That gorgeous Dauphin map had its places marked in a sort of Frenchified Portuguese, as if a Dieppe cartographer had not got hold of the right words, or had, for a purpose, disguised them. Thereon, however, we read "coste dangerouse" about the spot where Cook was afterwards wrecked, as well as Baie des Plantes on the site of our Botany Bay.
The Gazette Nationale writer notes that the Dauphin map, marked with the Arms of France, was discovered, by chance, in the house of a private person, and asks if the news of it could have reached the Dutch, and so got known to a few English before its real presence in London about 1767, it not being there in 1766.
Referring to the Librarian, Solander, the French critic of 1807 adds: "That the denomination of Baie des Plantes, which he had read upon the Map confided to him, might be a fresh stimulus in the hope of botanizing on this unknown coast, since the memory of it no longer existed, and particularly in a place designated by a name so attractive to him."
It is curious that Cook gave Solander's name to the south point of the bay, "as if," says the French writer, "he were pleased to compliment his botanical friend, on perceiving at length this land, the object of his desires, where since it was already named the Bay of Plants, he must have hoped to reap an ample harvest."
Yet the secret, if so, was well kept till after the voyage of the Endeavour, since then only did the name of Botany Bay appear in Dr. Hawkesworth's work. In all Cook's old Logs we see merely Stingray or Skeat Bay, and similarly in all the Logs or journals of the chief officers and the petty officers.
Or, had Dr. Hawkesworth, Cook, Banks and Solander meanwhile made acquaintance with the appellation of Baie des Plantes and appropriated it for history? This theory would account for the various alterations of Botany on Corner's Log.
THE TAKING POSSESSION OF THE TERRITORY.
The variations upon this subject are very remarkable.
Without noting what is contained in the so-called "Official History" of the "Voyage in the Endeavour," it must be allowed that reported Logs of Cook, now in the possession of the Sovereign and the Admiralty, give the general statement that Possession of the Territory was taken by Cook, after leaving the eastern side of New Holland, in the usual form, in the name of the King, as New South Wales. By that name Dr. Hawkesworth publicly acknowledges the country in his work; and by that name it has since been known. It is so seen in the Admiralty Log, though Corner calls it New Wales.