Yet La Pérouse was ready to go on with his quest, nor was there any sign of mutiny among his men. Most of them were hard and brown and healthy, and ready to follow him to other ends of the earth. It was his purpose to depart from Botany Bay and explore the Australian coast and the Friendly Islands, and finally to lay his course to reach Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, at the end of the year of 1788. This was the last word that came from him to France. Two more years passed, and not a ship had sighted the roving frigates, nor had they been seen in any port. The people of France were proud of La Pérouse and his romantic achievements, and although the unhappy nation was in the throes of revolution, the National Assembly passed a decree which read in part: That the King be entreated to give orders to all ambassadors, residents, consuls, and national agents at the courts of foreign powers that they may engage those different sovereigns, in the name of humanity and of the arts and sciences, to charge all navigators and agents whatsoever, their subjects, in whatever place they may be, but especially in the southerly part of the South Sea, to make inquiry after the two French frigates, _La Boussole_ and _L’Astrolabe_, commanded by M. de la Pérouse as well as after their crews, and to obtain every information which may ascertain their existence or their shipwreck; so that in case M. de la Pérouse, and his companions should be found, no matter in what place, there shall be given to them every assistance, and all means procured for them, that they may be enabled to return to their country with whatever may belong to them. It is further decreed that the King be entreated to direct that one or more vessels be equipped and several learned and experienced persons embarked therein, to the commanders of which may be given in charge the double mission, to search after M. de la Pérouse and also at the same time to render this expedition useful and advantageous to navigation, to geography, and to the arts and sciences. This hope of rescue appealed to the quick imagination of France. La Pérouse was a national hero. It was argued, with good reason, that he might be waiting on some solitary island of those empty seas where topsails had never yet lifted above the blue horizon. Again two frigates were elaborately fitted out at Brest, and rechristened, with a pretty touch of sentiment, _la Recherche_ (The _Research_) and _L’Esperance_ (The _Hope_). They sailed early in 1791, touching at the Cape of Good Hope, where the vice-admiral in command got wind of a curious rumor that “near the Admiralty Islands in the Pacific Ocean the captain of a British sloop-of-war had seen men dressed in the European style and in what he took to be French uniforms.”