Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/311

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KING AND "NO PRESENT CAUSE FOR APPREHENSION."
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active in the insurrection," was apprehended and put on board a private ship, the master being directed "to put him on board the first of His Majesty's ships he may fall in with, as a deserter to be disposed of as their Lordships may see fit." A year after the insurrection King reported that all proper means had been taken to discover any attempt at sedition, and that all was quiet. There were some perturbators" in the colony, as elsewhere, but he moved them occasionally from one place to another. "There is no present cause for apprehension, and indeed the trial I have had of the military and well-affected, places me at perfect ease on that point, and when the citadel is finished there will be little or no cause to harbour suspicion of those within, or to be alarmed at the approach of external foes." In 1805, in a ship which carried more Irish convicts, five persons were allowed to go on their own promise-banishing themselves to New South Wales in order to avoid trial. A letter about them was sent to the Governor, who regretted that they "had been sent without convictions" to a community abounding in rebels requiring leaders of ability.

It has been necessary to dwell at some length upon the magnitude of the dangers arising from the Irish insurrection in 1804, inasmuch as they have hitherto been unrecorded or under-rated. Their importance was increased by rumours of the designs of the French, who, under the guidance of Napoleon, were supposed to covet territory in Australia. After Cook's voyage in 1770 the Frenchman Marion du Fresne with two ships proceeded to Tasmania, but his principal achievement seems to have been firing upon the savages. Following the same tactics in New Zealand he was killed there. La Perouse's stay at Botany Bay in 1788 was his last reported act,[1] and in 1792 the French Admiral D'Entrecasteaux with two ships was searching for him. D'Entrecasteaux spent much time on the coast of Tasmania, and named several places. In 1800 the French Republic fitted out two ships, the Geographe and the Naturaliste, obtaining passports (from the English Govern-

  1. ↑ About forty years afterwards it was discovered that his ships, the Boussole and the Astrolabe, were wrecked at the island of Manicolo, and all the navigators perished in the wreck or were afterwards killed.
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