Terre Napoleón; a History of French Explorations and Projects in Australia

by Sir Ernest Scott

This would be an acceptable way of disposing of the question if we could reasonably accept the explanation. But can we? Freycinet denied that any pressure was exerted. Those who knew Péron's character, he wrote,* (* Voyage de Decouvertes 2 page 21.) were aware that he would have refused to do anything with which his conscience could reproach him. He was so able and zealous a man of science, that we should like to believe that of him. justice demands that we should give full weight to every favourable factor in the case as affecting him. Flinders was a British naval officer, and naval men at that period were disposed to see the hand of Napoleon in every bit of mischief. But the "pressure" theory does not sustain examination.

The task thrust upon Péron in the writing of the historical narrative of the voyage was one for which he had not prepared himself, and which did not properly pertain to him. The death of Baudin, whose work this would naturally have been, compelled the naturalist to become historian. He had not kept the log, and it may be reasonably assumed that he had not concerned himself in a particular degree with those events of which he would have made careful notes had it been intended from the beginning that he should be the official recorder. He had applied himself with passionate energy to the collection and classification of zoological specimens. This was his special vocation, and he pursued it worthily. It is probably safe to say that no expedition, French or English, that ever came down to Australasian waters, added so much that was new to the world's scientific knowledge, or accumulated so much material, as did this one whose chief naturalist was Francois Péron. When it is added that two of the greatest figures in British scientific history, Darwin and Huxley, were among the workers in this fruitful field, it will be admitted that the acknowledgment is not made in any niggard spirit. But we are now concerned with Péron as historian of what related to Terre Naploeon and the surrounding circumstances. Here his statements have been shown to be unreliable. It is probable that he wrote largely from memory; almost certainly from insufficient data. Further, he was weak and ill when engaged upon the book. The hardships and unhealthy conditions of the voyage had undermined his constitution. One would conclude from his style of writing that he was by temperament excitable and easily subject to depression. A zealous savant, to whom fishes and birds, beetles and butterflies, were the precious things of the earth, and for whom the discovery of a new species was as great a source of joy as a glorious victory was to his imperial master, Péron appeals to us as a pathetic figure whom one would rather screen from blame than otherwise. He suffered severely, and did his final work under the difficulty of breaking health. He died in 1810, before his second volume was ready for publication.

Freycinet wrote a series of notes by way of preface to volumes 2 and 3, in attempted justification of the Terre Napoleon maps.* (* The second volume of the Voyage de Decouvertes was published--out of its due order--in 1816, the third in 1815.) He was put on the defensive because "the audacious attempt which was made in the first volume of this work, to rob Captain Flinders of the well-earned merit of his nautical labours and discoveries, while he was basely and barbarously kept in prison in a French colony, was regarded with becoming indignation throughout Europe, and with shame by the better part of the French nation."* (* Quarterly Review volume 17 (1817) page 229.) That that is a fair description of the state of feeling among people concerned with the advancement of knowledge, is beyond question; and the French above all, with their love of enterprise, their sentiment of honour, their eager applause of high achievement, their chivalrous sense of justice, and their quick sympathy with suffering wrongly inflicted and bravely borne, would have no taste for laurels plucked in their name from the brow of him who was entitled to wear them. Thoroughly repugnant to French intellect and feeling was conduct of this description. National animosities were more bitter at this period than they have ever been at any other time, but science knows no nationality. Even when the two governments had ceased to have relations with each other, we still find English and French men of science communicating on friendly terms; and Napoleon himself was willing to grant the requests of an English savant while English arms and English diplomacy were at furious war with him. Thus Sir Joseph Banks, who was a corresponding member of the Institute of France, could write in 1805, "I have obtained the release of five persons from the gracious condescension of the Emperor, the only five, I believe, that have been regularly discharged from their parole."

Freycinet, then, had to defend his charts. But there never was a more complete example of the remark that "qui s'excuse s'accuse." He argued that when Le Geographe cruised along the coasts discovered by Flinders, there was no published work in which they were described, therefore the French were justified in applying their own names. But this plea ignored the fact that if the coasts were not charted in any work published before 1807, they had been, to the full knowledge of the French officers, charted by Flinders, whose work would have been published earlier if he had not been forcibly detained. Again he argued* (* Preface to volume 3.) that, inasmuch as "jamais Péron ni moi"--where Freycinet assumed part of the responsibility--knew of the work done by Flinders until his book was published, the work of the French was truly one of discovery; and as to the names given by the English navigator, "it is certain that we could not employ them without knowing them." But it was not true that Freycinet, Péron, or Baudin was unaware of the discoveries made by Flinders. Even were there not his specific statement that he explained his discoveries and showed one of his charts to illustrate them, it would be incredible that while the French and English ships lay together for some weeks at Port Jackson, with tents erected on the same piece of ground, the officers frequently meeting on friendly terms, Freycinet and Péron should not have learnt what the Investigator had been doing. Both the French authors are individually mentioned by Flinders as having been present on one or other of these occasions, and Freycinet does not deny the statement. Further, Captain Hamelin reported to the French Government, in 1803, that Flinders had traced the coast from the Leeuwin to Encounter Bay, and had discovered a large and beautiful island which he had named "L'Ile des Kangaroux."* (* Moniteur, 27 Thermidor, Revolutionary Year 11.)

It is true that the French were not acquainted with Flinders' names, except in the one case of Kangaroo Island. He told Baudin what name he had given in that case. Nevertheless they ignored it, and called the island Ile Decres. But even when they did know of the names given to features of the coast by a previous English navigator, Péron and Freycinet disregarded them. Grant's Narrative of the Voyage of the Lady Nelson was published, together with his eye-chart of the coast from Cape Banks to Wilson's Promontory, in 1803. Flinders states positively that Grant's "discoveries were known to M. Péron and the French expedition in 1802";* (* Voyage 1 201.) as indeed we might well suppose, for Grant was not the man to allow any one with whom he came in contact to remain unaware of his achievements, and he was in Sydney just before the French arrived there. They would hear of him from many people. Yet Grant's names, inscribed in plain print on his published chart, were all ignored on the Terre Napoleon charts--his Cape Nelson becoming Cap Montaigne; his Cape Otway, Cap Desaix; his Cape Schanck, Cap Richelieu; and so forth.

The contention that the south coast exploration of the French was "entirely a work of discovery,"* (* Freycinet, 2 page 23.) although they were forestalled in it by Flinders and Grant, is neither true nor sensible. If it could be held that the voyage of a vessel sailing without a chart or a pilot along a coast previously unknown to its officers was "entirely a work of discovery," then a ship that should sail under such conditions along any piece of coast--say from Boulogne to La Hague--would accomplish "a work of discovery." Discovery is a matter of priority, or the word is meaningless.

Freycinet's notes nowhere meet the gravest feature of the case--the prolongation of the imprisonment of Flinders until the French could complete their own charts for publication. The talk about not knowing what Flinders' names were, the affected ignorance of his prior claims, were crudely disingenuous. Freycinet knew perfectly where Flinders was, and why his charts were not issued. The Moniteur contained several references to his case. Sir Joseph Banks repeatedly pressed leading members of the Institute to lend their influence to secure his liberation. But Freycinet, who had shared in the generous hospitality of the British governor in Sydney--extended at a time when the French crews were sorely stricken--and should have been moved by gratitude, to say nothing of justice, to help in undoing an act of wrong to a fellow-navigator, does not seem to have taken the slightest step in this direction, nor does he in any of his writings express any regret concerning the unhappy fate that overtook the English captain.

The claim made in behalf of Baudin's expedition can best be stated in the language of Péron. Dentrecasteaux, he wrote, not having advanced beyond the islands of St. Peter and St. Francis, which form the extremity of Nuyts Land, and the English not having carried their researches farther than Westernport, "it follows that all the portion between the last-mentioned port and Nuyts Land was unknown at the time when we arrived on these shores." Péron's words were not candid. It is true that part of the shores in question were unknown when Baudin's ships "arrived." They "arrived" off Cape Leeuwin in May 1801, before Flinders left England, though not before Grant had discovered his stretch of coast. (Grant reached Sydney, having roughly traced the coast from Cape Banks to Cape Schanck, on December 16, 1800.) If, however, Péron meant to convey that the coasts were unknown when Baudin's ships actually sailed along them, he stated what was not the case. Let us hear Flinders in reply. "M. Péron should not have said that the south coast from Westernport to Nuyts Land was then unknown, but that it was unknown to them, for Captain Grant, of the Lady Nelson, had discovered the eastern part from Westernport to the longitude 140 degrees 14 minutes in the year 1800, before the French ships sailed from Europe, and on the west I had explored the coast and islands from Nuyts Land to Cape Jervis in 138 degrees 10 minutes." In other words, Grant's eye-chart connected up the coast between the extremity of George Bass's exploration, Westernport, and Cape Banks to the east, while Flinders had traversed the coast between Nuyts Land and Encounter Bay to the west, leaving a gap of only about fifty leagues of sandy shore, upon which there is "neither river, inlet, or place of shelter," that was actually discovered by Baudin. Flinders not only admitted that the French had discovered this particularly barren and uninteresting stretch of land, but marked it upon his charts* (* Cf. plate 4 in Flinders' Atlas, for example.) as "discovered by Captain Baudin, 1802." The French on their charts, however, made not the slightest reference to the discoveries of either Flinders or Grant.

The true Terre Napoleon, therefore, if the name were to survive at all, would be from a point north-west of Cape Banks in the state of South Australia, to the mouth of the river Murray in Encounter Bay. The names marked on a modern map indicate the sort of country that it is in the main. Chinaman's Wells, M'Grath's Flat, Salt Creek, Martin's Washpool, Jim Crow's Flat, and Tilley's Swamp are examples. They are not noble-sounding designations to inscribe at the back of coasts once dignified by the name of the greatest figure in modern history. It is rather to be regretted that the name Terre Napoleon has slipped off modern maps. It is historically interesting. When Eric the Red, as the Saga tells us, discovered Greenland, he so called it because "men would be the more readily persuaded thither if the land had a good name." Most will agree that Terre Napoleon sounds a bit better than Pipe Clay Plain or Willow Swamp, which are other choice flowers in the same garden.* (* These "virginal chaste names" are taken from the map of South Australia, by the Surveyor-General of that State, 1892.)

There is no evidence to warrant the belief that Napoleon had anything whatever to do with affixing his name to the territory to which it was applied, or with the nomenclature of the features of the coast. Nor would there be anything remarkable in the use of the name Terre Napoleon, if the French had really discovered the region so described. In every part of the world there are lands named after the rulers of the nations to which the discoverers or founders belonged. Raleigh named Virginia "from the maiden Queen"; the two Carolinas preserve the name of the amorous monarch who granted the original charter of colonisation "out of a Pious and good intention for ye propogacion of ye Christian faith amongst ye Barbarous and Ignorant Indians, ye Inlargement of his Empire and Dominions, and Inriching of his Subjects"; and two states of Australia commemorate by their names the great Queen who occupied the British throne when they were founded. There would have been nothing unusual or improper in the action of the French in styling the country from Wilson's Promontory to Cape Adieu "Terre Napoleon," except that they did not discover it. What they did excites a feeling akin to derision, because it bore the character of "jumping a claim," to use an Australian mining phrase.