OLD FRENCH SKIPS HERE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 803, 28 April 1910, Page 2

OLD FRENCH SKIPS HERE.

. . MR, JTNAB'S RESEARCHES. . ißj Telccraph.—Special Corrcspondent-l Auckland, April 26. Mr. C. H. Poole, M.P., has received a letter dated March 6, from Mr. Robt ■ M'Nab, who has been pursuing his researches abroad into the records, bearing upon the early history of New. Zealand. ■; . la Paris Mr. M'Nab came across som® .. valua.ble: papers relating to the early v French navigators who visited this coun-. try. Mr. M'Nab "states : "When Cook, passedviip ; the east coast of Auckland-in 1769, a French vessel, called the ..St. - Jean Baptiste, commanded by De Surville, was at anchor in Lauristou Bay, near -Mangonui. - Very little is known of this French expedition, and'its'- - ; history : was one of the things - which ■ I ■' had jotted down to try and throw somo light npon. 1 have been most successful, • having unearthed Ds Surville's. journal in the 'Bibliotheque Nationale' in Paris, • Here I discovered two copies of the jour-. nal, and, a quantity of De Surville's. cor- \ l-espondence.. Accompanying the find ara. Da Surville's charts of that portion of f.' . the coastline which he had explored, and f" the . bay in which'ho anchored. Plates of Maoris-, and Maori implements 'ara' with them; and I am having them trans--lated and photographed. To-morrow - theV. Commissioner of the Archives considers: l ., the British.'Ambassador's application ; for permission for me to search the. Marine Department papers dealing with .French expeditions to New. Zealand, French war vessels on the coast, and the I'Tonch settlement at Akaroa." ■ : -_-J