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From the accounts by Bougainville, Maurelle, D'Entrecasteaux, and the scattered notices collected by Horsburgh, it appears, that some of the many islands composing it, are high, with a bold outline; and others are very low, small and interlaced with reefs.
Bougainville, another famous Navigator, was Aide-de-Camp of Montcalm. There have been far-sounding Epics built together on less basis than lies ready here, in this CAPTURE OF QUEBEC; which itself, as the Decision that America is to be English and not French, is surely an Epoch in World-History! Montcalm was 48 when he perished; Wolfe 33.
As a Frenchman, you feel humiliated, my dear friend, at seeing an English squadron blockading in this country, with a decided superiority of frigates and ships, the Chevalier de Ternay's squadron; but console yourself, my dear marquis, the port of Brest has been blockaded for two months by an English fleet, and this is what prevents the second division from setting out under the escort of M. de Bougainville.
On the next day the party went to Caughnawaga, or Saut St. Louis, where the ceremony was repeated; and Bougainville, who again sang the war-song in the name of his commander, was requited by adoption into the clan of the Turtle. Three more oxen were solemnly devoured, and with one voice the warriors took up the hatchet.
Thus, as the Governor gave out, the English would be forced to cease from aggression, leave Montcalm in peace, and think only of defending themselves. "This," writes Bougainville on the fifteenth of June, "is what M. de Vaudreuil thinks will happen, because he never doubts anything.
"How does it happen," said John, "that you're in command?" "Our officers were all in front," replied Bougainville, "when our regiment was swept by many shells. When they ceased bursting upon us and among us the officers were no longer there. The regiment was about to break. I could not bear to see that, and seizing the sword, I hoisted my cap upon it. The rest, perhaps, you saw.
After Tasman was another wide sea- stretch to the high island of Bougainville. Thence, bearing generally south-east and making slow progress in the dead beat to windward, the Ariel dropped anchor in nearly every harbour of the Solomons, from Choiseul and Ronongo islands, to the islands of Kulambangra, Vangunu, Pavuvu, and New Georgia.
De Bougainville immediately decided for a retreat, which was executed and combined with equal justness; and the success answered exactly to the prudence, wisdom and good conduct that De Bougainville exhibited in preparing for it.
He had noble plans for a novel experiment. We started from the Cercle Bougainville in the afternoon in carriages pulled by California bronchos. The dour Llewellyn, the handsome Landers, the boastful McHenry, Lying Bill, David, the young American vanilla-shipper, Bemis, an American cocoanut-buyer, the half-castes of the orchestra, and servants, filled three roomy carryalls.
From the 3d of March till his arrival at New Britain, Bougainville constantly used Poissonier's distilling apparatus, by which, he says, above a barrel of tolerably fresh water was obtained daily. On the 2d of April, the island of Otaheite, or Taiti, as Bougainville calls it, was got sight of, and soon afterwards were discovered some of the islands in its neighbourhood.
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