In consequence of this information, the commander of a vessel which sailed from Toulon, in April, 1826, on a voyage of discovery, received orders to make researches in the quarter specified, in order to restore to their country any of the shipwrecked crew who might yet remain in existence. Other intelligence, relative to the wreck of two large vessels, on two different islands of the New Hebrides, was obtained by Captain Dillon, the commander of an English vessel at Tucopia, in his passage from Valparaiso to Pondicherry, in May, 1826, in consequence of which he was sent back to ascertain the truth of the matter. The facts discovered by him on this mission, were, that the two ships struck on a reef at Mallicolo; one of them immediately went down, and all on board perished; some of the crew of the other escaped, part of whom were murdered by the savages; the remainder built a small vessel and set sail, but their fate is not known. It is not certain that these were the vessels of La Perouse.
GEORGE VANCOUVER.
George Vancouver, born about the year 1750, accompanied captain
Cook in his second voyage round the world, and, on his return, went out
with him in the Discovery, to the north pole, and arrived again in England
in 1780. In the latter end of the last mentioned year, he was appointed a
lieutenant of the ship Fame, part of lord Rodney's fleet, then on its way to
the West Indies, where he remained till 1789, being employed, during the
last six years, on the Jamaica station, in the sloop Europa. On his arrival
in England, in 1790, he was made master and commander of the Discovery;
in which ship he was sent out to ascertain if there existed in North America,
between the thirtieth and sixtieth degrees of latitude, an interior sea,
or any canals of communication between the known gulfs of the Atlantic
and the Great Sea; a point about which Cook and other navigators had
been able to give no satisfactory information.
On the 17th of August, 1791, he reached the southern coast of New Holland, where he discovered King George the Third's Sound; and, after leaving Dusky Bay, in New Zealand, ascertained the situation of some dangerous rocks and an inhabited island, giving to the former the name of the Snares, and to the latter that of Oparo. On the 24th of January, 1792, he set sail from Otaheite; and in the following March, arrived at Owhyhee, where he was visited by the chiefs of the island. He then proceeded along the north coast of New Albion to De Fuca's Straits, Nootka, and Monterey Bay. Here he passed some days, and having received an important communication from the Spanish commandant relative to the cession of Monterey, he forwarded a despatch to England, by captain Broughton, in the ship Dædalus, together with his journal of discoveries up to that time.
In February, 1793, he sailed to the Sandwich Islands, where he endeavored to establish peace between the different chiefs, and compelled them to execute two islanders, whom he discovered to have been the murderers of lieutenant Hergest and other seamen of the Dædalus. In April, he sailed along the American shore as far as Cape Decision; and, after coasting along the western side of Queen Charlotte's Islands to Nootka, proceeded to the Spanish settlements of New California, and discovered, to the south of Monterey, a double chain of mountains, and that the one nearest the sea was the least in height. In January, 1794, in which year he was made
