The French discoverers, with some reason, imagined Cape St Louis[122] to be the projecting point, of the southern continent. The English have since proved that no such continent exists, and that the land in question is an island of no great extent;[123] which, from its sterility, I should, with great propriety, call the Island of Desolation, but that I would not rob Monsieur de Kerguelen of the honour of its bearring his name.[124]
[Footnote 122: The idea of Cape Louis being this projecting point of a southern continent must have soon vanished, as Cape François, within a year after, was found, by the same discoverer, to lie above one third of a degree farther N. upon the same land. But if Kerguelen entertained any such imagination at first, we are sure that afterwards he thought very differently. This appears from the following explicit declaration of his sentiments, which deserves to be transcribed from his late publication, as it does equal honour to his candour, and Captain Cook's abilities:--"La terre que j'ai decouverte est certainement _une Isle_; puisque le célebre Capitaine Cook a passé au Sud, lors de son premiere voyage, sans rien rencontrer. Je juge inême, que cette isle _n'est pas bien grande_. Il y a aussi apparence, d'apres le Voyage de Monsieur Cook, que toute cette étendue de Mers Meridionales, est semée d'lsles ou de rochers; mais qu'il n'y a _ni continent ni grande terre_." Kerguelen, p. 92.--D.]
[Footnote 123: Kerguelen, as we see in the last note, concurs with Captain Cook as to this. However, he tells us, that he has reason to believe that it is about 200 leagues in circuit; and that he was acquainted with about fourscore leagues of its coast. "J'en connois environs quatre-vingt lieues des cotes; et; j'ai lieu de croire, qu'elle a environ deux cents lieues de circuit." _Kerguelen, page_32--D.]
[Footnote 124: Some of Monsieur de Kerguelen's own countrymen seem more desirous than we are to rob him of his honour. It is very remarkable, that Monsieur de Pagès never once mentions the name of his commander; and, though he takes occasion to enumerate the several French explorers of the southern hemisphere, from Gonneville down to Crozet, he affects to preserve an entire silence about Kerguelen, whose first voyage, in which the discovery of this considerable tract of land was made, is kept as much out of sight as if it never had taken place. Nay, not satisfied with refusing to acknowledge the right of another, he almost assumes it to himself. For, upon a map of the world annexed to his book, at the spot where the new land is delineated, we read this inscription, _Isles nouvelles Australes vuées par Monsieur de Pagès, en_ 1774. He could scarcely have expressed himself in stronger terms, if he had meant to convey an idea that he was the conductor of the discovery. And yet we know that he was only a lieutenant [Enseigne de vaisseau] on board of one of three ships commanded by Kerguelen; and that the discovery had been already made in a former voyage, undertaken while he was actually engaged in his singular journey round the world.
