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He sent for a man whose name the Australian reader should particularly note, because he had much to do with three important discovery voyages affecting our history. Charles Claret, Comte de Fleurieu, was the principal geographer in France. He was at this time director of ports and arsenals.
Over and over again in the instructions prepared several times on a page in some places appear references to what Cook had done, and to what Cook had left to be done; showing that both King Louis and Fleurieu knew his voyages and charts, not merely as casual readers, but intimately.
It was so like highwaymen to wish to be arrested! In addition to these representations, Peron was accorded an interview with the Minister of Marine, Decres, when, supported by Fleurieu and other members of the Institute, he explained what the expedition had done, and exhibited specimens of his collections and of Lesueur's drawings.
Looking out of the hall of the marshals, he demanded of M. de Fleurieu, governor of the palace, why the top of the arch of triumph on the Carrousel was covered with a cloth; and his Majesty was told that it was because all the arrangements had not yet been made for placing his statue in the chariot to which were attached the Corinthian horses, and also because the two Victories who were to guide the four horses were not yet completed.
As a French writer an expert in this field of knowledge has written of Fleurieu, "he it was who prepared nearly all the plans for naval operations during the war of 1778, and the instructions for the voyages of discovery those of Laperouse and Dentrecasteaux for which Louis XVI had given general directions; and to whose wise and well-informed advice is due in large part the utility derived from them."
This current is commonly attributed to that tendency towards the east, which the straits of Gibraltar give to the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. M. de Fleurieu observes that the Mediterranean, losing by evaporation more water than the rivers can supply, causes a movement in the neighbouring ocean, and that the influence of the straits is felt at the distance of six hundred leagues.
A passage in a letter from Laperouse to Fleurieu is worth quoting for two reasons.
It would be impossible to imagine a more isolated position, quite out of the way of all maritime or commercial traffic, although Spencer Island was relatively, not very far off, and situated practically in American waters. But thereabouts the regular currents diverging to the north and south have formed a kind of lake of calms, which is sometimes known as the "Whirlpool of Fleurieu."
This island to which Quiros gave the name of Sagittaria, is, according to Fleurieu, Tahiti, one of the principal of the group of Society Islands. On the succeeding days Quiros sighted several other islands, upon which he did not land, and to which he gave names taken from the Calendar, according to a practice which has changed all the native nomenclature of Oceania into a veritable litany.
It was chiefly because of Fleurieu's knowledge of geography that the King chose him to be the tutor of the Dauphin; and in 1790 he became Minister of Marine. Louis XVI and Fleurieu talked the subject over together; and the latter, at the King's command, drew up a long memorandum indicating the parts of the globe where an expedition of discovery might most profitably apply itself.
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