The delay of publishing this journal renders some excuse necessary. Unquestionably I might have given it to the world sooner, and it was my duty to have done it; but my gratitude bad me wait the return of the count de la Perouse. What is my journey, said I to myself? To the public, it is only an appendage to the important expedition of that gentleman; to myself, it is an honourable proof of his confidence: I had a double motive to submit my account to his inspection. My own interest also prescribed this to me. How happy should I have been, if, permitting me to publish my travels as a supplement to his, he had deigned to render me an associate of his fame! This, I confess, was the sole end of my ambition; the sole cause of my delay. How cruel for me, after a year of impatient expectation, to see the wished for period still more distant! Not a day has passed since my arrival, on which my wishes have not recalled the Astrolabe and Boussole. How often, traversing in imagination the seas they had to cross, have I sought to trace their progress, to follow then from port to port, to calculate their delays, and to measure all the windings of their course! When at the moment of our separation in Kamtschatka, the officers of our vessels sorrowfully embraced me as lost, who would have said, that I should first revisit my native country; that many of them would never see it more; and that in a little time I should shed tears over their fate! Scarcely, in effect, had I time to congratulate myself on the success of my mission, and the embraces of my family, when the report of our misfortunes in the Archipelago of navigators arrived, to fill my heart with sorrow and affection. The viscount de Langle, that brave and loyal seaman, the friend, the companion of our commander; a man whom I loved and respected as my father, is no more! My pen refuses to trace his unfortunate end, but my gratitude indulges itself in repeating, that the remembrance of his virtues and his kindness to me, will live eternally in my bosom. Reader, who ever thou art, pardon this involuntary effusion of my grief. Hadst thou known him whom I lament, thou wouldst mingle thy tears with mine: like me thou wouldst pray to Heaven, that, for our consolation, and for the glory of France, the commander of the expedition, and those of our brave Argonauts, whom it has preserved, may soon return. Ah! if whilst I write, a favourable gale should fill their sails, and impel them towards our shores!--May this prayer of my heart be heard! May the day on which these volumes are published, be that of their arrival! In the excess of my joy, my self-love would find the highest gratification. CONTENTS TO VOL. I.