CHAPTER XII.
The Departure of the French from Botany Bay; and the Return of the 'Supply' from Norfolk Island; with a Discovery made by Lieutenant Ball on his Passage to it.
About the middle of the month our good friends the French departed from Botany Bay, in prosecution of their voyage.

During their stay in that port, the officers of the two nations had frequent opportunities of testifying their mutual regard by visits, and every interchange of friendship and esteem.

These ships sailed from France, by order of the King, on the 1st of August, 1785, under the command of Monsieur De Perrouse, an officer whose eminent qualifications, we had reason to think, entitle him to fill the highest stations.

In England, particularly, he ought long to be remembered with admiration and gratitude, for the humanity which marked his conduct, when ordered to destroy our settlement at Hudson's Bay, in the last war.

His second in command was the Chevalier Clonard, an officer also of distinguished merit.
In the course of the voyage these ships had been so unfortunate as to lose a boat, with many men and officers in her, off the west of California; and afterwards met with an accident still more to be regretted, at an island in the Pacific Ocean, discovered by Monsieur Bougainville, in the latitude of 14 deg 19 min south, longitude 173 deg 3 min 20 sec east of Paris.