Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
too much water. Immediately he returned to Nantes, where he had
the masts shortened, exchanged his twelve-pounders for smaller
cannon and carried out other modifications. Still he was unhappy.
He was convinced that his ship would not survive the legendary hor-
rors of Cape Horn and, therefore, he planned to take the slower route
through the Straits of Magellan.
Bougainville was an immensely cautious man - no great fault
in a circumnavigator. He was determined to leave nothing to chance.
Having completed his Falklands mission and returned to Rio de
Janeiro to rendezvous with his storeship, the
Étoile,
he devoted an-
other five months to recaulking and refitting his ships and cramming
aboard all the victuals they could hold. He divided his crews into
three groups and rotated them so that one contingent was always
resting ashore. By mid-November 1767, ships and men were in as
good shape as they would ever be and Bougainville had provisions
for ten months' sailing. Yet, as he ruefully reported, some of his
followers were not prepared to face the rigours ahead. He shared
with Byron the aggravation of having some of his crew enticed away
by the Portuguese: 'Notwithstanding all our care, twelve men, sol-
boast that, unlike the British, he had no need to offer his men finan-
cial inducements, and he later reported:
It has not been necessary to animate them by any extraordinary
incitement, such as the English thought it necessary to grant to the
crew of commodore Byron. Their constancy has stood the test of the
most critical situations, and their good will has not one moment
abated. But the French nation is capable of conquering the greatest
difficulties, and nothing is impossible to their efforts, as often as she
will think herself equal at least to any nation in the world.
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