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

by Sir Ernest Scott

Péron described the weather during the voyage southward as "frightful."

"And now the storm blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o'er-taking wings,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the blast,
And southward aye we fled."

Torrents of very cold rain fell, furious squalls lashed the sea to a boil, thick fogs obscured the atmosphere; and the ship had to be worked by men "covered with sores and putrid ulcers, each day seeing the number of the sick augmented." There was a short rest in Adventure Bay, Bruni Island, for the purpose of procuring fresh water on May 20, and when the order to sail again was given, the crew were so much enfeebled by disease that it took them four hours to weigh the anchor. On the east coast more storms came to harass the unfortunate men. A paragraph in Péron's own terms will convey a sufficient sense of the agony endured on the stricken ship.

"On June 2 and 3 the weather became very bad. Showers of rain succeeded each other incessantly, and squalls blew with a violence that we had never experienced before. On the 4th, during the whole day, the weather was so frightful that, accustomed as we had become to the fury of tempests, this last made us forget all that had preceded. Never before had the squalls followed each other with such rapidity; never had the billows been so tumultuous. Our ship, smitten by them, at every instant seemed about to break asunder under the shock of the impact. In the twinkling of an eye our foremast snapped and fell overboard, and all the barricading that we had erected to break the force of the wind was smashed. Even our anchors were lifted from the catheads despite the strength of the ropes which held them. It was necessary to make them more secure, and the ten men, who were all that were left us to work the ship, were engaged in this work during a great part of the day. During the night the tempest was prolonged by furious gales. The rain fell in torrents; the sea rose even higher; and enormous waves swept over our decks. The black darkness did not permit the simplest work to be done without extreme difficulty, and the whole of the interior of the vessel was flooded by sea-water. Four men were compelled to enter the hospital, leaving only six in a condition to carry out the orders of the officer on the bridge, and these unfortunates themselves dropped from sheer exhaustion and fatigue. Between decks, the sick men lay about, and the air was filled with their groans. A picture more harrowing never presented itself to the imagination. The general consternation added to the horror of it. We had nearly reached the point of being unable to control the movements of the ship amidst the fury of the waves; parts of the rigging were broken with every manoeuvre; and despite all our efforts we could scarcely shift our sails. For a long time our commandant had had no rest. It was absolutely necessary to get out of these stormy seas at the extremity of the southern continent, and hasten on our course for Port Jackson. 'At this time,' says the commandant in his journal, and the fact was only too true, 'I had not more than four men in a fit condition to remain on duty, including the officer in charge.' The ravages of the scurvy can be estimated from these words. Not a soul among us was exempt from the disease; even the animals we had on board were afflicted by it; some, including two rabbits and a monkey, had died from it."

Slowly, painfully, as though the ship herself were diseased, like the miserable company on board, the coast was traversed, until at last, on June 20, Le Geographe stood off Port Jackson heads. Even then, with the harbour of refuge in sight, the crew were so paralysed by their affliction that they were positively unable to work her into port.* (* An astonishing statement indeed, but here are Péron's words: "Depuis plusieurs jours, nous nous trouvions par le travers du port Jackson sans pouvoir, a cause de la faiblesse de nos matelots, executer les manoeuvres necessaires pour y entrer.") But the fact that a ship in distress was outside the heads was reported to Governor King, who was expecting Le Geographe to arrive, and who had doubtless learnt that there was scurvy aboard from Flinders, whose quick eye would not have failed to perceive some trace of the sad state of affairs when he boarded the vessel in Encounter Bay. Accordingly King sent out a boat's crew of robust blue-jackets from the Investigator; and Péron records with what trembling joy the afflicted Frenchmen saw the boat approaching on that June morning. Soon the British tars climbed aboard, sails were trimmed, the tiller was grasped by a strong hand, a brisk British officer took charge, and the ship was brought through the blue waters of Port Jackson, where, in Neutral Bay, her anchor was dropped.

It is not overstating the case to say that Le Geographe was snatched from utter destruction by the prompt kindness of the British governor. A slight prolongation of the voyage would have rendered her as helpless as if peopled by a phantom crew; and she must have been blown before the wind until dashed to fragments on the rocks on some uninhabited part of the coast. The extremity of abject powerlessness had unquestionably been reached when the wide entrance to Port Jackson could not be negotiated.

Péron regarded the dreadful condition of the vessel as furnishing a great and terrible lesson to navigators. "These misfortunes," he wrote, "had no other cause than the neglect of our chief of the most indispensable precautions relative to the health of the men. He neglected the orders of the Government in that regard; he neglected the instructions which had been furnished to him in Europe; he imposed, at all stages of the voyage, the most horrible privations upon his crew and his sick people." The naturalist concluded his doleful chapter of horrors by quoting the words of the British navigator, Vancouver, who was one of Cook's officers on his third voyage: "It is to the inestimable progress of naval hygiene that the English owe, in great part, the high rank that they hold to-day among the nations." He might also have quoted, had he been aware of it, an excellent saying of Nelson's: "It is easier for an officer to keep men healthy than for a physician to cure them."

CHAPTER 9. PORT JACKSON AND KING ISLAND.

Le Naturaliste at Sydney.
Boullanger's boat party.
Curious conduct of Baudin.
Le Naturaliste sails for Mauritius, but returns to Port Jackson.
Re-union of Baudin's ships.
Hospitality of Governor King.
Péron's impressions of the British settlement.
Morand, the banknote forger.
Baudin shows his charts and instructions to King.
Departure of the French ships.
Rumours as to their objects.
King's prompt action.
The Cumberland sent after them.
Acting Lieutenant Robbins at King Island.
The flag incident.
Baudin's letters to King.
His protestations.
Views on colonisation.
Le Naturaliste sails for Europe.

Le Naturaliste had been unable to rejoin her consort after the tempest of March 7 and 8. She being a slow sailer, the risk of the two vessels parting company was constant, and as there had already been one separation, before the sojourn at Timor, Baudin should have appointed a rendezvous. But he had neither taken this simple precaution, nor had he even intimated to Captain Hamelin the route that he intended to pursue. When, therefore, the storm abated, the commander of the second ship neither knew where to look for Le Geographe, nor had he any certain information to enable him to follow her.