We landed Martin Bushart and the Lascar on this island the 20th September, 1813. On the 13th of May, 1826, in command of my own ship, the _St. Patrick_, bound from Valparaiso to Pondicherry, I came in sight of the island of Tucopia. Prompted by curiosity, as well as regard for an old companion in danger, I hove my ship to off the island of Tucopia. Shortly a canoe put off from the island and came alongside. In it was the Lascar. Immediately after another canoe came off with Martin Bushart, the Prussian. They were both in sound health and were extremely rejoiced to see me. They informed me that the natives had treated them kindly; that no ship had touched there from the time they were first landed until about a year previous to my arrival when an English whaler visited the island for a short time. Captain Dillon mentions the dates in a very casual fashion, but some years had elapsed with a vengeance--thirteen of them, in fact--during twelve of which Martin Bushart had dwelt contentedly without seeing the face of another white man. The ties that bound him to his island had been strong enough to hold him there when the chance was offered to sail away in the English whaler. While the pair of them were visiting Captain Dillon on board of the _St. Patrick_, the Lascar showed the sailors a tarnished old silver sword-guard, and one of them bought it of him for a few fish-hooks. Captain Dillon happened to see it, and asked Martin Bushart where it had come from. In this strangely accidental way was revealed the clouded mystery of La Pérouse and his lost frigates. Bushart explained that when he had first landed on the island the natives possessed as their chief treasures this ornate sword-guard, the handle of a silver fork, a few knives, tea-cups, glass beads and bottles, and a spoon engraved with a crest and monogram. In addition to these furnishings of a ship’s cabin, they had also some iron bolts, chain-plates, and axes. Martin Bushart had been curious to discover how these islanders had obtained such relics of disaster, for the _Hunter_ was the first ship that had ever been seen off Tucopia when he was set ashore there in 1813. He was informed that a large group of islands called Manicola lay to leeward about two days’ sail in a canoe, and that voyages were frequently made there for trade and sociability. It was from the people of Manicola that the articles of iron and silver had been obtained. Now, Captain Dillon remembered the story of La Pérouse, as did every shipmaster who traversed the South Seas, and so he examined the sword-guard and discovered engraved initials, faint and worn, but legible enough for him to surmise that they were those of the French discoverer and navigator.