Part 9 (2/2)

Early Tasmania page 18.) At all events, King used no word of menace, while conveying plainly that the establishment of a French settlement would require ”explanation.”

There is no good reason for disbelieving Baudin's disclaimer. It was plain and candid; and there was nothing in his actions while he was in Australian waters which belied his words. The baseless character of the gossip promulgated by Lieutenant-Colonel Paterson, and the alleged exhibition of the map indicating the exact spot where the French intended to settle in Frederick Henry Bay, were disposed of by the fact that Baudin's s.h.i.+ps went nowhere near that place after leaving Sydney. If any French officer did show Paterson a chart, he must have been amusing himself by playing on the suspicions of the Englishman, who was probably ”fis.h.i.+ng” for information. Baudin's conduct, and that of his officers, never suggested that search for a site for settlement was part of the mission of the expedition; and, in the face of the commodore's emphatic denials, positive evidence, or a strong chain of facts to the contrary, would have to be forthcoming before such a story could be entertained.

Suspicions were natural enough in face of the strained feelings, the wars, the plots and counter-plots of diplomacy, Napoleon's menaced invasion of England, and all the other factors that made for racial animosity at the beginning of the nineteenth century; but viewing the circ.u.mstances in the perspective made by the lapse of a hundred years, cool judgment must dismiss the jealous alarms of 1802 as being unfounded.

Yet a patriotic Frenchman, as Peron was, could not witness this remarkable growth of a new offshoot of British power in the South Seas without regret and misgiving. ”Doubtless,” he commented on Robbins'

action, ”that ceremony will appear silly to people who know little about English polity; but for the statesman such formalities a.s.sume a much more serious and important character. By these public and repeated declarations England seems every day to fortify her pretensions, to establish her rights, in a positive manner, and to devise pretexts to repulse, even by force of arms, all other peoples who may wish to form settlements in these distant countries.” We shall not honour Peron the less because he expressed an opinion so natural to a man solicitous for his country's prestige.

It has been stated by one or two writers that the action of Robbins put an end to the cordial relations which had previously existed between him and the French. But that is an error. They had cause to be offended, but the young man was treated with indulgence. Peron records that both Grimes and Robbins visited the tents of the French after the flag incident, and shared their frugal dinner; and Baudin informed King that, the c.u.mberland having lost an anchor, his forge was at work for a whole day supplying the wants of the British schooner--a service akin to heaping coals of fire on the head of the zealous acting-lieutenant. At the same time, other members of the French expedition experienced very kind treatment from British fishermen. Faure, one of the scientific staff, was sent in a small boat to complete a chart of the island. A violent storm compelled him to go ash.o.r.e on the western end, where he and his sailors were for three days most hospitably entertained by sealers, who, on their departure, forced upon them some of their finest furs as presents. ”How is it,” comments Peron, ”that such touching hospitality, of which voyages offer so many examples, is nearly always exercised by men whose poverty and roughness of character seem to impose such an obligation least upon them. It seems that misfortune, rather than philosophy and brilliant education, develops in mankind that n.o.ble and disinterested virtue which induces us to minister to the woes of others.”

Le Naturaliste sailed for Europe from King Island on December 8, carrying with her all the plants and natural history specimens collected up to date, as well as the charts. The collections were, as King wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, ”immense.”* (* Historical Records 4 844.) Le Geographe and the Casuarina left on December 27, and sailed direct for Kangaroo Island, to resume in that neighbourhood the charting which Baudin had abandoned in the previous year. They did not, as the logs show, make any attempt to examine Port Phillip. Robbins and his seventeen guardians of British rights on the c.u.mberland remained for some time longer making a thorough examination; after which they sailed for Port Phillip, and Grimes made the first complete survey of that great sheet of water.

It is only necessary to add that King reported to the Admiralty his approval of Robbins' action, and that to ”make the French commander acquainted with my intention of settling Van Diemen's Land was all I sought by this voyage.” But it is obvious from a letter which he wrote to Banks, after Baudin's death, and after his soul had been moved to righteous wrath by the iniquitous treatment of Flinders--whom he so warmly admired and so loyally aided--that suspicion, once implanted in King's mind, was not eradicated by explicit disavowals. Had Baudin lived another year, he said, ”I think it very possible that the commodore would most likely have visited the colony for the purpose of annihilating the settlement.” But surely here, if ever, the lines were applicable:

”In the night imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear!”

Baudin, after his remarkable exploits in 1800 to 1804, was the last man whom Napoleon would have chosen to try to annihilate a British settlement anywhere. Rather, in such an unlikely event, would his own crew have been in danger of annihilation from his methods.

CHAPTER 10. RETURN OF THE EXPEDITION.

Le Geographe sails for Kangaroo Island.

Exploration of the two gulfs in the Casuarina by Freycinet.

Baudin's erratic behaviour.

Port Lincoln.

Peron among the giants.

A painful excursion.

Second visit to Timor.

Abandonment of north coast exploration.

Baudin resolves to return home.

Voyage to Mauritius.

Death of Baudin.

Treatment of him by Peron and Freycinet.

Return of Le Geographe.

Depression of the staff and crew.

Le Geographe sighted Kangaroo Island on January 2, and anch.o.r.ed on the 6th in Nepean Bay on the eastern side. The Casuarina joined her consort on the following day.

Freycinet, who was in command of the smaller vessel, was instructed to make a complete survey of the two gulfs named by the French after Bonaparte and Josephine, and by Flinders, their discoverer, after Lord Spencer and Lord St. Vincent, who were First Lords of the Admiralty when his own expedition was authorised and when it sailed from England.

The Casuarina was provisioned for twenty-six days for this task, and Freycinet took with him Boullanger, one of the hydrographers, who prepared the charts under his supervision. No part of the French work was better done than was the charting of the two gulfs and Kangaroo Island, and, as previously indicated, its quality very naturally aroused the suspicion that the improvement owed something to the charts of Flinders.

It has been shown, however, that this was not the case. Of Boullanger's training and qualifications nothing can be said, except that it may be presumed that the Committee of the Inst.i.tute of France which selected him, comprising two such experts as Bougainville and Fleurieu, must have been satisfied of his attainments. Much of his work was certainly done under severe trials and difficulties, but it is chiefly significant that the improvement in the charting synchronises with the presence in command of Freycinet; and allusion may again be made to the beautiful work done by this officer when he commanded the Uranie and the Physicienne a few years later, as showing his deep interest and practical skill in employment of this cla.s.s.

There can be no doubt that the work would have been better done throughout had Captain Baudin been a more sympathetic commander. To what extent the deficiencies of the French charts of the remainder of the Terre Napoleon coasts are attributable to his failure to appreciate the requirements of his scientific staff, can be conjectured; but the peremptory manner in which he allotted so many days and no more for the survey of the gulfs, and then sailed off leaving the Casuarina to s.h.i.+ft for herself, reveals an extraordinary temper in a commander on such service, as well as a fatuous disregard of the many hindrances that made rigid time conditions difficult to observe.

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