PARTING OF WALLIS AND OBEREA.
On his way to Tinian he discovered several islands, one of which the officers did their commander the honor of calling Wallis' Island. At Tinian they found every article mentioned by Lord Anson, though it required no little time and labor to noose a bullock or bag a banana. When they left, each man had laid in five hundred limes. On the passage to Batavia, and thence to Table Bay, the sick-list was very large, and several men were lost by disease and accident. At the Cape, the crew were attacked by the small-pox, and a pest-tent was erected upon a spacious plain. The infection was not fatal in any instance. The Dolphin anchored in the Downs on the 20th of May, 1768. Wallis was enabled to communicate a paper to the Royal Society in time for that body to give to Lieutenant Cook, then preparing for his first voyage, more complete instructions by which to govern his movements.
We must now return to the Swallow, commanded by Philip Carteret, and, as far as the Strait of Magellan, the consort of the Dolphin. A storm, as we have said, separated them; and, while Wallis sailed to the northwest, Carteret was driven due north. He was surprised to find Juan Fernandez fortified by the Spanish, and did not think it prudent to attempt a landing. Sailing now due west, he discovered an island to which he gave the name of Pitcairn, in honor of the young man who first saw it. This island we shall have occasion to mention more particularly hereafter, as it became the scene of the romantic adventures of the mutineers of the Bounty. The vessel had now become crazy, and leaked constantly. The sails were worn, and split with every breeze. The men were attacked by the scurvy; and Carteret began to fear that he should get neither ship nor crew in safety back to England.
At last, on the 12th of August, land was discovered at daybreak, which proved to be a cluster of islands, of which Carteret counted seven. Ignorant that Mendana had discovered them in 1595, nearly two centuries previously, and had given them the name of Santa Cruz, Carteret took possession of them, naming them Queen Charlotte's Islands and giving a distinctive appellation to each member of the archipelago. Cocoanuts, bananas, hogs, and poultry were seen in abundance as they sailed along the shore; but every attempt to land ended in bloodshed and repulse. They now steered to the northwest, and, on the 26th of August, saw New Britain and St. George's Bay, discovered and named by Dampier. Anchoring temporarily, and again wishing to weigh anchor, Carteret found, to his dismay, that the united strength of the whole ship's company was insufficient to perform the labor. They spent thirty-six hours in fruitless attempts, but, having recruited their strength by sleep, finally succeeded. They had neither the strength to chase turtle nor the address to hook fish. Cocoanut-milk gradually revived the men, who also received benefit from a fruit resembling a plum.
The wind not allowing Carteret to follow Dampier's track around New Britain, the idea struck him that St. George's Bay might in reality be a channel dividing the island in twain. This the event proved to be correct. On his way through, he noticed three remarkable hills, which he called the Mother and Daughters, the Mother being the middlemost and largest. Leaving the southern portion of the island in possession of its old name, New Britain, he called the northern portion New Ireland. On leaving the channel, the vessel was in such a state that no time or labor could be any longer devoted to science or geography: the essential point was to reach some European settlement. Carteret discovered numerous islands and groups, and, after touching at Mindanao, arrived at Macassar, on the island of Celebes, in March, 1768. He had buried thirteen of his men, and thirty more were at the point of death: all the officers were ill, and Carteret and his lieutenant almost unfit for duty. The Dutch refused him permission to land, and Carteret determined to run the ship ashore and fight for the necessaries of life, to which their situation entitled them, and which they must either obtain or perish. A boat, bearing several persons in authority, put out to them, and commanded them to leave at once, at the same time giving them two sheep and some fowls and fruit. Carteret showed them the corpse of a man who had died that morning, and whose life would probably have been saved had provisions been at once afforded him. This somewhat shocked them; and they inquired very particularly whether he had been among the Spice Islands, and, upon receiving a negative reply, which they appeared to believe, directed him to proceed to a bay not far distant, where he would find shelter from the monsoon and provisions in abundance. He proceeded, therefore, to Bonthain, where he altered his reckoning, having lost about eighteen hours in coming by the west, while the vessels that had come by the east had gained about six. He stayed here two months, with difficulty obtaining natives to replace the many seamen he had lost. On the passage from Bonthain to Batavia, the ship leaked so fast that the pumps, which were kept constantly at work, were hardly able to keep her free. He arrived at Batavia on the 2d of June. Here the Dutch authorities again placed every obstacle in his way; and it was the last week in July before he could heave down the ship for repairs. These being completed, he set sail for England.
On the 30th of January, 1769, he touched at Ascension, where it was the custom, as the island was uninhabited, for every ship to leave a letter in a bottle, with the date, name, destination, &c. With this custom Carteret of course complied. Three weeks afterwards, he was overhauled by a ship bearing French colors and sailing in the same direction as himself. Carteret was very much surprised to hear the French captain call him and his ship by name: he was still more surprised to hear that the Dolphin had already returned to England, and had reported his—Carteret's—probable loss in Magellan's Strait. "How did you learn the name of my ship?" shouted Carteret through his trumpet. "From the bottle at Ascension," was the reply. "And how did you hear of the opinion formed in England of our fate?" "From the French gazette at the Cape of Good Hope." "And who may you be, pray?" "A French East Indiaman, Captain Bougainville." The vessel was La Boudeuse, whose voyage round the world we shall narrate in the following chapter. The Swallow anchored at Spithead on Saturday, the 20th of March, having been absent three years wanting two days. No navigator had yet done so much with resources so insufficient: Carteret's discoveries were of the highest interest in a geographical point of view. He was a worthy predecessor of Cook; and his achievements with a crazy ship and a disabled crew prepared the public mind for the researches which his already distinguished successor would be enabled to make with the carefully equipped expedition which had lately started under his command.
A harrowing incident which occurred at sea about this time produced a painful sensation throughout Europe. The French man-of-war Le Prince, being on her way from Lorient to Pondicherry by way of Cape Horn, was discovered to be on fire. Smoke was noticed ascending almost imperceptibly from one of the hatchways. The usual measures were promptly taken, eighty marines being placed on duty with loaded muskets to enforce obedience from the crew. The pumps and buckets were totally inadequate to master the now raging flames; while the fresh water, set running from the casks, was of equally little service. The yawl, by the captain's orders, had been lowered: seven men seized it and rowed rapidly away. Of the other boats, two were burned, and one was swamped as it touched the water. The consternation now became general; and the despairing shrieks of the dying, mingled with the cries of the affrighted animals on board, rendered the scene one of terrible confusion. The chaplain went about, granting a general absolution, and extending the remission of their sins even to those who, to avoid death by fire, committed suicide by leaping into the sea. There were six women on board, two of them the cousins of the captain. They were lowered into the water upon hen-coops, the captain bidding them an eternal farewell, as it was his duty and his determination to perish with the ship.
