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Terre Napoleon

E >> Ernest Scott >> Terre Napoleon




But it is quite easy to account for the superior cartography of the two
gulfs and Kangaroo Island. Le Geographe visited this region twice. In
April 1802, after meeting Flinders in Encounter Bay, Baudin sailed west,
and endeavoured to penetrate the two gulfs. But his corvette drew too
much water to permit him to go far, and he determined to give up the
attempt, and to devote "une seconde campagne" to "la reconnaissance
complete de ces deux grands enfoncements."* (* Voyage de Decouvertes 3
11.) In Sydney, Governor King permitted him to purchase a small locally
constructed vessel of light draught--called the Casuarina, because she
was built of she-oak--with which to explore rivers and shallow waters.
The command of this boat was entrusted to Lieutenant Louis de Freycinet,
the future cartographer and part historian of the expedition; and the
charts of the two gulfs and Kangaroo Island were made by, or under the
superintendence of, that officer. Freycinet was not with Le Geographe on
her first cruise in these waters, and was not responsible for the
original drawings upon which his charts of the Terre Napoleon coasts
eastward of Cape Jervis were founded. But the fact that he surveyed the
gulfs and Kangaroo Island on the second visit, in 1803, is quite
sufficient to account for the improved cartography of this region in the
French atlas. Whatever we may think of the part played by Freycinet in
relation to Flinders and the history of the expedition, his professional
ability was of a high character. All the charting work done by him, when
he had not to depend upon the rough drawings of inferior men, was very
good. His interest in scientific navigation was deep, and when, in 1817,
he was given the command of a fresh French expedition, consisting of the
Uranie and the Physicienne, the large folio atlas produced by him
indicated that he had studied the technicalities of his profession to
excellent purpose.

The superiority of the work done by Baudin's expedition in the vicinity
of the two gulfs, then, was not due to any fraudulent use of Flinders'
material, but simply to the fact that there was a competent officer in
charge of it at that time; and there is nothing on the charts for which
Freycinet was personally responsible to justify the belief that his work
claiming to be original was not genuinely his own. When, in 1824, he
published a second edition of the Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres
Australes,* (* In octavo volumes; the first edition was in quarto.) he
repudiated with quiet dignity the suggestion that the work of the English
navigator had been plagiarised.* (* "C'est assez," he wrote, "repousser
des accusations odieuses et envenimees, fondees sur des idees
chimeriques, avec absence de toute espece de preuve. Le temps, qui calme
les passions humaines et permet toujours a la verite de reprendre ses
droits, fera justice d'accusations concues avec legerete et soutenues
avec inconvenance. Peron et Flinders sont morts; l'un et l'autre ont des
titres certains a notre estime, a notre admiration; ils vivront, ainsi
que leurs travaux, dans la memoire des hommes, et les nuages que je
cherche a dissiper auront disparu sans retour" (volume 1 Preface page
11). One cannot but be touched by that appeal; but at the same time it is
to be observed that in the very preface in which he made it, Freycinet
did far less than justice to the work of Flinders.) Except for the Port
Phillip part of the work, we might fairly say that history has commonly
done him and his confreres a serious injustice.

But we have seen that, although Port Phillip was included in the French
charts, and inside soundings were actually shown, neither the port nor
the entrance was seen by the expedition. How was that information
obtained?

Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste lay in Sydney harbour from June 20 to
November 18, 1802, their afflicted crews receiving medical treatment, and
their officers enjoying the hospitality of Governor King. Flinders and
Lieutenant John Murray, who discovered Port Phillip, were both there
during part of the same time. It was then that the French learnt of the
existence of the great harbour of which Baudin was ignorant when he met
Flinders in Encounter Bay; and it is highly probable that by some means
they obtained a copy of the chart which they saw.

Grounds for stating that that is a probability will be advanced a little
later. But let us first see how the drawing of Port Phillip that does
appear on the Terre Napoleon charts got there.

It was taken, as Freycinet acknowledged,* (* Voyage de Decouvertes 3
430.) "from a manuscript chart prepared on the English ship Armiston, in
1804. In 1806 the French frigate La Piedmontoise captured the British
ship Fame. Amongst the papers found on board was this manuscript chart.
It so happened that one of the officers of La Piedmontoise was Lieutenant
Charles Baudin des Ardennes, who had been a junior officer on Le
Naturaliste from 1800 to 1804. (He was no relative of Captain Baudin. The
family of Baudin des Ardennes was very well known in France; and this
officer became a distinguished French admiral.) He took possession of the
manuscript, and handed it over to Freycinet, who made use of it in
preparing his charts.

Probably it was a very rough chart; but even so, if Freycinet had had
anything like a drawing of Port Phillip made on Le Geographe, he would
have turned out a better piece of work. Not only is the outline very
defective, but the "lay" of the Nepean peninsula is so grossly wrong that
this alone would suffice to show that Freycinet did not merely correct
his chart with the aid of that captured from the Fame, but that the whole
drawing of Port Phillip was fitted in, like a patch. However ill a
navigator may draw, he always knows whether a coast along which he is
sailing runs west or north-west. A mariner's apprentice would know that.
But on the Terre Napoleon charts, the peninsula lies due east and west,
whereas in reality, as the reader will see by reference to any good map,
it has a decidedly north-westerly inclination. The patch was not well put
on. The consequence of this bad cobbling was to give a box-like,
rectangular appearance to the bay, utterly unlike the reality. The east
and west sides were carried about as far as Mornington and St. Leonards
respectively, in two nearly straight and parallel lines; Swan Bay and
Swan Island were missed altogether; and the graceful curve of the coast
round by Sorrento and Dromana--a curve most grateful to the eye on a day
when sea and sky are blue, and the silver sands and white cliffs shine in
the clear light--was tortured into a sharp bend. It was a very rough bit
of work.

The fact that an expedition sent out for discovery purposes, and which
named a considerable extent of the coast-line traversed after the Emperor
who had enabled it to be despatched, had to depend upon a manuscript
accidentally obtained from a captured British merchant ship for a chart
of the principal port in the territory so flauntingly denominated, hardly
calls for comment. But even when we are in possession of this
information, we are still left in some doubt as to whether the French had
not some sort of a drawing of Port Phillip before they left Sydney.
Otherwise the course pursued by their commodore after quitting that port
is quite unaccountable. The following reasons induce that belief.

When Baudin bade an affectionate and grateful farewell to Governor King
at Sydney on November 18, he sailed direct to King Island, which is
situated in Bass Strait, on the 40th parallel of south latitude, about
midway between the south-east of Cape Otway and the north-west corner of
Tasmania. Le Geographe was accompanied by Le Naturaliste and the little
Casuarina. A camp was established on the island, which was fully charted.
Baudin had missed it on his former voyage, though he had sailed within a
few miles of it. It will be remembered that when Flinders conversed with
him in Encounter Bay, and "inquired concerning a large island said to lie
in the western entrance of Bass Strait," Baudin said he had not seen it,
"and seemed to doubt much of its existence."* (*Flinders, Voyage 1 188.)
But Flinders found it easily enough, and spent a little time there before
entering Port Phillip. It was doubtless this inquiry of Flinders that
induced Baudin to mark down on his chart a purely fictitious island far
westward of the actual one, and to inscribe against it the words, "it is
believed that an island exists in this latitude."* (* "On croit qu'il
existe une ile par cette latitude." See the chart, a little west of Cape
Bridgewater (Cap Duquesne).)

As Baudin afterwards found the real island, it is curious that the
imaginary one should have been kept upon his chart; but there is a reason
for that also. While the French lay at King Island, most of the work done
up to date--geographical, zoological, and other--was collected and sent
back to France on Le Naturaliste; Le Geographe and the Casuarina
remaining to finish the exploratory voyage. Le Naturaliste sailed for
Europe on December 16, and entered the port of Havre on June 6, 1803. Had
Baudin lived to return to France, and to supervise the completion of the
charts, it is most probable that he would have erased the island which
was merely supposed, as he had since charted the real one; but Freycinet,
not having been present at the meeting with Flinders, and knowing nothing
of the reason which induced Baudin to set it down, left it there--a
quaint little fragment of corroboration of the truth of Flinders'
narrative of the Encounter Bay incident.

Now, when at the end of December Le Geographe and the Casuarina sailed
from King Island--the naturalists having in the interval profitably
enjoyed themselves in collecting plants, insects, and marine
specimens--they made direct for Kangaroo Island, four hundred miles away,
to resume the work which had been commenced in the gulfs in the previous
April and May. The whole of the movements of the ships up to this time
are to be read in the printed logs appended to volume 3 of the Voyage de
Decouvertes. Baudin made no call at Port Phillip, nor did one of his
three vessels visit the harbour either before or after reaching King
Island. But by this time Baudin knew all about the port, and it is surely
difficult to suppose that he would have sailed straight past it in
December unless at length he had it marked on his rough charts. His
officers knew about it too, though none of them had seen it; for Captain
Hamelin of Le Naturaliste reported when he reached Paris, that, as he
left King Island, he met and spoke to "an English goelette on her way to
Port Philips [sic], south-east coast."* (* Moniteur, 27 Thermidor.) It
was the Cumberland, Lieutenant Charles Robbins, bound on a mission to be
explained later.

It seems reasonable to assume that when Le Naturaliste sailed for France
on December 16, and the two other ships for Kangaroo Island later in the
same month, Baudin was quite satisfied that he had in his possession as
complete a representation of the whole of the Terre Napoleon coasts
westward to the gulfs, as would justify him in resuming the work from
that situation. Clearly, then, he obtained a Port Phillip drawing of some
kind before he left Sydney.

From what source could Baudin have obtained such a chart, however rough
and partial?

Up to the time when he lay at Port Jackson, only two ships had ever
entered Port Phillip. These were the Lady Nelson, under Murray's command,
in February 1802--the harbour having been discovered in the previous
month--and the Investigator, under Flinders, in April and May. No other
keels had, from the moment of the discovery until Baudin's vessels
finally left these coasts, breasted the broad expanse of waters at the
head of which the great city of Melbourne now stands. The next ship to
pass the heads was the Cumberland, which, early in 1803, entered with
Surveyor Grimes on board, to make the first complete survey of the port.
But by that time Baudin was far away. From one or other of the two
available sources, therefore, Baudin must have obtained a drawing,
assuming that he did obtain one in Sydney; and if he did not, his sailing
past the port, when he had an opportunity of entering it in December, was
surely as extraordinary a piece of wilful negligence as is to be found in
the annals of exploration.

It is possible that Baudin or one of his officers saw some drawing made
on the Lady Nelson. If they saw one made by Murray himself, it is not
likely to have been a very good one. Murray was not a skilled
cartographer. Governor King, who liked him, and wished to secure
promotion for him, had to confess in writing to the Duke of Portland,
that he did not "possess the qualities of an astronomer and surveyor,"
which was putting the matter in a very friendly fashion. If a chart or
crude drawing by Murray had been obtained, Freycinet might still be glad
to get the Fame chart which he used.

Both in his book and his correspondence Flinders mentions having shown
charts to Baudin; and though the French commodore did not reciprocate by
showing any of his work to Flinders, we may fairly regard that as due to
reluctance to challenge comparisons. Flinders was without a rival in his
generation for the beauty, completeness, and accuracy of his
hydrographical work, and Captain Baudin's excuses probably sprang from
pride. The reason he gave was that his charts were to be finished in
Paris. But there was nothing to prevent his showing the preliminary
drawings to Flinders, and as a fact he had shown them to King. If
Flinders had had a sight of them he would have detected at a glance the
absence of any indication of Port Phillip. But we learn from the Moniteur
of 27 Thermidor, Revolutionary Year 11 (August 15, 1803), which published
a progress report of the expedition, that the charts sent home by Baudin
were very rough. Part of the coast was described as being "figuree assez
grossierement et sans details."

Flinders, it should be explained, did not publish the chart which he made
when he entered Port Phillip with the Investigator, because by the time
when he was preparing his work for publication, a copy of the complete
survey chart made by Grimes had been supplied to him by the Admiralty. He
used Grimes's drawing in preference to his own--acknowledging the
authorship, of course--because when he found Port Phillip he was not in a
position to examine it thoroughly. His supplies, after his long voyage,
had become depleted, and he could not delay.

It is most likely that the French learnt of the existence of Port Phillip
from Flinders, though not at all likely that they were able to obtain a
copy of his drawing. If Baudin got one at all, it must have been
Murray's.

Freycinet did not acknowledge on any of his charts the source whence he
obtained his Port Phillip drawing. Obviously, it would have been honest
to do so. All he did was to insert two lines at the bottom of the page in
that part of volume 3 dealing with navigation details, where very few
readers would observe the reference.

There remains the question: Why did General Decaen keep Flinders' third
log-book when restoring to him all his other papers? The reason suggested
by Flinders himself is probably the right one: that the governor retained
it in order that he might be better able to justify himself to Napoleon
in case he was blamed for disregarding the passport. He "did not choose
to have his accusations disproved by the production either of the
original or of an authenticated copy." It is difficult to see what other
motive Decaen can have had. The sheer cantankerous desire to annoy and
injure a man who had angered him can hardly have been so strong within
him as even to cause a disregard of the common proprietary rights of his
prisoner. The book could have been of no use to Decaen for any other
purpose. Its contents had no bearing on the Terre Napoleon coasts, as
they related to a period subsequent to Flinders' voyage there. Doubtless
the book showed why the Cumberland called at Mauritius, but the reason
for that was palpable. The idea that a leaky twenty-nine ton schooner,
with her pumps out of gear, could have put into Port Louis with any
aggressive intent against the great French nation, which had a powerful
squadron under Admiral Linois in the Indian Ocean, was too absurd for
consideration. But Decaen was plainly hunting for reasons for detaining
Flinders, and it is possible that he found a shred of justification in
the despatches which the Cumberland was carrying from Governor King to
the British Government; though the protracted character of the
imprisonment, after every other member of the ship's company had been set
free, cannot have been due to that motive.

It is most probable that representations made to Decaen by Peron, before
Le Geographe sailed, had an effect upon the mind of the governor which
induced him to regard any ship flying the British flag as an enemy to
French policy. Peron, from what he had seen of the growth of Port
Jackson, and from the prompt audacity and pugnacious assertiveness of an
incident which occurred at King Island--to be described in the ninth
chapter--had conceived an inflated idea of the enormity of British
pretensions in the southern hemisphere. He was convinced that, using the
Sydney settlement as a base of operations, the British intended to
dominate the whole Pacific Ocean, even to the degree of menacing the
Spanish colonies of South America. On 20th Frimaire, Revolutionary Year
12 (December 11, 1803), four days before Le Geographe sailed from the
island, Peron set his views on paper in a report to Decaen, stating that
his interviews with officers, magistrates, clergymen, and other classes
of people in Sydney, had convinced him that his anticipations were well
founded. He pointed out that already the English were extending their
operations to the Sandwich, Friendly, Society, Navigator, and other
islands of the South Pacific; that at Norfolk Island they had a colony of
between fifteen hundred and sixteen hundred people, and found its timber
to be of great value for shipbuilding; and that gradually the British
Government, by extending their military posts and trading stations across
the ocean, would sooner or later establish themselves within striking
distance of Chili and Peru.* (* Peron's report to General Decaen is given
in M. Henri Prentout's valuable treatise, L'Ile de France sous Decaen,
1803 to 1810; essai sur la politique coloniale du premier empire, Paris
1901 page 380. M. Prentout's book is extremely fair, and, based as it is
mainly upon the voluminous papers of General Decaen, preserved in his
native town of Caen, is authoritative.) Peron pointed to the political
insecurity of the Spanish-American colonies, and predicted that the
outbreak of revolution in them, possibly with the connivance of the
English, would further the deep designs of that absorbent and dominating
nation.* (* A French author of later date, Prevost-Paradol (La France
Nouvelle, published in 1868), predicted that some day "a new Monroe
doctrine would forbid old Europe, in the name of the United States of
Australia, to put foot upon an isle of the Pacific.")

Decaen was pondering over Peron's inflammatory memorandum when the lame
little Cumberland staggered into Port Louis. Here, a victim ready to
hand, was one of the instruments of the extension of British dominion,
the foremost explorer in the service of the British Crown. True, Flinders
had a passport from the French Government, but it was made out, not for
the Cumberland but for the Investigator. To take advantage of such a
point, when the Investigator had had to be abandoned as unseaworthy, was
manifestly to seize the flimsiest pretext for imprisoning the man whom
the winds and waves had brought within his power.* (* "C'etait une
chicane," says M. Henri Prentout, page 382.) But Decaen was in the temper
for regarding the English navigator as a spy, and he imprisoned him first
and looked for evidence to justify himself afterwards. He had just read
Peron's report; and "it was not unnatural," says a learned French
historian somewhat naively, "that the Captain-General should attribute to
the English savant the intention of playing at Port Louis the role that
our naturalist had played at Port Jackson."* (* Ibid.) The imputation is
unjust to Peron, who had not "spied" in Port Jackson, because the English
there had manifested no disposition to conceal. Nothing that he reported
was what the Government had wished him not to see; they had helped him to
see all that he desired; and his preposterous political inferences,
though devoid of foundation, hardly amounted to a positive breach of
hospitality. Besides, had Decaen feared that the release of Flinders
would be dangerous because he might report the weak state of the defences
of the island, the same would have applied to the liberation of the
junior officers and men of the Cumberland. They, however, were permitted
to return to England after a brief period of detention.

Decaen also alleged that Flinders was personally rude to him in
presenting himself before him "le chapeau sur la tete." Flinders was
undoubtedly smarting under a sense of wrong at the time, but discourtesy
was by no means a feature of his character; and to imprison a man for six
and a half years for not taking his hat off would have been queer conduct
from a son of the Revolution!

But Decaen's reasons for his treatment of his captive were not consistent
with themselves. He gave quite another set in a report to his Government,
alleging that the detention of Flinders was justified as a measure of
reprisals on account of the action of the English at Pondicherry and the
Cape; and, entirely in the manner of a man looking for a shred of
justification for doing the unjustifiable, he alleged that vigorous
aggressive action on his part was necessary, because it was evident to
him that the English meant to absorb the whole commerce of the Indian
Ocean, the Pacific, and the China Sea, basing his statements on the
report of Peron, of which he sent a copy to Paris. Not only did he
represent that the British intended to annihilate French power in India,
and supplant Spanish authority in South America, but he regarded their
repeated visits to Timor, their action in regard to Java in 1798, and
their establishment at Penang, off the Malay Peninsula, as clear evidence
that the "greedy and devouring jaws" of the English lion were ready to
swallow the Dutch East Indies likewise. How these nefarious designs
afforded a reason for imprisoning Matthew Flinders is not apparent; but
Decaen was pleading for the despatch of troops to enable him to make an
effective attack upon the English in India,* (* Prentout, page 383.) and
he seemed to suppose that the holding up of the explorer would give
satisfaction in Paris, and further the accomplishment of his plans.

In October 1810, only three months after the liberation of Flinders, the
Isle of France was closely blockaded by a British squadron under
Vice-Admiral Bertie. In December, General Decaen agreed to capitulate,
and Major-General Abercromby took possession of the island, which has
ever since been a British dependency. It is unfortunate that the British
officers did not at this time remember that Decaen had kept Flinders'
third log-book. He had written to Vice-Admiral Bertie from the Cape of
Good Hope, in July 1810, requesting that "if any occurrences should put
General Decaen within his power," he would demand the volume from him.
But the request was overlooked, "in the tumult of events," when the
capitulation took place.* (* Flinders, letter to the Admiralty, in
Historical Records of New South Wales 7 529.) It is, however, significant
of the honour in which naval men held the intrepid navigator, that after
the capitulation the British officers refused to dine with Decaen, on
account of his treatment of Flinders.* (* Souvenirs d'un vieux colon,
quoted by Prentout, page 660.) It was not the first time that gentlemen
wearing the naval uniform of England had refused to eat at his table.

On January 6, 1811, a French schooner was captured bearing despatches
from France. Amongst them was a despatch informing Decaen that Napoleon
had superseded him in the governorship.* (* Naval Chronicle volume 25
337.) Before he could obey the summons to France, the British had
captured the island and sent him home. It is scarcely likely that the
Emperor's order of recall was due to disapproval of Decaen's conduct in
continuing Flinders' imprisonment after the French Government had ordered
his release, although there is in existence a decree signed by Napoleon,
dated March 11, 1806, "authorising the Minister of Marine to restore his
ship to Captain Flinders of the English schooner Cumberland."* (* The
document is in the Archives Nationales, Paris (AP. 4 pl. 1260, n. 47).
The author is indebted for this fact to Dr. Charles Schmidt, the
archivist at the Archives Nationales, through the courtesy of Mr. F.M.
Bladen, of the Public Library, Sydney. Dr. Schmidt has also supplied the
information that this is "the only document concerning Captain Flinders
in our possession." "Concerning the voyages of Peron and Freycinet, I
have found nothing in the Archives," he adds.) As Flinders was not
released till July 1810, Decaen certainly did disregard the Emperor's
command for three years--from July 1807, when the decree was received by
him, though it is to be remembered that he restored the trunk of papers
in the very next month (August). But Napoleon had signified to Decaen's
aide-de-camp, Barois--who was sent to France in 1804 with special
instructions to mention the Flinders affair to the Emperor--that he
approved of what the general had done;* (* Prentout, page 393. "Napoleon
parut approuver les raisons que Barois invoquait pour justifier la
conduite de Decaen.") and Napoleon was scarcely likely to be gravely
concerned about the calamities of an English sea captain at that
particular time. It is true that between 1804 and the release, Sir Joseph
Banks and other influential men in the world of learning had been active
in urging the liberation of the navigator. The venerable Bougainville was
one of these. It is also true that Napoleon prided himself on his
interest in scientific work. But Decaen had been a good servant, placed
in a difficult situation, where there was much responsibility and little
glory to be won; and even if the Emperor had felt annoyed at the
disregard of orders, the matter did not affect his major lines of policy,
and Decaen was safe in reckoning that the Imperial displeasure would not
be severely displayed. But why he risked giving offence to Napoleon at
all by the disregard of orders, there is, it would seem, nothing in
Decaen's papers to show. M. Prentout, who has studied them carefully, is
driven back on the suggestion that the prolongation of the captivity was
due to "entetement"--stubbornness. But it cost the administration four
hundred and fifty francs per month to maintain Flinders,* (* Prentout,
page 382.) and it seems improbable, when the finances of the island were
difficult to adjust and severe economies were enforced, that Decaen, an
economical man, would have kept up this expense year after year,
disregarding alike the protests of the prisoner, the demands of Lord
Wellesley and Admiral Pellew, and later, the direct orders of the French
Government, unless some influence were at work and some practical
interest furnished a motive. The obstinacy of Decaen is not a sufficient
reason. We know, however, that it suited Freycinet very well to have
Flinders detained till he could get his own charts ready, and that his
atlas was precipitately published in the first instance. The connection
between these occurrences and Decaen's cruel perversity must, in the
absence of clear proof, be bridged by inference, if at all.

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