Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ing from a voyage to Sumatra. He was under strict instructions to re-
veal nothing while keeping his eyes and ears open to everything that
might be of interest aboard the
Swallow.
Thus Bougainville played
with his rivals just as he had done four years before. And just as on
that earlier occasion he and Byron never met, so now the French and
English circumnavigators came very close together without actually
setting eyes on each other. Soon the two vessels parted company,
Bougainville's racing ahead. Only afterwards, when comparing notes
with his officers and men, did Carteret realise the identity of the ap-
parently solicitous Frenchman.
A month later, on 20 March, Carteret and his men came to an-
chor at Spithead - 'to our great joy'.
*
This experiment proved extremely successful, though Byron attributed the
crew's failure to catch fish to the
Dolphin's
copper bottom.
4
*
These arguments surface again during the Falklands War in 1982.
