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

by Sir Ernest Scott

From what source could Baudin have obtained such a chart, however rough and partial?

Up to the time when he lay at Port Jackson, only two ships had ever entered Port Phillip. These were the Lady Nelson, under Murray's command, in February 1802--the harbour having been discovered in the previous month--and the Investigator, under Flinders, in April and May. No other keels had, from the moment of the discovery until Baudin's vessels finally left these coasts, breasted the broad expanse of waters at the head of which the great city of Melbourne now stands. The next ship to pass the heads was the Cumberland, which, early in 1803, entered with Surveyor Grimes on board, to make the first complete survey of the port. But by that time Baudin was far away. From one or other of the two available sources, therefore, Baudin must have obtained a drawing, assuming that he did obtain one in Sydney; and if he did not, his sailing past the port, when he had an opportunity of entering it in December, was surely as extraordinary a piece of wilful negligence as is to be found in the annals of exploration.

It is possible that Baudin or one of his officers saw some drawing made on the Lady Nelson. If they saw one made by Murray himself, it is not likely to have been a very good one. Murray was not a skilled cartographer. Governor King, who liked him, and wished to secure promotion for him, had to confess in writing to the Duke of Portland, that he did not "possess the qualities of an astronomer and surveyor," which was putting the matter in a very friendly fashion. If a chart or crude drawing by Murray had been obtained, Freycinet might still be glad to get the Fame chart which he used.

Both in his book and his correspondence Flinders mentions having shown charts to Baudin; and though the French commodore did not reciprocate by showing any of his work to Flinders, we may fairly regard that as due to reluctance to challenge comparisons. Flinders was without a rival in his generation for the beauty, completeness, and accuracy of his hydrographical work, and Captain Baudin's excuses probably sprang from pride. The reason he gave was that his charts were to be finished in Paris. But there was nothing to prevent his showing the preliminary drawings to Flinders, and as a fact he had shown them to King. If Flinders had had a sight of them he would have detected at a glance the absence of any indication of Port Phillip. But we learn from the Moniteur of 27 Thermidor, Revolutionary Year 11 (August 15, 1803), which published a progress report of the expedition, that the charts sent home by Baudin were very rough. Part of the coast was described as being "figuree assez grossierement et sans details."

Flinders, it should be explained, did not publish the chart which he made when he entered Port Phillip with the Investigator, because by the time when he was preparing his work for publication, a copy of the complete survey chart made by Grimes had been supplied to him by the Admiralty. He used Grimes's drawing in preference to his own--acknowledging the authorship, of course--because when he found Port Phillip he was not in a position to examine it thoroughly. His supplies, after his long voyage, had become depleted, and he could not delay.

It is most likely that the French learnt of the existence of Port Phillip from Flinders, though not at all likely that they were able to obtain a copy of his drawing. If Baudin got one at all, it must have been Murray's.

Freycinet did not acknowledge on any of his charts the source whence he obtained his Port Phillip drawing. Obviously, it would have been honest to do so. All he did was to insert two lines at the bottom of the page in that part of volume 3 dealing with navigation details, where very few readers would observe the reference.

There remains the question: Why did General Decaen keep Flinders' third log-book when restoring to him all his other papers? The reason suggested by Flinders himself is probably the right one: that the governor retained it in order that he might be better able to justify himself to Napoleon in case he was blamed for disregarding the passport. He "did not choose to have his accusations disproved by the production either of the original or of an authenticated copy." It is difficult to see what other motive Decaen can have had. The sheer cantankerous desire to annoy and injure a man who had angered him can hardly have been so strong within him as even to cause a disregard of the common proprietary rights of his prisoner. The book could have been of no use to Decaen for any other purpose. Its contents had no bearing on the Terre Napoleon coasts, as they related to a period subsequent to Flinders' voyage there. Doubtless the book showed why the Cumberland called at Mauritius, but the reason for that was palpable. The idea that a leaky twenty-nine ton schooner, with her pumps out of gear, could have put into Port Louis with any aggressive intent against the great French nation, which had a powerful squadron under Admiral Linois in the Indian Ocean, was too absurd for consideration. But Decaen was plainly hunting for reasons for detaining Flinders, and it is possible that he found a shred of justification in the despatches which the Cumberland was carrying from Governor King to the British Government; though the protracted character of the imprisonment, after every other member of the ship's company had been set free, cannot have been due to that motive.

It is most probable that representations made to Decaen by Péron, before Le Geographe sailed, had an effect upon the mind of the governor which induced him to regard any ship flying the British flag as an enemy to French policy. Péron, from what he had seen of the growth of Port Jackson, and from the prompt audacity and pugnacious assertiveness of an incident which occurred at King Island--to be described in the ninth chapter--had conceived an inflated idea of the enormity of British pretensions in the southern hemisphere. He was convinced that, using the Sydney settlement as a base of operations, the British intended to dominate the whole Pacific Ocean, even to the degree of menacing the Spanish colonies of South America. On 20th Frimaire, Revolutionary Year 12 (December 11, 1803), four days before Le Geographe sailed from the island, Péron set his views on paper in a report to Decaen, stating that his interviews with officers, magistrates, clergymen, and other classes of people in Sydney, had convinced him that his anticipations were well founded. He pointed out that already the English were extending their operations to the Sandwich, Friendly, Society, Navigator, and other islands of the South Pacific; that at Norfolk Island they had a colony of between fifteen hundred and sixteen hundred people, and found its timber to be of great value for shipbuilding; and that gradually the British Government, by extending their military posts and trading stations across the ocean, would sooner or later establish themselves within striking distance of Chili and Peru.* (* Péron's report to General Decaen is given in M. Henri Prentout's valuable treatise, L'Ile de France sous Decaen, 1803 to 1810; essai sur la politique coloniale du premier empire, Paris 1901 page 380. M. Prentout's book is extremely fair, and, based as it is mainly upon the voluminous papers of General Decaen, preserved in his native town of Caen, is authoritative.) Péron pointed to the political insecurity of the Spanish-American colonies, and predicted that the outbreak of revolution in them, possibly with the connivance of the English, would further the deep designs of that absorbent and dominating nation.* (* A French author of later date, Prevost-Paradol (La France Nouvelle, published in 1868), predicted that some day "a new Monroe doctrine would forbid old Europe, in the name of the United States of Australia, to put foot upon an isle of the Pacific.")

Decaen was pondering over Péron's inflammatory memorandum when the lame little Cumberland staggered into Port Louis. Here, a victim ready to hand, was one of the instruments of the extension of British dominion, the foremost explorer in the service of the British Crown. True, Flinders had a passport from the French Government, but it was made out, not for the Cumberland but for the Investigator. To take advantage of such a point, when the Investigator had had to be abandoned as unseaworthy, was manifestly to seize the flimsiest pretext for imprisoning the man whom the winds and waves had brought within his power.* (* "C'etait une chicane," says M. Henri Prentout, page 382.) But Decaen was in the temper for regarding the English navigator as a spy, and he imprisoned him first and looked for evidence to justify himself afterwards. He had just read Péron's report; and "it was not unnatural," says a learned French historian somewhat naively, "that the Captain-General should attribute to the English savant the intention of playing at Port Louis the role that our naturalist had played at Port Jackson."* (* Ibid.) The imputation is unjust to Péron, who had not "spied" in Port Jackson, because the English there had manifested no disposition to conceal. Nothing that he reported was what the Government had wished him not to see; they had helped him to see all that he desired; and his preposterous political inferences, though devoid of foundation, hardly amounted to a positive breach of hospitality. Besides, had Decaen feared that the release of Flinders would be dangerous because he might report the weak state of the defences of the island, the same would have applied to the liberation of the junior officers and men of the Cumberland. They, however, were permitted to return to England after a brief period of detention.