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Terre Napoleon

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The French Government fitted out the expedition in a lavish and elaborate
fashion.* (* "Les savans ont vu avec le plus grand interet les soins que
le gouvernement a pris pour rendre ce voyage utile a l'histoire naturelle
et a la connaissance des moeurs des sauvages." Moniteur, 22nd Fructidor.)
Funds were not stinted, and the commander was given unlimited credit to
obtain anything that he required at any port of call. The best scientific
instruments were procured, and the stores of the great naval depot of
Havre were thrown open for the equipment of the ships with every
necessity and comfort for a long voyage. Luxuries were not spared; "in a
word," says Peron, "the Government had ordered that nothing whatever
should be omitted that could assure the preservation of health, promote
the work of the staff, and guarantee the independence of the expedition."

Two vessels lying in the port of Havre were selected. The principal one,
which was named Le Geographe, was a corvette of 30 guns, 450 tons,
drawing fifteen or sixteen feet of water, a fast sailer, but, in Peron's
opinion, not so good a boat for the purpose as her consort. Flinders
described her as a "heavy-looking ship." The second vessel, named Le
Naturaliste, was a strong, lumbering store-ship, very slow, but solid.
She was a "grosse gabare," as one French writer described her.* (* Dr.
Holland Rose (Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era page 139) heightens the
effect of his argument by stating that Bonaparte "sent out men-of-war to
survey the south coast of Australia for a settlement." It may be true
that, strictly speaking, the ships were "men-of-war," inasmuch as they
were ships of the navy. But the reader would hardly derive the
impression, from the words quoted, that they were vessels utterly
unwarlike in equipment, manning, and command. As will presently be seen,
they were very soon loaded up with scientific specimens. Nor is there any
warrant for the statement that the expedition was instructed to "survey
the south coast of Australia for a settlement." There was nothing about
settlement in the instructions, which were not, as the passage would lead
the reader to infer, confined to the south coast.)

The staff was selected with great care, special examinations being
prescribed for the younger naval officers. A large company of artists,
men of science, and gardeners accompanied the expedition for the
collection of specimens, the making of charts and drawings, and the
systematic observation of phenomena. There were two astronomers, two
hydrographers, three botanists, five zoologists, two mineralogists, five
artists, and five gardeners. Probably no exploring expedition to the
South Seas before this time had set out with such a large equipment of
selected, talented men for scientific and artistic work. The whole
staff--nautical, scientific, and artistic--on the two ships consisted of
sixty-one persons, of whom only twenty-nine returned to France after
sharing the fatigues and distress of the whole voyage. Seven died, twenty
had to be put ashore on account of serious illness, and five left the
expedition for other causes.

The great German traveller and savant, Alexander von Humboldt, was in
Paris while preparations were being made for the despatch of the
expedition; and, being at that time desirous of pursuing scientific
investigations in distant regions, he obtained permission to embark, with
the instruments he had collected, in one of Baudin's vessels. He
confessed, however, that he had "but little confidence in the personal
character of Captain Baudin," chiefly on account of the dissatisfaction
he had given to the Court of Vienna in regard to a previous voyage.* (*
Humboldt's Personal Narrative of Travels, translated by H.M. Williams,
London 1814 volume 1 pages 6 to 8.) Humboldt's testimony is interesting,
inasmuch as, if it be reliable--and, as he was in close touch with
leading French men of science, there is no reason to disbelieve him--the
original intention was to make the voyage more extensive in scope, and
different in the route followed, than was afterwards determined. "The
first plan," he wrote, "was great, bold, and worthy of being executed by
a more enlightened commander. The purpose of the expedition was to visit
the Spanish possessions of South America, from the mouth of the River
Plata to the kingdom of Quito and the isthmus of Panama. After traversing
the archipelago of the great ocean, and exploring the coasts of New
Holland from Van Diemen's Land to that of Nuyts, both vessels were to
stop at Madagascar, and return by the Cape of Good Hope." Concerning the
reasons why he was not ultimately taken, Humboldt was not accurately
informed. "The war which broke out in Germany and Italy," he wrote,
"determined the French Government to withdraw the funds granted for their
voyage of discovery, and adjourn it to an indefinite period." Such was
not the case. The funds were not withdrawn; the expedition was not
adjourned. But Humboldt was a German, and the Institute very naturally
desired that French savants should do the work which was to be sustained
by French funds. There would probably be the less inclination to employ
Humboldt, as he reserved to himself "the liberty of leaving Captain
Baudin whenever I thought proper." He believed himself to be "cruelly
deceived in my hopes, seeing the plans which I had been forming during
many years of my life overthrown in a single day." But in view of his
confessed dislike of the commander, it does not seem that, on this ground
alone, it would have been good policy to enrol him as a member of the
staff, when there were French men of science eager for appointment.

The chief naturalist and future historian of the expedition, Francois
Peron, was twenty-five years of age when he was commissioned to join Le
Geographe. Born at Cerilly (Allier) in 1775, he was left fatherless at an
early age; but he was a bright, promising scholar, and the cure of his
native place took him into his house with the object of educating him for
the priesthood. But "seduced by the principles of liberty which served as
pretext for the Revolution, inflamed by patriotism, his spirit exalted by
his reading of ancient history," as a biographer, Deleuze, wrote, he left
the peaceful home of the village priest, and shouldered a musket under
the tricolour. He fought in the army of the Rhine, and in an engagement
against the Prussians at Kaiserslautern, was wounded and taken prisoner.
Always a student, he spent the little money that he had on the purchase
of books, which he devoted all his time to reading. He was exchanged in
1794, and returned to France.

His short soldiering career had cost him his right eye; but this
deprivation really determined the vocation for which his genius
especially fitted him. The Minister of the Interior gave him admission to
the school of medicine at Paris, where, in addition to pursuing the
prescribed course, he applied himself with enthusiasm to the study of
biology* (* The word "biology" was not used till Lamarck employed it in
1801 to cover all the sciences concerned with living matter; but we are
so accustomed to it nowadays, that it is the most convenient word to use
to describe the group of studies to which Peron applied himself.) and
comparative anatomy at the Museum. He was industrious, keen, methodical,
and, above all, possessed of that valuable quality of imagination which,
discreetly harnessed to the use of the scientific intellect, enables a
student to see through his facts, and to read their vital meaning. The
expedition to the South Seas had already been fitted out, and Baudin's
ships were lying at Havre awaiting sailing orders from the Minister of
Marine, when Peron sought employment as an additional biologist. The
staff was by that time complete; but Peron addressed himself to Jussieu,
pressing his request with such ardour, and explaining his well-considered
plans with such clearness, that the eminent botanist was unable to listen
to him "sans etonnement et sans emotion."

Peron was very anxious to travel, not only for the sake of the scientific
work which he might do, but also to find relief for his feelings,
depressed by the disappointment of a love affair. Mademoiselle was
unkind--because the lover was poor, his biographer says; but we must not
forget that he was also one-eyed. Many ladies prefer a man with two.

Jussieu conferred with Lacepede the biologist, and the two agreed that it
would be advantageous to permit this enthusiastic young student to make
the voyage. Peron was encouraged to write a paper to be read before the
Institute, expounding his views. He did so, taking as his principal theme
the desirableness of having with the expedition a naturalist especially
charged with researches in anthropology. The Institute was convinced; the
Minister of Marine was moved; Peron was appointed. He consulted with
Cuvier, Lacepede, and Degerando as to a programme of work, procured the
necessary apparatus, went to Cerilly to embrace his sisters and receive
his mother's benediction, and joined Le Geographe just before she
sailed.* (* The facts concerning Peron's early career are taken from
Deleuze's memoir, 1811, and that of Maurice Girard, 1857.)

The command of the expedition was entrusted to Captain Nicolas Baudin. He
was fifty years of age when he received this commission, on the
nomination of the Institute. In his youth he had been engaged in the
French mercantile marine. In later years he had commanded two
expeditions, despatched under the Austrian flag, for botanical purposes.
From the last of these he returned in 1797, when, his country being at
war with Austria, he presented the complete collection of animals and
plants obtained to the French nation.* (* The Moniteur, 25th Prairial
(June 13), 1797.) This timely act won him the friendship of Jussieu, and
it was largely through his influence that "Citoyen" Baudin was chosen to
command the expedition to the Terres Australes.* (* The Moniteur, 23rd
Floreal (May 13), 1800.) He had had no training in the Navy, though if,
as some suppose, the expedition had a secret aggressive mission, we may
reasonably conjecture that it would have been placed under the command of
a naval officer with some amount of fighting experience.

That Baudin did not become popular with the staff under his command is
apparent from the studious omission of his name from the volumes of Peron
and Freycinet, and from their resentful references to "notre chef." They
wrote not a single commendatory word about him throughout the book, and
they expressed no syllable of regret when he died in the course of the
voyage.

Sometimes we may judge of a man's reputation among his contemporaries by
an anecdote, even when we doubt its truth; for men do not usually tell
stories that disparage the capacity of those whom they respect. An
amusing if venomous story about Baudin was told by the author of a
narrative of one of the botanical voyages.* (* See the Naval Chronicle
volume 14 page 103. The writer referred to was Bory de Saint-Vincent, who
wrote the Voyage dans les quatre principales iles des mers d'Afrique,
Paris 1804.) He related, on the alleged authority of an officer, that,
being in want of a magnetic needle to replace one belonging to a compass
which had been injured, he applied to the commodore, who had several in a
drawer in his cabin. Baudin found one, but as it was somewhat rusty, the
officer feared that the magnetic properties of the steel would be
impaired. Baudin expressed his regret, and said: "Everything has been
furnished by the Government in the most niggardly fashion; if they had
followed my advice we should have been provided with silver needles
instead of steel ones!"

Whether or not we believe that a naval commander could be so ignorant of
magnetism, it is certain that Baudin did not enforce the laws of health
on his ships. Sufficient has been said in the first chapter to show so
much. The Consular Government gave unlimited scope for the proper
provisioning of the vessels, and yet we find officers and men in a
wretched condition, the water insufficient, and the food supplies in
utter decay, before the expedition reached Port Jackson. It must be
added, however--even out of its proper place, lest an unduly harsh
impression of Baudin's character should be conveyed--that he seems to
have made an excellent impression upon the English in Sydney. Governor
King treated him as a friend; and the letter of farewell that he wrote on
his departure was such a delicate specimen of grace and courtesy, that
one would feel that only a gentleman could have written it, were there
not too many instances to show that elegant manners and language towards
strangers are not incompatible with the rough and inconsiderate treatment
of subordinates.


CHAPTER 8. EXODUS OF THE EXPEDITION.

The passports from the English Government.
Sailing of the expedition.
French interest in it.
The case of Ah Sam.
Baudin's obstinacy.
Short supplies.
The French ships on the Western Australian coast.
The Ile Lucas and its name.
Refreshment at Timor.
The English frigate Virginia.
Baudin sails south.
Shortage of water.
The French in Tasmania.
Peron among the aboriginals.
The savage and the boat.
Among native women.
A question of colour.
Separation of the ships by storm.
Baudin sails through Bass Strait, and meets Flinders.
Scurvy.
Great storms and intense suffering.
Le Geographe at Port Jackson.

England and France were at war when, in June 1800, application was made
to the British Admiralty for passports for the French discovery ships.
Earlier in that year the Government of the Republic sent to London Louis
Guillaume Otto, a diplomatist of experience and tried discretion, to
arrange for the exchange of prisoners of war; and it was Otto, whose tact
and probity won him the esteem of King George's advisers, who conducted
the preliminary negotiations which led up to the Treaty of Amiens. Earl
Spencer was First Lord of the Admiralty--in Pitt's administration (1783
to 1801)--when the application was made.

The Quarterly Review of August 1810 (volume 4 page 42) fell into a
singular error in blaming Addington's administration for the issue of the
passports. Pitt's ministry did not fall till March 1801; and the censure
which the reviewer levelled at the "good-natured minister," Earl St.
Vincent, who was Addington's First Lord of the Admiralty, for
entertaining the French application, was therefore undeserved by him. "A
few months after the retirement of Mr. Pitt from office and the
succession of Mr. Addington, that is to say, in June 1800," are the
opening words of the Quarterly article--an extraordinary blunder for a
contemporary to make. The Quarterly was, of course, bitterly adverse to
Addington's administration, in politics; but though party bias is
responsible for strange behaviour, we shall be safe in attributing to
lapse of memory this censure of a minister for the act of his
predecessor. St. Vincent was in active service, as Admiral in command of
the Channel Fleet, when the passports were issued.

It cannot be assumed that Spencer would have complied with such a request
from a nation with which his country was at war, had he not been
satisfied that the expedition was what it professed to be, one for
discovery and scientific research. The passports granted guaranteed to Le
Geographe and Le Naturaliste protection from hostile attack from British
ships, and bespoke for them a favourable reception in any British port
out of Europe where they might have to seek shelter.

The Admiralty was in later years severely blamed for compliance.
Circumstances that have been narrated in previous pages generated the
suspicion that the real purpose of the expedition was "to ascertain the
real state of New Holland, to discover what our colonists were doing, and
what was left for the French to do, on this great continent in the event
of a peace, to find some port in the neighbourhood of our settlements
which should be to them what Pondicherry was to Hindustan, to rear the
standard of Bonaparte on the first convenient spot."* (* Quarterly Review
4 43. There can be no doubt that this Quarterly article had a great
influence in formulating the idea which has been current for nearly a
century regarding Napoleon's deep designs. Paterson's History of New
South Wales (1811) repeated portions of the article almost verbally, but
without quotation marks (see Preface page 5), and many later writers have
fed upon its leading themes, without submitting them to examination.) The
fact that this sweeping condemnation was made in a powerful organ of
opinion bitterly hostile to the administration which it meant to attack,
would minimise its importance for us, a century later, were it not that
more recent writers have adopted the same assumption. To accept it, we
have not merely to disregard the total absence of evidence, but to
believe that Spencer was befooled and that Otto deceived him. The
application was, it was urged, "grounded on false pretences," and the
passports were "fraudulently obtained." It would have been a piece of
audacity of quite superb coolness for the French diplomatist to ask for
British protection for ships on ostensible grounds of research, had their
secret purpose been exactly opposite to the profession; and the British
Minister would have been guilty of grave dereliction of duty had he not
assured himself that Otto's representations were reliable.

The letter of instructions furnished by the Duke of Portland, Secretary
of State in Pitt's administration, to Grant, the commander of the Lady
Nelson, in February 1800, may be quoted as laying down the principle
observed by Great Britain in regard to an enemy's ships commissioned
purely for discovery. "As vessels fitted out for this purpose," wrote the
Duke, "have always been respected by the nations of Europe,
notwithstanding actual hostilities may at the time have existed between
them, and as this country has always manifested the greatest attention to
other nations on similar occasions, as you will observe by the letters
written in favour of vessels employed in discovery by France and Spain,
copies of which you receive enclosed, I have no apprehension whatever of
your suffering any hindrance or molestation from the ships of other
nations should you fall in with them...You are also, on pain of His
Majesty's utmost displeasure, to refrain on your part from making prizes,
or from detaining or molesting the ships of any other nation, although
they may be at war with His Majesty."* (* Historical Records of New South
Wales 4 57.)

It was on this enlightened principle that the British Government
furnished passports to Baudin's ships; but the Admiralty also took steps
to prevent the laurels of important discovery being won by foreign
efforts. Flinders returned home in the Reliance in August, vigorous,
eager for fresh work, and already, notwithstanding his youth, honourably
regarded by naval men as an intrepid and skilful navigator. Lord Spencer,
the head of a family eminently distinguished for the great administrators
whom it has furnished for the furtherance of British polity, did a far
wiser thing than attempting to block French researches, from suspicion,
jealousy, or fear of consequences. He entertained the suggestion of Sir
Joseph Banks, ordered the fitting out of the Investigator, and placed her
under the command of the one man in the Navy who knew what discovery work
there was to do, and how to accomplish it speedily. Pitt's consummate
judgment in the selection of men for crucial work has often been
eulogised, and never too warmly; but one can hardly over-praise the
sagacity of Pitt's colleague at the Admiralty, who especially commended
Nelson as the officer to checkmate Bonaparte in the Mediterranean in
1798,* (* See Mahan's Life of Nelson (1899 edition) page 275.) and, on
the more pacific side of naval activity, commissioned Matthew Flinders to
complete the discovery of Australia in 1800.

Baudin's expedition was ready to sail from Havre at the end of September,
but was delayed by contrary winds. The delay was considered by a friendly
contemporary to be fortunate, in that it enabled the officers and
scientific staff to become friendly, so that the most perfect harmony
existed amongst them.* (* Moniteur, 29th Vendemiaire, Revolutionary Year
8 (1800).) French readers of the official organ of the Government were
also assured that everybody on the two ships had merited confidence in
the talent of the chiefs; in which case their disappointment with later
developments must have been all the more profound. The public and the
journals took a lively interest in the enterprise; and the author of one
of the world's great stories, Bernardin de Saint Pierre, from his
experience of tropical life in the island where Paul and Virginia lived
and loved, lectured at the Institute on the dietetic regime which ought
to be observed by Captain Baudin and his men.* (* Moniteur, 16th
Vendemiaire.) But however valuable his advice may have been, it was sadly
disregarded.

A livelier function was a banquet given to Baudin at the Hotel de la
Rochefoucauld, in Paris, on the 7th Fructidor, by the Societe de
l'Afrique Interieure. It was attended by several leading members of the
Institute, and an account of it was accorded over a column of space in
the Moniteur.* (* 22nd Fructidor.) Baudin was seated between Bougainville
and Vaillant, an African traveller. There was music, and song, and a long
toast list, with many eloquent speeches. Baudin submitted the toast of
Bonaparte, "First Consul of the French Republic and protector of the
expedition"; Jussieu proposed the progress of the sciences; the company
drank to the "amelioration of the lot of savage races, and may their
civilisation result from the visit which the French are about to pay to
them"; and the immortal memory of La Perouse was honoured in silence. The
last toast appropriately expressed the wish that the whole company might
reassemble in the same place on the return of the expedition, "inspired
by the purest zeal for the progress of the sciences and of
enlightenment." A short poem was also recited, which it is worth while to
rescue from the inaccessibility of the Moniteur file:--

"Vous quittez aujourd'hui la France
Mais vous emportez tous nos voeux,
Et deja vos succes heureux
Partout sont applaudis d'avance.

Sur le coeur de tous les mortels
Votre gloire a jamais se fonde,
Il n'est pas de pays au monde
Ou le savoir n'ait des autels."

The poet who thus applauded success in advance, probably lived long
enough to realise that it is much easier to make fair verses than a true
prediction.

There was another banquet at Havre while the ships were awaiting a fair
wind, when again high hopes were expressed concerning the results to be
achieved by the expedition, and where one of the toasts was proposed by a
Chinese, Ah Sam, who had been found on board a captured English frigate,
and was, by Bonaparte's orders, being taken by Baudin to Mauritius,
whence he was to be shipped to his own country. Ah Sam's toast descended
from ethereal altitudes and took a purely personal view of the situation.
He drank "Aux Francais, bons amis d'A Sam."* (* Moniteur, 21st
Vendemiaire.) The Chinaman had reason to be grateful, for the First
Consul had, by an order over his own signature, directed that he should
be placed under Baudin's charge, and conveyed to his own country at the
expense of the Government, and that there should be shown to him that
consideration which he merited, both because he was a stranger and
because of his good conduct while residing within the territories of the
Republic.* (* Correspondence of Napoleon, 1861 collection Volume 6,
letter dated 7th Vendemiaire, Revolutionary Year 9 (September 29, 1800).)
The treatment of Ah Sam was an example of that kindness which Napoleon,
ruthless in war, so often displayed towards those who touched his
sympathies.* (* Peron mentioned Ah Sam's case (1 11), but Freycinet, in
his second edition, cut out the paragraph, in pursuance of his policy of
suppressing references to Napoleon; Peron having written that the
Chinaman had reason to bless the generosity and goodness of the First
Consul. It was not politic in 1824 to talk about Napoleon's generosity
and goodness. But how paltry was the spirit thus displayed!)

The expedition sailed from Havre on the morning of October 19, 1800,
amidst cordial popular demonstrations from the inhabitants of that
bustling seaport, and many wishes that fortune might crown the efforts of
the explorers with success. The captain of the English frigate Proselite,
which was watching the harbour mouth, scrutinised the passports and
permitted the ships to pass; and, with a fair wind to fill his sails,
Baudin put out into the Channel and steered for the open ocean, bound due
south.

Peron, in his history of the voyage, severely blamed the obstinacy of
"notre chef"--mention of his name being carefully avoided--for the delay
occasioned on the run down to the Cape of Good Hope. Captain Baudin,
disregarding the advice of his officers, insisted on sailing fairly close
to the African coast, instead of making a more westerly course. He
argued, according to Peron, that the route which he favoured was nearer,
and as a matter of mileage he was right. But winds and currents should
have been considered rather than bare distance; and the simple result of
bad seamanship was that Baudin's vessels occupied one hundred and
forty-five days on the voyage from Havre to Mauritius, where they stayed
to refit, whilst Flinders brought out the Investigator from Spithead the
whole way to Cape Leeuwin, where he first made the Australian coast, in
one hundred and forty-two days. The French vessels lay at Mauritius for
the leisurely space of forty days, and did not reach Australia till May
27, two hundred and twenty days after their departure from France.

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