Part 2 (2/2)

CHAPTER 3. PORT PHILLIP.

Conflict of evidence between Baudin, Peron, and Freycinet as to whether the French s.h.i.+ps had sighted Port Phillip.

Baudin's statement corroborated by doc.u.ments.

Examination of Freycinet's statement.

The impossibility of doing what Peron and Freycinet a.s.serted was done.

One statement made by Captain Baudin to Flinders has been reserved for separate treatment, because it merits careful examination.* (* The more so as the conflict of evidence to be pointed out seems to have escaped the notice of writers on Australian history. The contradictions are not observed in Bonwick's Port Phillip Settlement, in Rusden's Discovery, Survey, and Settlement of Port Phillip, in s.h.i.+llinglaw's Historical Records of Port Phillip, in Labilliere's Early History of Victoria, in Mr. Gyles Turner's History of the Colony of Victoria, nor in any other work with which the author is acquainted.)

He gave an account of the storm in Ba.s.s Strait which had separated him from Le Naturaliste on March 21, and went on to say that ”having since had fair winds and fine weather, he had explored the south coast from Westernport to our place of meeting without finding any river, inlet, or other shelter which afforded anchorage.” In his report to the Admiralty, dated May 11, 1802, Flinders related what Baudin told him on this point, in the following terms, which it is worth while to compare with those used by him in his book, quoted above: ”Captain Baudin informed me that after parting with the Naturaliste in the Strait, in a heavy gale, he had had fine weather, and had kept the coast close on board from Westernport to the place of meeting, but that he had found no bay or place where a vessel could anchor, the coast having but few bights in it, and those affording nothing to interest.” It will be seen that the official report and the account given to the public twelve years later are in close agreement. The important fact to be noticed is that Le Geographe had slipped past Port Phillip without observing the entrance, and that her captain was at this time entirely ignorant of the existence of the harbour which has since become the seat of one of the greatest cities in the southern hemisphere.

Now this statement, which is sufficiently surprising without the introduction of complicating contradictions, becomes quite mysterious when compared with the accounts given by Lieutenant Louis de Freycinet and Francois Peron, the joint authors of the official history of the French voyage. It is astonis.h.i.+ng in itself, because a vessel sent out on a voyage of exploration would not be expected to overlook so important a feature as Port Phillip. Here was not a small river with a sandbar over its mouth, but an extensive area of land-locked sea, with an opening a mile and a half wide, flanked by rocky head-lands, fronted by usually turbulent waters, at the head of a deep indentation of the coast. The entrance to Port Phillip is not, it must be acknowledged, so easy to perceive from the outside as would appear from a hasty examination of the map. If the reader will take a good atlas in which there is a map of Port Phillip, and will hold the plate in a horizontal position sufficiently below the level of the eye to permit the entrance to be seen ALONG the page, he will look at it very much as it is regarded from a s.h.i.+p at sea.*

(* A reduced copy of the Admiralty chart of the entrance (1907) is prefixed to this chapter. The reader can perform the experiment with that.) It will be noticed that a clear view into the port, except from a particular angle, is blocked by the land on the eastern side (Point Nepean) overlapping the tongue of land just inside the port on the western side (Shortland's Bluff). Not until a vessel stands fairly close and opposite to the entrance, so that the two lighthouses on the western side, at Queenscliff, ”open out,” can the pa.s.sage be discerned.* (*

Ferguson, Sailing Directions for Port Phillip, 1854--he was harbour-master at the time--says (page 9): ”Vessels having pa.s.sed Cape Schanck should keep a good offing in running down towards the entrance until they open out the lighthouses, WHICH ARE NOT SEEN BEFORE BEARING NORTH 1/2 EAST OWING TO THE HIGH LAND OF POINT NEPEAN INTERVENING.”

Findley, Navigation of the South Pacific Ocean, 1863, has a remark about the approach to the port from the west: ”In approaching Port Phillip from the westward, the entrance cannot be distinguished until Nepean Point, the eastern point, bears north-north-east, when Shortland's Bluff, on which the lighthouses are erected, opens out, and a view of the estuary is obtained.” A Treatise on the Navigation of Port Phillip, by Captain Evans (a pilot of thirty-six years' experience), has also been consulted.) Indeed, a pilot of much experience has a.s.sured the writer that s.h.i.+ps, whose captains know the port, are sometimes seen ”dodging about” (the phrase is the pilot's) looking for the entrance. Yet it may be allowed that if Le Geographe had sailed close in, with the sh.o.r.e on her starboard quarter, and the coast had been examined with care, she would hardly have missed the port; and, her special business being exploration, she certainly ought not to have missed it.* (* In Appendix B, at the end of this chapter, are given quotations from the journals of Murray and Flinders, in which they record how they first saw the port.)

But although Baudin said he had seen nothing ”to interest,” both Peron and Freycinet, in their volumes--published years later, after they had learnt of the discovery of Port Phillip by Lieutenant John Murray in January 1802--stated that it was seen from Le Geographe on March 30.

Peron wrote that shortly after daybreak, the s.h.i.+p being in the curve of the coast called Baie Talleyrand on the Terre Napoleon maps--that is, between Cape Schanck on the eastern side of Port Phillip heads, and Cape Roadknight on the western side--the port was seen and its contours were distinguished from the masthead.* (* The matter is sufficiently important to justify the quotation of the pa.s.sages in which Peron and Freycinet recorded the alleged observation, and these are given at length in Appendix A to this chapter.) Peron did not say that he saw it himself. He merely recorded that it was seen. Freycinet did not see it himself either. He was at this time an officer on Le Naturaliste, and was not on the Terre Napoleon coasts at all until the following year, when he penetrated St. Vincent's and Spencer's Gulfs. He, without indicating the time of day, or stating that the port was merely viewed from aloft, a.s.serted that the entrance was observed, though the s.h.i.+p did not go inside.

In the first place, the statements of Peron and Freycinet are not in agreement. To observe the entrance was one thing; to trace the contours from the masthead quite another. To do the first was quite possible, though not, as will be shown, from any part of the route indicated on the track-chart of Le Geographe. But to distinguish the contours of Port Phillip from outside, over the peninsula, was not possible.

Here, at all events, is a sharp conflict of evidence. We must endeavour to elicit the truth.

It is certain that Baudin had no motive for concealing his knowledge, if he knew of the existence of Port Phillip when he met Flinders. Had his cue been to prefer claims on account of priority of discovery, he would have been disposed to make his t.i.tle clear forthwith. Frankness, too, was an engaging characteristic of Baudin throughout. He was evidently proud of what his expedition had already done, and was, as Flinders wrote, ”communicative.” Had he discovered a new harbour, he would have spoken about it jubilantly. Moreover, as Flinders explained to him how he could obtain fresh water at Port Lincoln, a fellow-navigator would surely have been glad to reciprocate by indicating the whereabouts of a harbour in which the Investigator might possibly be glad to take shelter on her eastern course.

It is also clear that Flinders did not misunderstand Baudin. He was an extremely exact man, and as he said that he was ”particular in detailing all that pa.s.sed,” we may take it that one with whom precision was something like a pa.s.sion would be careful not to misunderstand on so important a point. Brown, too, was with him, a trained man of science, who would have been quick to correct his chief in the event of a misapprehension. Flinders so far relied on Baudin's statement that when, on April 26, he sighted Port Phillip heads himself, he thought he was off Westernport, which his friend George Ba.s.s had discovered in 1798. ”It was the information of Captain Baudin which induced this supposition,” he wrote.* (* See also the entry in his journal, Appendix B.) It was not till he bore up and took his bearings that he saw that he could not be at Westernport; and he then congratulated himself on having made ”a new and useful discovery”--unaware, of course, that Murray had found Port Phillip in the Lady Nelson in the previous January.

It must be noted in addition that Baudin wrote a letter to Jussieu, the distinguished French botanist and member of the Inst.i.tute, nine months later, in which he gave an account of his voyage up to date.* (* Printed in the Moniteur, 22 Fructidor, Revolutionary Year 11. (September 9, 1803).) Therein he said not a word about seeing Port Phillip, nor did he allude to the possibility of there being a harbour between Westernport and Encounter Bay.

Baudin, then, knew nothing about Port Phillip when he met Flinders on April 8. But if somebody else saw it from the masthead on March 30, why was not the fact reported to the commander? Why was he not asked the question whether so large a bay should be explored? Again, if Le Geographe did sight Port Phillip, why did she not enter it? Here was a magnificent chance for discoverers. They were necessarily unaware of Murray's good fortune in January. As far as their knowledge could have gone, the port was absolutely new to geography. If we believe Peron and Freycinet, surely these were the most negligent explorers who ever sailed the seas.* (* It is true that Cook did not enter Port Jackson when he discovered and named it on May 6, 1770. But exploration, it must always be remembered, was not the primary object of the voyage of the Endeavour, as it was of Le Geographe. Cook, when he achieved the greatest extent of maritime discovery made at one time by any navigator in history, was simply on his way homeward from a visit to Tahiti, the primary purpose of which was to enable astronomers to observe the transit of Venus. Cook, too, made a record of the lat.i.tude and longitude of Port Jackson. No such entry was made by the French relative to Port Phillip, as will presently be shown.) But if we believe that Baudin spoke the truth to Flinders--and the absence of all reference to the port in his letter to Jussieu is alone sufficient to show that he did--what shall we say of the statements of Peron and Freycinet, written after Baudin's death, after they had learnt of Murray's discovery, and when they had set themselves the task of making the work of the expedition appear as important as possible?

Now, Baudin's statement is confirmed by five doc.u.ments, the testimony of which is convincing.

1. As an appendix to volume 3 of the Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres Australes, is printed the entire log of Le Geographe. The entry for March 30, 1802* (* Page 499.) (9th Germinal, Year 10 in the revolutionary calendar, which is printed parallel with the ordinary dates), is lat.i.tude 38 degrees 33 minutes south, longitude 142 degrees 16 minutes east. The reckoning is from the meridian of Paris, not of Greenwich.) The situation when the entry was made, presumably at noon, was about midway between Lorne and Apollo Bay, off the coast leading down in a south-westerly direction to Cape Otway. The winds were east, east-north-east, south-east, and east-south-east; weather very fine; a fresh wind blowing (”joli frais; beau temps”). It was the wind which was hindering Flinders, sailing in the opposite direction. The column for ”Remarques” opposite this date was left blank. In other places where anything remarkable was seen--even such a thing as a striking sunset--it was duly entered in the proper place. But there was no entry relative to seeing Port Phillip from the masthead, or observing the entrance, at any time. Baudin is corroborated by the s.h.i.+p's log.

2. There is also appended to volume 3 of the same work a table of geographical positions as calculated by the s.h.i.+p's officers. The situation of Cape Schanck (Cap Richelieu on the French map) and of Ile des Anglois (Phillip Island) are given; and next in the list comes Cap Desaix (Cape Otway).* (* Page 544.) There is no record of a lat.i.tudinal and longitudinal reading between these points. That is to say, the position of Port Phillip is not indicated at all. In this case also the column for ”Remarques” is blank. Can we believe that if the port had been observed, no attempt would have been made to fix the situation of it? The lat.i.tudes and longitudes of some quite unimportant features of the coast were duly noted. Here was a large bay, and not the slightest reference was made to it in the table. The inevitable inference is that the French saw nothing worth recording between Cape Schanck and Cape Otway. Baudin is corroborated by the table of ”positions geographiques.”

3. The atlas issued with the first volume of the Voyage de Decouvertes in 1807 contained several coloured plates of views of coasts traversed by Le Geographe. The work of the artists accompanying the expedition was very beautiful; some of the plates have rarely been excelled in atlases of this kind. These coast sketches, like narrow ribbons, prettily tinted, were done from the deck of the s.h.i.+p, and represented the aspect of the sh.o.r.e-line from seaward. The coasts of Ba.s.s Strait were duly represented, but there was a gap between the Schanck and the Otway sides of Port Phillip. Why? Obviously because the s.h.i.+p was not near enough to the coast to enable the artists to see it clearly. Can we believe that men whose particular task it was to depict the coasts traversed, would have missed the picturesque gateway of Port Phillip if they had seen it? Baudin is corroborated by the atlas.

4. The Moniteur of July 2, 1808, contained a long article by Lieutenant Henri de Freycinet--elder brother of Louis--reviewing the work of the expedition, on the occasion of the publication of Peron's first volume.

Now, Henri de Freycinet was Baudin's first lieutenant on Le Geographe. If Port Phillip was seen from that s.h.i.+p on March 30, he should have seen it if Baudin did not. If the captain was ill, or asleep, Henri de Freycinet would be in charge. But in his article, though he described the discoveries claimed to have been made with particular regard to the so-called Terre Napoleon coasts, he made no reference to Port Phillip.

Baudin is corroborated by his chief officer.

5. Lastly, when Captain Hamelin returned to Europe with Le Naturaliste in 1803, Bonaparte's official organ, the Moniteur, published an article on the voyage from information supplied partly by him and partly contained in despatches.* (* Moniteur, 27 Thermidor, Revolutionary Year 11 (August 15, 1803).) Referring to Baudin's voyage along the ”entierement inconnues” southern coasts of Australia, the article said that he first visited Wilson's Promontory (which it called Cap Wilson), and then advanced along the coast till he met Captain Flinders. No reference was made to seeing any port, although if one had been seen by any one on board Le Geographe, it surely would have been mentioned with some amount of pride in an official despatch.

As has already been said, Freycinet was not with Le Geographe on this voyage, and therefore knew nothing about it personally. But before the publication of the official history was completed, Peron died. Baudin was also dead. Freycinet, who was preparing the maps, was instructed to finish the work. He therefore wrote up from the notes and diaries of other members of the expedition a geographical description of the coasts traversed. His general plan, when describing coasts with which he had no personal acquaintance, was to acknowledge in footnotes the particular persons on whose notes he relied for his descriptions. But it is a singular circ.u.mstance that when he came to describe this part of the coast of Terre Napoleon, and to repeat, with an addition, Peron's statement that Port Phillip was seen on March 30, he gave no footnote or reference. In whose diary or notes was that fact recorded? It was not in the s.h.i.+p's log, as we have seen. Who, then, saw Port Phillip from Le Geographe? Henri de Freycinet did not; Baudin did not; Peron did not; Louis de Freycinet was not there. If it were seen by a look-out man, did no officer, or scientist, or artist on board, take the trouble to look at it, or to make a note about it, or a drawing of it? What singular explorers these were!

We must examine Freycinet's story a little more closely. He is not content with saying, as Peron had done, that the port was seen from the masthead. He is more precise--he, the man who was not there. He says: ”Nous en avons observe l'entree.” That is more than Peron, who was there, had claimed. If the ”entrance” to Port Phillip was ”observed” on March 30, still more incomprehensible is it that the s.h.i.+p did not enter, that the fact was not mentioned in the log, that the lat.i.tude and longitude were not taken, and that the artists neglected so excellent an opportunity.

But that is not all. Freycinet, the man who was not there, and whose narrative was not published till thirteen years after the voyage, has further information to give us. He states, on whose authority we are not told, that the country observed along part of this coast, between Cap Suffren and Cap Marengo (that is, between Cape Patton and Cape Franklin), presented ”un aspect riant et fertile.” The book containing these descriptive words was, the reader will recollect, published in 1815. Now, Flinders' volumes, A Voyage to Terra Australis, were published in 1814.

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