Before making up his mind as to what he should do, Captain Hamelin had the good luck to pick up an open boat containing Boullanger, one of the scientific staff of Le Geographe, a lieutenant, and eight sailors. They were absent from the ship when the storm burst, and Baudin had sailed away without them. His conduct on this occasion had been inexplicable. Boullanger and his party had gone out in the boat to chart a part of the coast with more detail than was possible from the deck of the corvette. But they had not been away more than a quarter of an hour, according to Péron, when Baudin, "without any apparent reason," bore off the coast. Then came the tempest, night fell, the following days were too stormy for putting off another boat to search for the missing men; and in the end, Baudin left them to their fate. They had no chart or compass, merely enough food and water to last for a day, and were abandoned on an uninhabited coast, in an open boat, in bitterly cold, squally weather, with the rain falling in sheets at frequent intervals. Here again, British kindness saved the Frenchmen. Before having the good fortune to perceive the sails of Le Naturaliste, the starved, drenched, and miserable men had attracted the attention of a sealing brig, the Snow-Harrington, from Sydney. Her skipper, Campbell, took them on board, supplied them with warm food, and offered to convey them to Port Jackson forthwith. They remained on the Snow-Harrington for the night, but on the following morning sighted Le Naturaliste, and, after profusely thanking Captain Campbell for his generosity, soon picked her up.
Hamelin, having no instructions as to where he should go, resolved to devote himself to work in Bass Strait. Eight days were spent in Westernport, the limit of Bass's discoveries in January 1798; and the name French Island preserves the memory of their researches there. They found the soil fertile, the vegetation abundant, the timber plentiful; the port was, they considered, "one of the most beautiful that it would be possible to find, and it unites all the advantages which will make it some day a precious possession."
But the supplies on board Le Naturaliste were becoming exhausted, and, being still without news of his chief, Hamelin decided to sail for Port Jackson. He arrived there on April 24. As far as he knew, however, the war between England and France still raged. News of the Treaty of Amiens was not received at Sydney till the middle of June. He was therefore gravely concerned about the reception that would be accorded him. He had his passport, which protected him from molestation, but he feared that the British would "at least refuse him succour," of which he was desperately in need. Evidently the Snow-Harrington had not communicated to him the same welcome news as the sealing craft had given to Baudin, concerning the instructions of King George's Government.
How different was his welcome from his anticipation! He found "nothing but sweet peace and gentle visitation." "The English received him, from the first instant, with that great and cordial generosity which the perfection of European civilisation can alone explain, and which it alone can produce. The most distinguished houses in the colony were thrown open to our companions, and during the entire length of their sojourn, they experienced that delicate and affectionate hospitality, which honours equally those who bestow and those who receive it." So Péron testified; but one cannot transcribe his words without a reflection on the sort of "European hospitality" that Matthew Flinders received by way of contrast when he was compelled to seek, shelter in Mauritius.
Le Naturaliste was lying at anchor when Flinders' arrived with the Investigator in May. Learning from him of the meeting with Le Geographe in Encounter Bay in the previous month, and inferring that Baudin would sail for Mauritius after finishing what he had to do on the southern coast, Hamelin determined also to make his way to the French colony. He left Sydney harbour on May 18, with the intention of rounding the southern extremity of Tasmania, and striking across the Indian Ocean from that point. But here again fearful storms were encountered. "The sea was horrible; the winds blew with fury and in squalls; torrents of rain fell incessantly"; and, increasing the misfortunes, the westerly winds were so strong at the time when the ship was endeavouring to turn westward, that no headway could be made. Hamelin's men were already on short rations, but even so the supplies would not suffice for a voyage to Mauritius, unless a fairly rapid passage could be made. The contrary winds, fogs, and storms of "the roaring forties" offered no such assurance; and the French captain, casting a "longing, lingering look behind" at the comforts and hospitalities of Port Jackson, determined to double back on his tracks. He re-traversed the east coast of Tasmania, and entered Port Jackson for the second time on July 3, to find that his chief and the leading ship of the expedition had been snugly berthed there during the past fortnight. "And so," Péron comments, "were united for the second time, and by the most inconceivable luck, two ships which, owing to the obstinacy of the commandant, had had no appointed rendezvous, and were twice forced to navigate independently at two periods of the voyage when it would have been most advantageous for them to act in concert."
As the two French vessels lay at Sydney for nearly six months, during which time the officers and men mingled freely with the population of the colony, whilst the naturalists and artists occupied themselves busily with the work of their special departments, the occurrences have a two-fold interest for one who wishes to appreciate the significance of Baudin's expedition. There is, first, the interest arising from the observations of so intelligent a foreign observer as Péron* was, concerning the British colony within fifteen years after its foundation; and there is, secondly, the special interest pertaining to the reception and treatment of the expedition by the governing authorities, their suspicions as to its motives, and the consequences which arose therefrom. (* Curiously enough, there was another Péron who visited Port Jackson in a French ship in 1796, and gave an interesting account of it in a book which he wrote--Memoires du Capitaine Péron, two volumes Paris 1824. But the two men were not related. The nautical Captain Péron was born at Brest in 1769.)
Apart from Péron's writings, we have a considerable body of documentary material, in the form of letters and despatches, which must be considered. We cannot complain of an insufficiency of evidence. It covers the transactions with amplitude; it reveals purposes fully; the story is clear.
What Péron saw of the infant settlement filled him with amazement and admiration. "How could we fail to be surprised at the state of that interesting and flourishing colony," cried the naturalist. It was only so recently as January 26, 1788, that Captain Arthur Phillip had entered the commodious and beautiful harbour which is not eclipsed by any on the planet. Yet the French found there plentiful evidences of prosperity and comfort, and of that adaptable energy which lies at the root of all British success in colonisation. Master Thorne, in the sixteenth century, expressed the resolute spirit of that energy in a phrase: "There is no land uninhabitable, nor sea innavigable"; and in every part of the globe this British spirit has applied itself to many a land that looked hopeless at first, and has frequently found it to be one:
"whose rich feet are mines of gold,
Whose forehead knocks against the roof of stars."
We need hardly concern ourselves with Péron's survey of the administrative system, social factors, education, commerce, agriculture, fisheries,, finance, and political prospects, valuable as these are for the student of Australian history. Nor would it further our purpose to extract at length his views on the reformative efficacy of the convict system, as to which he was certainly over sanguine. The benevolent naturalist dealt with the convicts in the next paragraph but one from that in which he had described the growing wool trade; and it would almost seem that observations which he had intended to make relative to sheep and lambs had by chance strayed amongst the enthusiastic sentences in which he related how transportation humanised criminals. "All these unfortunates, lately the refuse and shame of their country, have become by the most inconceivable of metamorphoses, laborious cultivators, happy and peaceful citizens"; "nowhere does one hear of thieves and murderers"; "the most perfect security prevails throughout the colony"; "redoubtable brigands, who were so long the terror of the Government of their country, and were repulsed from the breast of European society, have, under happier influences, cast aside their anti-social manners"; and so forth. On this subject Péron is by no means a witness whom the sociologist can trust; though it should not escape notice that the generous temper in which he described what he saw of the convict system in operation, and his view of it as a noble experiment in reformation, indicate his desire to appraise sympathetically the uses to which the British were putting their magnificent possessions in the South Seas.