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Terre Napoleon

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Now, Baudin's statement is confirmed by five documents, 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 latitude
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 ship's log.

2. There is also appended to volume 3 of the same work a table of
geographical positions as calculated by the ship'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 latitudinal
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
latitudes 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 ship, and represented the aspect of the
shore-line from seaward. The coasts of Bass Strait were duly represented,
but there was a gap between the Schanck and the Otway sides of Port
Phillip. Why? Obviously because the ship 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 ship 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 circumstance 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 ship'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 ship did not enter, that
the fact was not mentioned in the log, that the latitude 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.
There he had described the country which he saw from inside the port as
presenting "a pleasing and in many places a fertile appearance." "Un
aspect riant et fertile" and "a pleasing and fertile appearance" are
identical terms. It may be a mere coincidence, though the comparison of
dates is a little startling. All the words which one can use are, as
Boileau said, "in the dictionaries"; every writer selects and arranges
them to suit his own ideas. But when Flinders said that the country
around Port Phillip looked "pleasing and fertile," he had seen it to
advantage. On May 1 he had climbed Station Peak, one of the You-Yang
group of mountains, and saw stretched at his feet the rich Werribee
Plains, the broad miles of fat pastures leading away to Mount Macedon,
and the green rolling lands beyond Geelong, opening to the Victorian
Western District. In May the kangaroo-grass would be high and waving,
full of seed, a wealth of luxuriant herbage, the value of which Flinders,
a country-bred boy, would be quick to appreciate. On the other side of
the bay he had climbed Arthur's Seat at the back of Dromana, saw behind
him the waters of Westernport which Bass had discovered, and traced the
curve of the coast as far into the blue distance as his eye could
penetrate. He had warrant for saying that the country looked "pleasing
and fertile." But how did Freycinet come to select those words, "un
aspect riant et fertile"? He was not there himself, and, as a matter of
probability, it seems most unlikely that such terms would occur to a
person who was there, either as applicable to the lands near Points
Nepean and Lonsdale, with their bastions of rock and ramparts of sand, or
to the scrubby and broken coast running down to Cape Otway, which, as a
matter of fact, is not fertile, except in little patches, and, even after
half a century of settlement, does not look as if it were. The conclusion
is hardly to be resisted that Freycinet thought he was safe in
appropriating, to describe land seen from seaward, terms which Flinders
had employed to describe land seen inside the port.

Three additional facts strengthen the conviction that Port Phillip was
never seen from Le Geographe, but that the statements of Peron and
Freycinet were made to cover up a piece of negligence in the exploration
of these coasts. The French, on their maps, lavishly bestowed names on
the capes, bays, and other features of the coasts seen by them. More will
be said on this subject in the next chapter. But meanwhile it is
important to notice that they gave no names to the headlands at the
entrance to Port Phillip, which are now known as Point Lonsdale and Point
Nepean. If they saw the entrance on March 30, why did they lose the
opportunity of honouring two more of their distinguished countrymen, as
they had done in naming Cap Richelieu (Schanck), Cap Desaix (Otway), Cap
Montaigne (Nelson), Cap Volney (Moonlight Head), and so many other
features of the coast? It is singular that while they named some capes
that do not exist--as, for instance, Cap Montesquieu, to which there is
no name on modern maps to correspond, and no projection from the coast to
which it can be applicable--they left nameless these sharp and prominent
tongues of rock which form the gateway of Port Phillip. But if they knew
nothing about the port until they learnt of its existence later at
Sydney, and saw no chart of it till an English chart was brought to their
notice, the omission is comprehensible.

Another fact which must not escape notice is that the French charts show
two lines of soundings, one along the inside of the Nepean peninsula, and
a shorter one towards the north. Mud Island is also indicated. How did
they get there? It was not even pretended in the history of the voyage
that Le Geographe went inside the heads. But see how the story grew: (a)
Baudin saw no port; (b) Peron says the port was seen from the masthead;
(c) Freycinet says the entrance was seen; (d) on the charts there are
actually soundings shown inside the harbour. Further consideration will
be given to these soundings in a later chapter.

The reader who has carefully followed the argument so far, will probably
have come to the conclusion that Captain Baudin's statement to Flinders
was perfectly true, and that the assertions of Peron and Freycinet which,
if veracious, would make Le Geographe the second ship that ever saw Port
Phillip--cannot be accepted. One other fact will clinch the case and
place the conclusion beyond doubt.

In 1812 Freycinet published a large folio volume of charts. The sixth
chart in the book is most valuable for our purpose. It is called a "Carte
generale du Detroit de Bass." Its importance lies in the fact that by
means of a dotted line it marks the track of Le Geographe throughout her
course. Now, this track-chart shows clearly that the ship was never, at
any moment, nearer than six or seven miles to Port Phillip heads. On the
greater part of her course across the so-called Baie Talleyrand she was
much farther from the land than that. On no part of her course would it
have been possible for a person at the masthead to see either the
entrance to Port Phillip or any part of the port itself. It shows that
the ship, while steering across from Cape Schanck in the direction of
Cape Otway, diverted a few miles to the north-west, and then abruptly
turned south-west. From any part of this course, the stretch of coast
where Port Phillip heads are would present the appearance of an unbroken
wall of rock, the gap being covered by the overlapping land on the
western side. The sudden north-westerly diversion, and then the sharp
turn south-west, seem to indicate that Baudin thought it well to sail up
to see if there was anything worth examining at the head of the bight,
and concluded that there was not.

There can be no more authoritative opinion on the possibility of doing
what Peron and Freycinet claimed was done, than that of a member of the
Port Phillip pilot service. The pilot steamer is almost incessantly on
duty in what the French chose to call Baie Talleyrand. The pilots know
the ground intimately; they are familiar with every part of the coast;
they see it in all weathers; they observe the entrance under all
conditions of light and atmosphere. Wishing, therefore, to confirm an
opinion already adequately supported, the writer showed two large
photographed copies of two of Freycinet's charts to an experienced member
of the pilot service, and asked him whether it would have been possible
for Port Phillip to be seen from the situation indicated, or anywhere in
the vicinity, under any conceivable conditions. He at once replied that
it was utterly impossible.* (* Indeed, he promptly said, in the direct,
emphatic speech which is the special privilege of sailors: "The man who
said he saw Port Phillip or the entrance from any point in that
neighbourhood would be lying.") Even if Le Geographe had sailed close
along shore, he further observed, nothing like the contour of the port
shown on Freycinet's chart could have been drawn from the masthead; and
the track-chart shows that the ship's course was several miles from the
coast. In fact, the chart shows more than could have been seen if the
French had sailed close up to the heads and looked inside.

Peron's statement--which is not confirmed by Freycinet--that it had at
first been determined to call the port "Port du Debut,"* (* See Appendix
A to this chapter.) is also rather puzzling. "Du Debut" of what? The
eastern extremity of the region marked "Terre Napoleon" on Freycinet's
charts is Wilson's Promontory, and the real "Port Du Debut" of the
territory so designated would be, if there is any relation between words
and things, not Port Phillip but Westernport.* (* In the Moniteur article
of 27th Thermidor, Revolutionary Year 11, Wilson's Promontory is referred
to as the point of departure: "Il visita d'abord le cap Wilson, d'ou il
prit son point de depart, et s'avanca vers l'ouest en suivant la cote
jusqu'a la distance de 15 degres de longitude.") Was there some confusion
in Peron's mind as to what port was seen? Unquestionably Le Geographe did
sight Westernport. Was it originally Baudin's intention to ignore Bass's
discovery of 1798, and, giving a French name to every feature of the
coast in Terre Napoleon, to call Westernport "Port du Debut"? That would
not have been an appropriate name for Port Phillip had it really been
seen on the morning of March 30, as it most certainly was not. But, it
being determined to denominate the land between Wilson's Promontory and
Cape Adieu "Terre Napoleon," Westernport might well have been counted as
the port of the beginning of the exploration of the territory, and, as
such, it would truly have been the Port du Debut. Freycinet, writing in
1824, acknowledged that Peron, "having written before the charts were
finished, made some mistakes relative to geography."* (* Preface to the
second edition of the Voyage de Decouvertes (1824) 1 page 16.) It is
possible that this was one of his errors; and it would be an easy one for
a man to make who was not familiar with the coast. But assuredly there
was no mere error on Freycinet's part.

What, then, are we to make of the statements of Peron and Freycinet?

The latter officer tells us, in one of his prefaces, that the French
Government was dissatisfied with the work of the expedition, and was at
first disposed to refuse to publish any record of it. Sir Joseph Banks,
closely in touch with movements relative to scientific work, had news of
the displeasure of Napoleon's ministers, and wrote to Flinders, then a
prisoner: "M. Baudin's voyage has not been published. I do not hear that
his countrymen are well satisfied with his proceedings" (June 1805).
Finally it was determined to issue a history of the expedition; but to
have published any charts without showing Port Phillip would have been to
make failure look ridiculous. By this time Freycinet, who was preparing
the charts, knew of the existence of the port. The facts drive to the
conclusion that the French had no drawing of Port Phillip of their own
whatever, but that their representation of it was copied from a drawing
of which possession had been acquired--how? It is quite clear that
Freycinet had to patch up the omissions in the work of his companions
from some source, to hide the negligent exploration which had missed one
of the two most important harbours in Australia. We shall hereafter see
how he did it.

APPENDIX A.

The following are the two passages from Peron and Freycinet to which
reference is made in the text. Peron wrote (Voyage de Decouvertes 1 316):
"Le 30 mars, a la pointe du jour, nous portames sur la terre, que nous
atteignimes bientot. Un grand cap, qui fut appele Cap Richelieu [it is
now Cape Schanck] se projette en avant, et forme l'entree d'une baie
profonde, que nous nommames Baie Talleyrand. Sur la cote orientale de
cette baie, et presque vers son fond, se trouve un port, dont on
distinguoit assez bien les contours du haut des mats; nous le designames
sous le nom de Port du Debut; mais ayant appris dans la suite qu'il avoit
ete reconnu plus en detail par le brick Anglois The Lady Nelson, et qu'il
avoit ete nomme Port Philipp [sic] nous lui conserverons avec d'autant
plus de plaisir ce dernier nom, qu'il rappelle celui du fondateur d'une
colonie dans laquelle nous avons trouve des secours si genereux et si
puissans."

Freycinet wrote (Voyage de Decouvertes 3 115): "Nous venons de vanter la
beaute du port Western; mais celui que l'on rencontre a peu de distance
vers l'O ne paroit pas moins recommandable, tant par son etendue que par
commodite. Nous en avons observe l'entree le 30 mars 1802, sans toutefois
penetrer dans son interieur. Les Anglois, qui l'ont examine avec details,
lui ont donne le nom de Port Phillip en l'honneur du premier gouverneur
de la colonie du Port Jackson...Vers l'interieur on voit de hautes
montagnes; elles se rapprochent du rivage a la hauteur du Cap Suffren; et
de ce point jusqu'au cap Marengo, la cote, plus elevee encore, est d'un
aspect riant et fertile."

APPENDIX B.

The reader may find it convenient to have appended also, the passages
from the journals of Murray and Flinders, in which they record their
first view of Port Phillip. These journals were used by Labilliere in
writing his Early History of Victoria (1 78 and 110). Murray's was then
at the Admiralty; it is now in the Public Record Office. That of Flinders
was placed at the disposal of Labilliere by the distinguished grandson of
the explorer, Professor Flinders Petrie, whose great work in revealing to
us moderns an ampler knowledge of the oldest civilisations, those of
Syria and Egypt, is not a little due, one thinks, to capacity inherited
from him who revealed so much of the lands on which the newest of
civilisations, that of Australia, is implanted.

Murray, in the Lady Nelson, sailing close along-shore west from
Westernport on January 5, 1802, saw a headland bearing west-north-west
distant about twelve miles, and an opening in the land that had the
appearance of a harbour north-west ten or twelve miles. When within a
mile and a half, he wrote: "With closer examination of my own, and going
often to the masthead, I saw that the reef did nearly stretch across the
whole way, but inside saw a fine sheet of smooth water of great extent.
From the wind blowing on this shore, and fresh, I was obliged to haul off
under a press of sail to clear the land, but with a determination to
overhaul it by and by, as no doubt it has a channel into it, and is
apparently a fine harbour of large extent." Murray did not enter the port
until after his mate, Bowen, had found the way in, with a boat, in
February.

Flinders, after visiting King Island, resumed his work along the mainland
on April 25. He wrote in his journal: "Until noon no idea was entertained
of any opening existing in this bight; but at that time an opening became
more and more conspicuous as we ran farther west, and high land at the
back appeared to be at a considerable distance. Still, however, I
entertained but little hopes of finding a passage sufficiently deep for a
ship, and the bearings of the entrance prevented me from thinking it the
west entrance into Westernport." In the journal, as in the report to the
Admiralty, and, twelve years later, in his book, Flinders wrote that it
was what Baudin told him that made him think there could be no port in
the neighbourhood. "From appearances I at first judged this port to be
Westernport, although many others did not answer; though Captain Baudin
had met with no harbour after leaving that, and from his account he had
fine weather and kept the shore close on board to the time of his meeting
us."


CHAPTER 4. TERRE NAPOLEON AND ITS NOMENCLATURE.

Imprisonment of Flinders in Mauritius.
The French atlas of 1807.
The French charts and the names upon them.
Hurried publication.
The allegation that Peron acted under pressure.
Freycinet's explanations.
His failure to meet the gravest charge.
Extent of the actual discoveries of Baudin, and nature of the country
discovered.
The French names in current use on the so-called Terre Napoleon coasts.
Difficulty of identifying features to which Baudin applied names.
Freycinet's perplexities.
The new atlas of 1817.

What happened to Matthew Flinders when, after a brief sojourn in Sydney
Harbour, he left to continue his explorations in the northern waters of
Australia, is generally known. While he was at work in the Gulf of
Carpentaria, the condition of the Investigator caused him much
uneasiness, and when she was overhauled, the rotten state of her timbers
compelled him to return. She was then condemned as unseaworthy. On again
sailing north in the Porpoise, he was wrecked on the Barrier Reef. Making
his way back to Sydney in a small open boat built from the wreckage, and
well named the Hope, he was given the use of the Cumberland, a mere barge
of only twenty-nine tons, in which to carry himself and part of his
shipwrecked company to England. Compelled by the leaky condition of the
crazy little craft, and the inefficiency of the pumps, to put into
Mauritius, then a French possession, he was detained as a prisoner by the
French governor, General Decaen, for six and a half years.

There is no need, for our immediate purpose, to linger over these
occurrences, inviting as they are, with a glint of Stevensonian romance
in the bare facts, and all the pathos that attaches to the case of a
brave and blameless man thwarted and ruined by perversity and malignity.
Frequently have the facts been wrongly written, as for instance when
Blair states, in his Cyclopaedia of Australia, that Baudin in Le
Geographe called at Mauritius after Flinders was imprisoned, and, instead
of procuring his release, "persuaded the Governor to confine him more
rigorously." Poor Baudin--he had been in his grave three months when
Flinders appeared at the island in dire distress, and Le Geographe itself
left the day before his arrival.

What is clear, however, is that Flinders was detained in a captivity that
broke down his health and wrecked his useful life, first on General
Decaen's own responsibility, and later--though the evidence on this point
is not specific--in accordance with influences from Paris; and that
during his imprisonment an attempt was made to deprive him of credit for
his discoveries by the publication of the first volume of the French
official history and its accompanying atlas.

The atlas published in 1807* (* The date on the imprint of volume 1,
though the charts bear the date 1808. A second part of the atlas,
containing a few additional small charts, was issued in 1811.) contained
two large charts, the work of Lieutenant Louis de Freycinet. The first
was a "Carte generale de la Nouvelle Hollande," with the title inscribed
upon a scroll clutched in the talons of an imperial eagle, a most
fearsome wild-fowl, that with aggressive beak and flaming eye seemed to
assert a claim to the regions denominated on what it held. This was the
most complete map of Australia published up to the date named. The second
was entitled "Carte generale de la Terre Napoleon." In this case the
title was held by feathered Mercury in graceful flight, displaying the
motto "Orbis Australis dulces exuviae." An exquisite little vignette
under the title (by Lesueur) should not escape notice. Upon both charts,
the whole of southern Australia, from Wilson's Promontory to Cape Adieu
in the Bight, was styled Terre Napoleon. To nearly every cape, bay,
island, peninsula, strait, and gulf in this extensive region was affixed
a name, in most cases, though not in all, that of some Frenchman of
eminence during the revolutionary and Napoleonic period. The Spencer's
Gulf and St. Vincent's Gulf, which Flinders had discovered, were
respectively named Golfe Bonaparte and Golfe Josephine.* (* The latter
was named "in honour of our august Empress," said Peron. It was a pretty
piece of courtiership; but unfortunately Napoleon's nuptial arrangements
were in a state of flux, and when the trenchant Quarterly reviewer of
1810 came to discuss the work, the place of Josephine was occupied by
Marie Louise. The reviewer saucily suggested: "Bonaparte has since
changed it for Louisa's Gulf.") The large island which Flinders had
pointed out to Baudin, and which he informed that officer he had named
Kangaroo Island, became Ile Decres. The Yorke's Peninsula of Flinders was
styled Presqu'Ile Cambaceres; his Investigator Strait became Detroit de
Lacepede; and his Backstairs Passage, Detroit de Colbert. To-day the
Terre Napoleon charts look like a partial index to the Pantheon and Pere
Lachaise. Laplace, Buffon, Volney, Maupertuis, Montaigne, Lannes, Pascal,
Talleyrand, Berthier, Lafayette, Descartes, Racine, Moliere, Bernadotte,
Lafontein, Condillac, Bossuet, Colbert, Rabelais, D'Alembert, Sully,
Bayard, Fenelon, Voltaire,* (* Voltaire's name is on the Terre Napoleon
sectional chart, but it seems to have been crowded out of the large Carte
Generale. As there is no actual bay in Spencer's Gulf to correspond with
the Baie Voltaire shown on the Terre Napoleon chart, the omission does
not matter much. But one would have liked to have Voltaire's opinion on
the subject of his exclusion.) Jeanne d'Arc, L'Hopital, Massena, Turenne,
Jussieu, Murat--soldiers, statesmen, scientists, authors, philosophers,
adorn with their memorable names these most un-Gallic shores. The
Bonaparte family was pleasantly provided for. Thus we find the Isles
Jerome, Baie Louis and Baie Hortense (after Josephine's daughter).
Outside the Terre Napoleon region, on the north coast, the name Golfe
Joseph Bonaparte bespoke geographical immortality for another member of
the family. But we miss Rousseau and Turgot, deplore the absence of
Corneille and La Bruyere, and feel that at least a sand-bank or two might
have been found for Quesnay and the economists, if only as a set-off
against the disparagement of Burke.

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