from a convex lens, all the rays of knowledge and science
which my opportunities have enabled me to collect, were thrown. I was
unfortunate in that my ship decayed before the voyage was completed; but
the captain-general at Port Jackson, who is also the senior naval officer
there, was so sensible of the importance of the voyage and of the zeal
with which I had pursued i