WESTALL AND BAUER

In the National Library of Australia News (February 2007) I outlined the way in which the then Royal

Colonial Institute acquired the bulk of the drawings made by William Westall A.R. A. (1781 – 1850)

during the voyage around Australia of the “Investigator”, captained by Matthew Flinders (1801 – 1803).

These drawings are now owned by the National Library of Australia and have been reproduced

comprehensively in “Westall’s Drawings” published by the Royal Commonweath Society in 1962.

A few further pictures relating to Australia by or attributed to William Westall have appeared since then

and now 19 pencil drawings of trees by this artist drawn between 1801 and 1806 have surfaced. They

were acquired by the Natural History Museum from a descendant of the artist and consist of sketches of

trees in Australia, China, India and Jamaica. When the voyage around Australia was completed in 1803

Westall travelled to China and India before returning to England in 1805. He then went to Madeira and

Jamaica before returning home.

William Westall’s drawings of trees have recently occasioned comment. Prof. Michael Rosenthal, in

a lecture given to the National Maritime Museum in 2005 remarked, commenting on Westall’s drawing

“Hawkesbury River No 3” (1802): “The drawing is immediately interesting in appearing to

cope easily with representing completely unfamiliar terrain and as unfamiliar trees”. Rosenthal also

referred to ”the ease with which Westall has drawn eucalyptus.”

This is only the most recent observation regarding Westall’s botanical work. Rex Reinits In “Early

Artists in Australia” found “two botanical sketches of remarkable fidelity, one of a gum-tree and the

other of a banksias. Westall’s trees were to become quite a feature of his work in Australia.”

Dr Bernard Smith in an essay within “Westall’s Drawings” stated that “Westall (made) drawings of the

eucalyptus, grass tree, palm, pandanus, hoop pine, banksias (etc) in their natural settings. They were

made, not as botanical records, but as working drawings for larger compositions”. Smith also drew

attention to the fact that Westall became “increasingly concerned with the delineation of the peculiarities

of the Australian vegetation, an interest which led to individual tree studies.”

Bernard Smith noted the suggestion by Johann Lhotsky (1795 – 1866) made in W.J. Hooker’s “London

Journal of Botany” in 1843 that the engravings of Westall’s pictures in Flinders’ “Voyage to Terra

Australis” (1814) inclined him to think Ferdinand Bauer (1760 – 1820) assisted Westall “for I know no

book where plants and groups of foreign trees…are portrayed with such surpassing beauty and truth”

Ferdinand Bauer, the botanical artist assigned to the “Investigator” voyage, was a superb artist and it is

doubtless reasonable to conjecture that the older man gave tuition to young Westall. Thomas Perry in the

introduction to “Westall’s Drawings” suggested that Westall “perhaps with Ferdinand Bauer by his

side” showed him how to portray “accurately the form and foliage of the vegetation”. However the 19

drawings which have now surfaced depicting trees drawn by Westall, many when Bauer was far distant

show the mistakenness of Lhotsky’s opinion and underline effectively the fact that Westall did not

need Bauer to assist him. Indeed, the authenticity of Westall’s work is confirmed by no less than four

founder members of the Linnaen Society, Aylmer Lambert, Jonas Dryander, Richard Salisbury and

William Maton who recommended William Westall in June 1805 to become a member of that Society,

to which he was duly elected in December of that year. One thing is now certain, if it was not before:

Elisabeth’s Findlay’s view in her most interesting and beautifully illustrated book “Arcadian Quest:

William Westall’s Australian Sketches” (NLA, Canberra 1998) that “Westall did not have the

temperement for the painstaking and relentless work involved in scientific drawing” is groundless.

The nineteen sketches by William Westall are in the process of conservation and cataloguing but below

is a tentative listing (those in bold can be viewed). Original numbering has been retained.

1. Calabash Tree. Jamaica? India?

2. Tamarisk Tree. India - can be seen on The Art Fund internet site

3. Castor Oil Tree. India?

4. Palm. Fan Palm? Australia?

5. Tall Tree. China/India?

6. Palm. Similar to”Westall’s Drawings” 120.

7. Tree with leguminous climber. Jamaica

8. Palm Australia?

9. Pimiento. Jamaica

10 Not known not Australia

11 Possibly Australian tree with smaller drawings of fruit

There are no drawings 12 – 15

16 Asiatic tree – possibly lychee type fruit with the word “sour”

17 Asiatic tree – not known

18 Bamboo. China.

19 Fan Palm. Australia. Sketches of detail similar to “Westall’s Drawings” 121

20 Palm. Australia with sketches of detail

21 Logwood. Jamaica with sketches of detail

22 Cotton Tree. Jamaica

23 Palm - Australia

There is also a drawing in the author’s possession similar to 18 Bamboo China, signed WW. The two

sketches are the basis of Westall’s fine painting “The Hong Kong Merchants Garden” which was shown

at the Royal Academy in 1814 as “View in a mandarin’s garden” and at the British Institution (1843)

with the same title. There is both an oil and a water colour version of this picture – the latter once

owned by a renowned gardener Mr Loddiges of Hackney. In the manuscript by Robert Westall for the

obituary of his father Robert described the Chinese view with its “feathery bamboo and the ariel palm.”

(the word ariel was changed to lofty in the published article).

It is important to note that in “Westall’s Drawings” Thomas Perry notes with relation to three drawings

Nos 120, 121 and 122 that they “do not show sufficient botanical detail to permit positive identification.

None of them appears to be an Australian species and it is possible that these three drawings were made

during Westall’s visit to the West Indies.” However the tentative view at the Natural History Museum’s

Botany Library that 6 and 19 above are of Australian trees.

Together with the Westall drawings at the Natural History Museum are six or seven drawings by

Ferdinand Bauer. There is uncertainty about one, a Tree Fern because it is thought that it may be a

Westall drawing. The other five are of Norfolk Island which Bauer visited in 1804. The landscapes of

Norfolk Island have something of Westall’s influence in them and if Westall had not been in Asia at the

time one might be forgiven for attributing them to him.

Five of the drawings have been fully catalogued. Two were reproduced by R. Nobbs in “Norfolk Island

& its first settlements 1778 – 1814” (N. Sydney NSW). They were also reproduced by David Moore in

“London Archives of Natural History 25” (1998). This includes some rough preliminary sketches on the

reverse of one drawing. There is one other drawing of Norfolk Island not catalogued. The illustration

used here (not depicted in Nobbs’s book) is catalogued as “Grove of tree ferns with shallow valley

beyond and (left) stumps”.

Evidence of the long term relationship between Bauer and Westall is to be found in

Bauer’s great work “Flora Graeca”, a series of 10 volumes published between 1810 and 1840. In “The

Flora Graeca Story. Sibthorp, Bauer and Hawkins in the Levant” (OUP 1998) Walter Lack writes that

“Bauer’s work stopped after the seventh title page; the remaining three were probably all executed by

William Westall, perhaps drawn by Imrie and not Bauer” Niniam Imrie, who died in 1820 was a

Captain in the Royals.The coloured engraving in Volume 9 (published 1837) entitled “Physcus” gives

W.Westall as the artist while those in Volumes 8 and 10 give no such information although attribution to

Westall would seem reasonable. Westall did quite a number of tasks for publishers bringing illustrations

by amateur artists up to the required standard for publication. This engraving is in the Radcliffe Science

Museum, Oxford. In “Flora Graeca”the text suggests the view of Physcus (Marmaris) was probably

sketched by Imrie during a stop on their way from Istanbul to Cyprus, and later William Westall seems

to have used it for a coloured drawing, now lost”

Walter Lack establishes in his book that Bauer and Westall discovered together the caniverous plant

Cephalotus follicularis Labill (Cephalotaceae) at King George’s Sound, Western Australia on New

Year’s Day 1802 and it is clear Westall adopted Bauer’s colour coding, used to recall the colours of

botanical specimens, in his tree illustrations.

The overall experience of viewing the 19 drawings by William Westall in the collection at the Natural

History Museum, together with a number of delicately drawn detailed insets, is that most probably

Ferdinand Bauer and William Westall had a profound influence on each other during the voyage of the

“Investigator”, Bauer taking the role perhaps of “paternal guide” to balance Matthew Flinders’s more

authoritative orders and that Robert Brown, the ship’s naturalist with Bauer instilled a respect for botany

and scientific depiction that benefited Westall’s work in Australia and elsewhere. Westall’s main

botanical work was with trees; his trees are always accurate and well drawn, a definite bonus for any

topographical and landscape artist.

Richard J. Westall

Westall & Bauer

WESTALL AND BAUER

In the National Library of Australia News (February 2007) I outlined the way in which the then Royal

Colonial Institute acquired the bulk of the drawings made by William Westall A.R. A. (1781 – 1850)

during the voyage around Australia of the “Investigator”, captained by Matthew Flinders (1801 – 1803).

These drawings are now owned by the National Library of Australia and have been reproduced

comprehensively in “Westall’s Drawings” published by the Royal Commonweath Society in 1962.

A few further pictures relating to Australia by or attributed to William Westall have appeared since then

and now 19 pencil drawings of trees by this artist drawn between 1801 and 1806 have surfaced. They

were acquired by the Natural History Museum from a descendant of the artist and consist of sketches of

trees in Australia, China, India and Jamaica. When the voyage around Australia was completed in 1803

Westall travelled to China and India before returning to England in 1805. He then went to Madeira and

Jamaica before returning home.

William Westall’s drawings of trees have recently occasioned comment. Prof. Michael Rosenthal, in

a lecture given to the National Maritime Museum in 2005 remarked, commenting on Westall’s drawing

“Hawkesbury River No 3” (1802): “The drawing is immediately interesting in appearing to

cope easily with representing completely unfamiliar terrain and as unfamiliar trees”. Rosenthal also

referred to ”the ease with which Westall has drawn eucalyptus.”

This is only the most recent observation regarding Westall’s botanical work. Rex Reinits In “Early

Artists in Australia” found “two botanical sketches of remarkable fidelity, one of a gum-tree and the

other of a banksias. Westall’s trees were to become quite a feature of his work in Australia.”

Dr Bernard Smith in an essay within “Westall’s Drawings” stated that “Westall (made) drawings of the

eucalyptus, grass tree, palm, pandanus, hoop pine, banksias (etc) in their natural settings. They were

made, not as botanical records, but as working drawings for larger compositions”. Smith also drew

2

attention to the fact that Westall became “increasingly concerned with the delineation of the peculiarities

of the Australian vegetation, an interest which led to individual tree studies.”

Bernard Smith noted the suggestion by Johann Lhotsky (1795 – 1866) made in W.J. Hooker’s “London

Journal of Botany” in 1843 that the engravings of Westall’s pictures in Flinders’ “Voyage to Terra

Australis” (1814) inclined him to think Ferdinand Bauer (1760 – 1820) assisted Westall “for I know no

book where plants and groups of foreign trees…are portrayed with such surpassing beauty and truth”

Ferdinand Bauer, the botanical artist assigned to the “Investigator” voyage, was a superb artist and it is

doubtless reasonable to conjecture that the older man gave tuition to young Westall. Thomas Perry in the

introduction to “Westall’s Drawings” suggested that Westall “perhaps with Ferdinand Bauer by his

side” showed him how to portray “accurately the form and foliage of the vegetation”. However the 19

drawings which have now surfaced depicting trees drawn by Westall, many when Bauer was far distant

show the mistakenness of Lhotsky’s opinion and underline effectively the fact that Westall did not

need Bauer to assist him. Indeed, the authenticity of Westall’s work is confirmed by no less than four

founder members of the Linnaen Society, Aylmer Lambert, Jonas Dryander, Richard Salisbury and

William Maton who recommended William Westall in June 1805 to become a member of that Society,

to which he was duly elected in December of that year. One thing is now certain, if it was not before:

Elisabeth’s Findlay’s view in her most interesting and beautifully illustrated book “Arcadian Quest:

William Westall’s Australian Sketches” (NLA, Canberra 1998) that “Westall did not have the

temperement for the painstaking and relentless work involved in scientific drawing” is groundless.

The nineteen sketches by William Westall are in the process of conservation and cataloguing but below

is a tentative listing (those in bold can be viewed). Original numbering has been retained.

3

1. Calabash Tree. Jamaica? India?

2. Tamarisk Tree. India - can be seen on The Art Fund internet site

3. Castor Oil Tree. India?

4. Palm. Fan Palm? Australia?

5. Tall Tree. China/India?

6. Palm. Similar to”Westall’s Drawings” 120.

7. Tree with leguminous climber. Jamaica

8. Palm Australia?

9. Pimiento. Jamaica

10 Not known not Australia

11 Possibly Australian tree with smaller drawings of fruit

There are no drawings 12 – 15

16 Asiatic tree – possibly lychee type fruit with the word “sour”

17 Asiatic tree – not known

18 Bamboo. China.

19 Fan Palm. Australia. Sketches of detail similar to “Westall’s Drawings” 121

20 Palm. Australia with sketches of detail

21 Logwood. Jamaica with sketches of detail

22 Cotton Tree. Jamaica

23 Palm - Australia

There is also a drawing in the author’s possession similar to 18 Bamboo China, signed WW. The two

sketches are the basis of Westall’s fine painting “The Hong Kong Merchants Garden” which was shown

at the Royal Academy in 1814 as “View in a mandarin’s garden” and at the British Institution (1843)

with the same title. There is both an oil and a water colour version of this picture – the latter once

owned by a renowned gardener Mr Loddiges of Hackney. In the manuscript by Robert Westall for the

obituary of his father Robert described the Chinese view with its “feathery bamboo and the ariel palm.”

(the word ariel was changed to lofty in the published article).

It is important to note that in “Westall’s Drawings” Thomas Perry notes with relation to three drawings

Nos 120, 121 and 122 that they “do not show sufficient botanical detail to permit positive identification.

None of them appears to be an Australian species and it is possible that these three drawings were made

during Westall’s visit to the West Indies.” However the tentative view at the Natural History Museum’s

Botany Library that 6 and 19 above are of Australian trees.

4

Together with the Westall drawings at the Natural History Museum are six or seven drawings by

Ferdinand Bauer. There is uncertainty about one, a Tree Fern because it is thought that it may be a

Westall drawing. The other five are of Norfolk Island which Bauer visited in 1804. The landscapes of

Norfolk Island have something of Westall’s influence in them and if Westall had not been in Asia at the

time one might be forgiven for attributing them to him.

Five of the drawings have been fully catalogued. Two were reproduced by R. Nobbs in “Norfolk Island

& its first settlements 1778 – 1814” (N. Sydney NSW). They were also reproduced by David Moore in

“London Archives of Natural History 25” (1998). This includes some rough preliminary sketches on the

reverse of one drawing. There is one other drawing of Norfolk Island not catalogued. The illustration

used here (not depicted in Nobbs’s book) is catalogued as “Grove of tree ferns with shallow valley

beyond and (left) stumps”.

Evidence of the long term relationship between Bauer and Westall is to be found in

Bauer’s great work “Flora Graeca”, a series of 10 volumes published between 1810 and 1840. In “The

Flora Graeca Story. Sibthorp, Bauer and Hawkins in the Levant” (OUP 1998) Walter Lack writes that

“Bauer’s work stopped after the seventh title page; the remaining three were probably all executed by

William Westall, perhaps drawn by Imrie and not Bauer” Niniam Imrie, who died in 1820 was a

Captain in the Royals.The coloured engraving in Volume 9 (published 1837) entitled “Physcus” gives

W.Westall as the artist while those in Volumes 8 and 10 give no such information although attribution to

Westall would seem reasonable. Westall did quite a number of tasks for publishers bringing illustrations

by amateur artists up to the required standard for publication. This engraving is in the Radcliffe Science

Museum, Oxford. In “Flora Graeca”the text suggests the view of Physcus (Marmaris) was probably

5

sketched by Imrie during a stop on their way from Istanbul to Cyprus, and later William Westall seems

to have used it for a coloured drawing, now lost”

Walter Lack establishes in his book that Bauer and Westall discovered together the caniverous plant

Cephalotus follicularis Labill (Cephalotaceae) at King George’s Sound, Western Australia on New

Year’s Day 1802 and it is clear Westall adopted Bauer’s colour coding, used to recall the colours of

botanical specimens, in his tree illustrations.

The overall experience of viewing the 19 drawings by William Westall in the collection at the Natural

History Museum, together with a number of delicately drawn detailed insets, is that most probably

Ferdinand Bauer and William Westall had a profound influence on each other during the voyage of the

“Investigator”, Bauer taking the role perhaps of “paternal guide” to balance Matthew Flinders’s more

authoritative orders and that Robert Brown, the ship’s naturalist with Bauer instilled a respect for botany

and scientific depiction that benefited Westall’s work in Australia and elsewhere. Westall’s main

botanical work was with trees; his trees are always accurate and well drawn, a definite bonus for any

topographical and landscape artist.

Richard J. Westall

Wreck Reef

William Westall made a number of drawings of Wreck Reef.

1. Pencil sketch of sailors in a boat. This sketch 10 x 6 ½ ins is inscribed ‘Boat’s crew picking up stragglers after the wreck of the Porpoise on a coral reef off the N.E. Coast of Australia’

2. Finished watercolour, 16 ½ x 10 ¾ ins of this scene with the boat in the foreground and another small vessel being rowed nearby. In the background is the Cato, almost sunk, and the Porpoise on its side.

3. Pencil sketch on flat wash, 8 5/8 x 6 3/8 ins inscribed ‘Ideal View of Wreck Reef – W.Westall’. This aerial or ‘birds eye’ view, with the sandbank in the foreground, Cato almost sunk and the Porpoise on its side. Tents, shelters and a fire are visible on the Reef.

4. Oil painting 33 ¾ x 23 ½ ins of ‘Wreck Reef Bank Taken at Low Water’. The Reef is seen from a short distance on a nearby sandbank, showing coral. Several tents of varying sizes are seen with other shelters. A distress flag is flying and Porpoise is on its side (far left in a different location to other paintings). An engraving of the above 9 x 6 ¼ ins, engraved by Pye is in Flinders’ account of the Voyage.

A very similar view of the above in watercolour 16 ¼ x 11 ins with the flag drooping and some minor differences was sold by Christie’s, London 14/10/77 for £2800 by my great aunt Mary McNab Lester. It can be seen on my blog www.westallart.blogspot.com as can Jorgenson’s imagined view.

5. Pencil sketch 10 ¾ x 14 ½ ‘Shipwreck, Wreck Reef (1803)’. It shows Porpoise on its side taken from a sandbank, with two figures right and an illustration, probably a pencil sketch for 4 above.

References for ‘Breakers ahead!’ (Nat Library of Australia Magazine June 2011). Unfortunately the final illustration for this article is an engraving of Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire – drawn and engraved by William Westall not A Hong Kong Merchants Garden. This illustration will be in the next issue of the Magazine.

James Stanier Clarke ‘Naufragia’ ii p.385.

Robert Thynne ‘Captain Flinders’ Explorations and Adventures’ (John Hogg, London nd) pp77/8.

Ernestine Hill ‘My Love Must Wait’ (Angus and Robertson, Sydney April 1949 edition) p. 274.

Matthew ‘Voyage to Terra Australis’ vol ii p 305.

Robert Westall ‘Sketch of the Life of the Late William Westall A.R.A.’. MS author’s collection. Published with alterations and additions ‘Art Journal’ April 1850 pp 94/95. A typescript of the full MS with notes of alterations is on my blog.

Sarah Bakewell ‘The English Dane’ (Chatto & Windus, London 2005). p. 249 and note p 291

William Westall to Sir Joseph Banks see G. Barton ‘History of New South Wales’ vol I pp lxiii.

.

Illustrations:

1. View of Wreck Reef Bank Taken at Low Water pencil & wash.


2. Shipwreck, Wreck Reef Pencil 10 ¾ x 14 ½ (courtesy of Anthony Spink)


3. A Hong Kong Merchant’s Garden watercolour (courtesy of Martyn Gregory)


4. View in China (private collection)

Naufragia

Following its circumnavigation of Australia (1801-1803) the Investigator was considered unsuitable for further survey work and Captain Flinders was offered use of HMS Porpoise. However, it was decided that this vessel was not up to the task so it was thought sensible for Flinders to return to England to find a vessel in which he could return to Australia. Lieutenant Fowler was in command of the Porpoise but Governor King, the British representative in New South Wales instructed Fowler to comply with any orders Flinders might give.

William Westall was on board when they set sail on 10^th August, 1803 along with Captain Palmer of the Bridgewater and Captain Park of the Cato. A week later at 9.30 p.m. on 17^th August Porpoise struck a coral reef and heeled over, the Cato was also shipwrecked but the Bridgewater was unharmed. However the next day the Bridgewater sailed away without attempting to assist the stranded survivors.

Westall’s account from Naufragia follows reports from Flinders and Fowler. They can be viewed on Google. Volume 1 of Naufragia has not been seen and is not on Google.

The use of capital letters by Westall is as published but quotation marks have been included to assist with the clarity of the report.

This account is probably the longest written document penned by William Westall during his life.

NAUFRAGIA, or Historical Memoirs of Shipwreck and the providential by James Stanier Clarke Vol 2 (1806)

P 385/8

Additional remarks communicated by Mr William Westall (re Shipwreck on Wreck Reef described earlier by Flinders and Fowler).

We were all assembled in the Cabin, when I suddenly heard the Crew in great confusion, and hurrying on Deck, beheld Breakers on her Larbord Bow. The Coral Reef showed itself in a long line of Foam, seen indistinctly through Gloom of the approaching Night.

When the Ship struck, one general Groan resounded throughout, for npt a possibility appeared that anyone could be saved. The Night was unusually dark, and for these Latitudes remarkably so. ‘Come, my Lads!’ said Lieutenant Fowler, whose accustomed calmness and serenity experienced no abatement, ‘I have weathered worse Nights than this: Come! Put a good face upon it. Cut away the mizzen Shroud and Stays!’ – The Mainmast not going, he then ordered it to be cut down, in order to ease the Ship.

During this dreadful Scene, after the first confusion had subsided, all was coolness, and prompt Obedience : nor did the smallest disposition for drunkenness, or plunder, appear amongst the Crew. It was then that the superiority of British Seamen, and their animated reliance upon Providence, was impressed on my mind in a manner that will never. Many of them, though drenched with the Sea, and exhausted with Fatigue, would only accept with moderation the Spirits served out to recruit their strength.

For about a quarter of an Hour after the Ship struck, it was doubtful whether we should be burnt, or drowned; for a Candle which had been left in the Gun Room, had set some Curtains on fire, and the flame quickly increasing, was rapidly gaining ground. Amidst this double death, if I may use the expression, immediate precautions were adopted, and with success. The whole of my attention was then divided, between many an anxious glance after the Lights of the Bridgewater, and then listening, with dread of the Ship’s parting, to every crash I heard. The crew laboured incessantly; and what is hardly credible, at least to Landsmen, after our men had done all they could, many of them had the resolution to go to sleep, and that soundly, in the gaping wreck of the vessel. Their example was contagious: for after some time, having jammed myself into a secure place, I was also rocked by the Tempest into forgetfulness.

As the Day broke, the horrid situation of the Cato, without the Surf, was disclosed to the Crew of the Porpoise:

when our Men, who had hitherto borne all their sufferings with firmness, were now overcome with apprehension for the fate of the other Crew, and burst into Tears: whilst they, poor wretches rejoiced to find, that we were so much better off than themselves, nobly gave us three distinct Cheers! There was an awful sublimity in this act of Heroism which I cannot describe. I watched their Fate with peculiar solicitude : every Sea that broke over the Wreck of the poor Cato, seemed to be their grave; and, to my agitated mind, their number appeared gradually to diminish.

One Man, more resolute than the rest, after continued exertions, and being overwhelmed repeatedly by the Waves, at length reached a part of the Reef, that was formed between the Coral Breakers and the Sand Bank; and with faltering steps, naked, and bleeding, gained the Wreck of the Porpoise, within the Surf. Great God! With what sensations did I behold him immediately extend his hands towards Heaven, and with uplifted eyes pour forth the fervent piety of a Shipwrecked Mariner. We immediately procured him refreshments and covering: but it was many minutes before he could inform us, that after Mr Park had made two fruitless attempts to get through the Surf, this Seaman, who was reckoned to be the best swimmer on board the Cato, had determined to perish, or surmount the threatening obstacles; yet he declared it to be his firm opinion, that few, or none of his Shipmates could escape. However towards Noon the Surf abated; and, with the exception of three, as mentioned in Lieutenant Fowler’s account, the Crew of the Cato left their perilous situation, and received support from the stores of the Porpoise.

When our whole Company had assembled on the Sandbank, Captain Flinders walked up to a Fire, which the Crew of the Porpoise had made, to warm the Cato’s people, who had been dreadfully bruised in swimming through the Surf; and asked the Carpenter, where he had procured his Fire-Wood? Mr Mark informed him, that it consisted of a part of the Stern Post of a Ship, which must have been nearly twice the size of a Frigate, and from every appearance, had remained there a considerable time. Few Ships of the size of this Stern-Post have ever been in those Seas, except the Ships under the command of Mons. De la Perouse: and besides, if we refer to the conclusion of that Navigator’s last Letter from New South Wales, we shall find, that his intended track would probably carry him towards the Reef, on which the above remains were found. It was therefore our general opinion, that we were cast away on the very same Bank, upon which poor Perouse had perished.

The translator of d’Entrecasteaux’s Voyage in search of the Perouse, inserts in the preface [printed in Debrett, 8vo Vol I page 23] the last letter written by that Navigator to the Marshall de Castries, then Minister of the Marine, dated Botany Bay, 7^th Feb, 1788. The substance of it is exactly similar to those dated from Avatscha [printed by Johnson, 8vo Vol111 pages 395 & 364] Sept 7, and Sept 21, 1787, to Mons Fleurieu, and the same Minister.

“I shall [Perouse sailed from Botany Bay in the 5^th of March 1788 ibid Vol page 414] again make a run to the Friendly Islands, and I shall strictly perform everything that has enjoined me by my Instruction, in regard to the South part of New Caledonia, Mendana’s Island of Santa Cruz, the Southern Coast of Surville’s Terre des Arsacides, and the land called by Bouganville, La Louisiade; and endeavour to ascertain whether this last makes a part of New Guinea, or is separated from it. Towards the end of July, 1788, I shall pass between New Guinea and New Holland, by a different channel than Endeavour Strait, provided such an one exist. During the month of September, and a part of October, I shall visit the Gulf of Carpentaria and all the west Coast of New Holland, as far as Van Diemaman’s Land; but yet in such a manner, that it may be possible for me, to get to the Northward, in time to arrive at the Isle of France in the beginning of December, 1788.”

On p. 396 of Naufragia during a report by Fowler he writes: A View of our desolate abode was taken by Mr Westall [whence one, on a reduced Scale, was made by that Gentleman for the Frontispiece].

(As this engraving is not in Vol II it must be in Vol 1. It would be interesting to know what view is used. RJW)