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Quoy and Gaimard, who had been on board the Uranie, and as surgeon Primevère Lesson. The Coquille, the excellent qualities of which were well known to D'Urville, was the vessel selected; and the commander having named her the Astrolabe in memory of La Pérouse, embarked in her a crew of twenty-four men.
Sir Robert Shore Milnes having ruled, or having been ruled, for a period of six years, set sail for England, on the 5th of August, in H.M.S. Uranie, leaving Mr. Dunn, the Senior Executive Councillor of Canada, to administer the government. Lower Canada, however politically insignificant, with only some £47,000 of revenue, was yet gradually rising into something like commercial importance.
This would be to leave the sailors with nothing to do, and this enforced idleness would open the door to disorder and insubordination. Would it not be better to build a small vessel out of the wreckage of the Uranie?
Captain Galvin engaged to convey to Rio the wrecked persons, their papers, collections, and instruments, as well as all the cargo saved out of the Uranie that could be got on board. Freycinet and his people were during the passage to subsist entirely on the provisions set apart for them. That the captain was to receive the sum of 97,740 francs within ten days of their arrival at Rio.
The stay of the Uranie at the Isle of France had not, however, been sufficiently long to allow Freycinet to investigate many subjects of much interest, but this omission was remedied by the polite readiness shown by some of the leading residents in supplying him with valuable papers on the agriculture of the island, its commerce, its financial position, the industrial pursuits, and the social condition of the people, the correct appreciation of which demanded a more careful and minute examination than a mere passing traveller could possibly give to them.
After a fortunate voyage of forty days, the Uranie cast anchor at the entrance of the Bay of Sharks on the 12th September. A party was at once despatched to Dirk Hartog, in order to determine the latitude and longitude of Cape Levaillant, and to bring on board the corvette a certain metal plate which had been left there by the Dutch at a remote period, and had been seen by Freycinet in 1801.
Domingan refugees, whose story of adventures she says was very wonderful, but with good artistic judgement omits them. The travelers found, of course, a charmante cordialité at the home of M. Agricole Fuselier , and saw a little girl of five who afterward became a great beauty Uranie Fuselier. They passed another Indian village, where Françoise persuaded them not to stop.
It was also an interesting fact for geographers that the existence of a southern bay, separated from Offak by a very narrow isthmus, was established. Two officers, MM. d'Urville and de Blossville, were employed in this work, which MM. Berard, Lottin, and de Blois de la Calande connected with that accomplished by Duperrey on the coast during the cruise of the Uranie.
In view of these facts the French travellers must be congratulated on having escaped being entrapped by the savage cannibals, which would undoubtedly have been attempted had the Uranie stayed long enough at Ombay. On the 17th of November the anchor was let go at Dili.
The Falkland Isles were reached, and Duperrey with a few of his fellow-travellers felt a lively pleasure at revisiting the land which had been to them a place of refuge for three months after their shipwreck in the Uranie. They paid a visit to the spot where the camp had been pitched.
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