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Terre Napoleon

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Peron 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 Peron'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 Peron'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 Peron 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.

Peron 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.
Peron'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.

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
Peron, 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 Peron 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," Peron 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 Peron* 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 Peron 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 Peron, two volumes Paris 1824. But
the two men were not related. The nautical Captain Peron was born at
Brest in 1769.)

Apart from Peron'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 Peron 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 Peron'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 Peron 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.

Captain Baudin's impressions of the young colony, contained in his letter
to Jussieu,* (* Moniteur, 22nd Fructidor, Revolutionary Year 11.
(September 9, 1803).) are also interesting, and may with advantage be
quoted, as they appear to have escaped the attention of previous writers.
"I could not regard without admiration," he wrote, "the immense work that
the English have done during the twelve years that they have been
established at Port Jackson. Although it is true that they commenced with
large resources ["grands moyens"; but, indeed, they did not!] and
incurred great expenditure, it is nevertheless difficult to conceive how
they have so speedily attained to the state of splendour and comfort in
which they now find themselves. It is true that Nature has done much for
them in the beauty and security of the harbour upon which their principal
establishment is erected; but the nature of the soil in the vicinity has
compelled them to penetrate the interior of the country to find land
suitable for the various crops which abundantly furnish them with the
means of subsistence, and enable them to supply the wants of the European
vessels which the fisheries and commerce attract to this port."

The French visitors were far more genial in their view of the affairs of
the colony than many British writers have been. It was concerning this
very period that Dr. Lang said that the population consisted, apart from
convicts, "chiefly of those who sold rum and those who drank it."

The reader must not, however, be hurried away from the subject of the
convict population without the pleasure of an introduction to a
delightful rascal, under sentence for forgery, with whom Peron had an
interview. The ironical humour of the passage will lighten a page; and
the plausible character revealed in it might have escaped from a comedy
of Moliere. Morand was his name, and his crime--"son seul crime," wrote
Peron in italics--was in having "wished to associate himself with the
Bank of England without having an account there."

Morand shall be permitted to tell, in his own bland, ingenuous way, how,
like a patriot, he tried to achieve financially what Bonaparte failed to
do by military genius; and doubtless in after years he reflected that if
his own efforts brought him to Sydney Cove, Napoleon's landed him at St.
Helena.

"The war," said Morand, "broke out between Great Britain and France; the
forces of the two nations were grappling; but it appeared to me to be
easier to destroy our rival by finance than by arms. I resolved,
therefore, as a good patriot, to undertake that ruin, and to accomplish
it in the very heart of London. If I had succeeded," he cried with
enthusiasm, "France would have held me in the greatest honour; and
instead of being branded as a brigand, I should have been proclaimed the
avenger of my country. Scarcely had I arrived in England when I commenced
my operations; and at first they succeeded beyond all my hopes. Assisted
by an Irishman not less skilful than myself, and who, like me, was
actuated by a noble patriotism, desiring even more fervently than I did
the downfall of England, I was soon enabled to counterfeit the notes of
the Bank with such perfection that it was even difficult for us to
distinguish those which came from our own press from the genuine paper. I
was at the very point of a triumph; all my preparations were made for
inundating England with our manufactured notes; nothing was wanting
except some information in regard to numbering them--when my companion,
whom up till then I had regarded as AN HONEST MAN,* (* The italics are
Peron's.) took it into his head to steal some of the notes, which were as
yet defective, inasmuch as they lacked a few trifling but indispensable
formalities. He was arrested almost immediately; and as he had behaved
dishonourably towards me, he did not hesitate to relapse into sin in
another aspect. He revealed everything to the authorities; I was arrested
and plunged into prison with him; all my instruments, all our bank notes,
were seized--and Great Britain was saved from the ruin which I had
prepared for her!

"Evident as were the proofs of our project, I did not despair, thanks to
the nature of the criminal laws of England, of escaping death; but such
were the feebleness and fright of my wretched partner, that I had no
doubt of our common downfall if I were compelled to appear before the
tribunals in association with that cowardly wretch. To obviate the
aggravation of my own misfortunes, which could not have prevented his, I
determined to endeavour to get rid of him; and, as the author of both our
disasters, it was quite right that he should suffer. In a speech to him
that was very pathetic, therefore, I tried to prove to him, that, our
death being inevitable, we had nothing better to think about than how
best to sustain the sadness and ignominy that had come upon us; and that,
death for death, it was better to fall like men of honour than under the
hand of the executioner. The Irishman was moved, but not yet resolved. I
then made him feel that if his own infamy did not touch him, he ought at
least to spare his children the disgrace of being pointed at as the
offspring of one who had been hanged; and that, if he had not been able
to leave them wealth, he should at least, by an act of generous devotion,
save them from that shame.

"These last reflections inflamed the Irishman with a fine courage. We
managed to procure a strong corrosive acid; I feigned to take some of it;
but he took it really, and died; when, disembarrassed from that silly
rascal, I avoided the gallows which assuredly awaited me had I been tried
with him. I was, instead, sentenced to transportation to this colony,
where I am condemned to pass the remainder of my days. But the period of
my servitude in prison is now finished; I follow with advantage two of my
early trades, those of goldsmith and clockmaker.* (* He was an
emancipist; that is, a convict liberated from prison confinement on
probation. His two "knaves" were also convicts. Transported men could
often earn their liberty by exemplary behaviour. When Flinders went north
in the Investigator, he was allowed to take nine convicts with him as
part of his crew, on the promise that a good report from him would earn
them their liberty; but that experiment was not a marked success. Morand,
as I understand it, escaped the death penalty because the suicide of his
companion prevented his being tried for conspiracy. The punishment for
forgery was transportation.) The two knaves who work for me increase my
profits threefold. In a few years I shall be one of the wealthiest
proprietors in the colony; and I should be one of the happiest if I were
not constantly tormented with regret at having so unfortunately failed in
an honourable enterprise, and at being regarded on that account as a vile
criminal, even by those among you, my compatriots, who cannot know the
noble principles [sic "nobles principes"!] which actuated my conduct, or
who cannot appreciate them."

As the good Peron does not mention discovering that his pockets had been
picked after his interview with this choice and humorous rogue, it will
be agreed that he escaped from the interview with singular good fortune.

The naturalist presented a lively picture of the port of Sydney, which
even in those very early days was becoming a place of consequence. There
were ships from the Thames and the Shannon, brought out to engage in
whaling, which was an important industry then and for many years after;
ships from China; ships laden with coal bound for India and the Cape;
ships engaged in the Bass Strait sealing trade; ships which pursued a
profitable but risky business in contraband with the Spanish South
American colonies; ships fitting out for the North American fur trade;
ships destined for enterprises among the South Sea Islands; and, lastly,
there was the ship of "the intrepid M. Flinders" getting ready to
continue the navigations of that explorer in northern and north-western
Australia. "All this ensemble of great operations, all these movements of
vessels, give to these shores a character of importance and activity that
we did not expect to meet with in regions so little known in Europe, and
our interest redoubled with our admiration." Above all, one is glad to
notice, Peron was interested in the boat in which George Bass had
accomplished that "audacieuse navigation," the discovery of Bass Strait,
in 1797 and 1798. It was, at the date of this visit to Sydney, preserved
in the port with a sort of "religious respect," and small souvenirs made
out of a portion of its keel were regarded as precious relics by those
who possessed them. Governor King believed that he could not make a more
honourable present to Baudin than a piece of the wood of the boat
enclosed in a silver frame, upon which he had had engraved a short
statement of the facts of Bass's remarkable exploit.

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