The exploration for territory in the South Sea occasioned a vast amount of rivalry between France and England. From the time of Louis XVI. to the days of Napoleon—barely 100 years—there were the following English navigators in these seas:—Anson, Vancouver, Cook, Furneaux. French navigators were:—Bougainville, Marion, Surville, La Perouse, D'Entrecasteaux, and Brandon. The name Australia, as the name of these southern discoveries, was first used by the French M.C., President Charles de Brosses, in his "Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Astrales," p. 80. De Brosses was president of the Parliament of Dijon.—Hobart Museum Record.

Crozet, in his "Voyages to Tasmania and New Zealand," p. 61, says:— We completed our stores of wood and water; we took possession in the King's name of New Zealand, which the aboriginals called Ekenomacriwe, and which Marion called France Australe; Cook had called it in his chart Bay of Islands, but which we named Treachery Bay.

Enderby, in Select Committee, states:—The French and Americans have brought vessels of war into these waters, and they have a certain degree of protection, much more than our British ships have.

Busby, in "Authentic Information Relative to New Zealand," writes:—It is well known in the colony that, in their late voyages of discovery to the South Seas, the French directed much of their attention to the Islands of New Zealand (D'Urville having, in 1827, been occupied for two months in the survey of the Middle Island alone), and apprehensions are very generally entertained that they will be ultimately taken possession of by that Power. It has also been suggested that a settlement in New Zealand would prove of great value to the Russians as a place of refreshment for their ships, on their voyage, by that route, to the Russian settlement at Kamschatka, and on the north-west coast of America.