struck at--in which view he was undoubtedly right.

Did Napoleon himself realise that there was so rich a prize in Port
Jackson? Not until it was too late. In 1810, when he was fitting out
another expedition for aggressive service in the Indian Ocean, he
probably remembered what he had read in Peron's account of the Voyage de
Decouvertes aux Terres Australes about the British colony there, and
directed that the new squadron should "take the English colony of Port
Jackson, which is to the south of the Isle of France, and where
considerable resources will be found" ("faire prendre la colonie anglaise
de Jackson"--sic),* (* Correspondance, volume 20 document 16,544.) But
the task was well-nigh hopeless then, and the squadron never sailed.
Probably it would not have reached the Indian Ocean if it had left
Europe, for the Cape, which was in Dutch hands when Linois had his great
chance, was recaptured by the British in January 1806. In 1810 Admirals
Pellew and Bertie were in command of strong British forces, and Lord
Minto, the Governor-General of India, was determined to root the French
out of the Isle of France, and clear India of danger from that source.
They succeeded, and Mauritius has been British ever since.

We must now leave the sphere of conflict in which the destinies of the
world were being shaped, and enter upon another phase of this history.
The reader will:

"slip across the summer of the world,
Then, after a long tumble about the Cape
And frequent interchange of foul and fair,"

--will accompany for a while an illustrious British explorer in his task
of filling up the map of the globe.