Flinders, in the decrepit little Cumberland, put into Port Louis, Mauritius, on December 16, 1803. He was not permitted to sail out again till July 1810; and then he was a broken man, smitten with diseases, the painful product of exposure, shipwreck, confinement in a tropical climate, anxiety, and bitter years of heart-sickness and weary disappointment; yet a brave man still, with some hope nobly burning in the true hero's heart of him; but with less vitality than hope, so that he could do no more than write his big book of travel, and then lie down to die.

Many loose statements have been written about the use which the French made of Flinders' charts while he was held in captivity. It has been too often taken for granted that the evidence of plagiarism is beyond dispute. Not only popular writers, but historians with claims to be considered scientific, are substantially in agreement on this point. Two examples will indicate what is meant. Messrs. Becke and Jeffery, in their Naval Pioneers of Australia (page 216), assert that "among other indignities he suffered, he found that the charts taken from him by Decaen had been appropriated to Baudin's exploring expedition." Again, to take a work appealing to a different section of readers, the Cambridge Modern History also charges the French with "the use of his papers to appropriate for their ships the credit of his discoveries."* (* Volume 9 page 739 (Professor Egerton). Two more examples may be cited. Thus, Laurie, Story of Australasia (1896) page 86. "He found that his journals and charts had been stolen by the French governor of the Mauritius and transferred to Paris, where the fullest advantage was taken of them by M. Péron." Again, Jose, Australasia (1901) page 21: "His maps were taken to France to be published there with French names as the work of French explorers.")

The charge is, it will be observed, that not only did the French governor of Mauritius imprison the English navigator despite his passport, detaining him years after the other members of the Cumberland's company had been liberated, but that Flinders' charts and papers were improperly used in the preparation of the history of Baudin's expedition. Indeed, the accusation is equivalent to one of garrotting: that General Decaen seized and bound his victim, robbed him, and enabled Freycinet and Péron to use his work as their own.

So widely has this view been diffused, that probably few will be prepared for the assurance that there is no evidence to support it. On the contrary, as will be shown, neither Péron nor Freycinet ever saw any chart or journal taken from Flinders. Use was made, it is believed, of one British chart which may possibly have been his--that embodying a drawing of Port Phillip--but reasons will be given for the opinion that this, whether it was Flinders' chart or Murray's, was seen by the French before Baudin's ships left Sydney, and was certainly not copied at Mauritius.

Before proving these statements, it will be convenient to make the reader acquainted with the Captain-General or Military-Governor of Mauritius, Charles Decaen. He was a rough, dogged, somewhat brutal type of soldier, who had attained to eminence during the revolutionary wars. Born at Caen in Normandy in 1769, he served during his youth for three years in the artillery, and then entered a lawyer's office in his native town; but during the wars of the Revolution, when France was pressed by enemies on all sides, he threw aside quills and parchments, and, in his twenty-third year, entered upon his strenuous fighting career. Thenceforth, until after the signing of the Treaty of Luneville in 1801, he was almost constantly engaged in military operations. He had risen from the ranks, and won commendation for stubborn valour from such commanders as Desaix, Kleber, Hoche, Westermann, and Moreau. He participated in the cruel war of La Vendee, won fresh laurels during the campaign of the Rhine (1796), and fought with a furious lust for battle under the noble Moreau at Hohenlinden. By that time (1800) he had become a general of division, and on the eve of the battle, when he brought up his force and made his appearance at a council of war, Moreau greeted him with the flattering remark, "Ah! here is Decaen; the battle will be ours to-morrow." He was recognised as a strong-willed general, not brilliant, but very determined, and as also a thoroughly capable and honest administrator. Napoleon, in 1803, selected him for Indian service, and stationed him at the Isle of France (Mauritius), in the hope that if all went well a heavy blow might some day be struck at British power in India. Decaen was not a courtier, nor a scholar, nor a man of sentiment, but a plain, coarse, downright soldier; a true Norman, and a thorough son of the Revolution. He was not the kind of man to be interested in navigation, discovery, or the expansion of human knowledge; and appeals made to him on these grounds on behalf of Flinders were futile. Yet we must do justice to the admirable side of Decaen's character, by observing that he bore a reputation for generosity among his fellow-soldiers; and he was a very efficient and economical governor, maintaining a reputation for probity that did not distinguish too many of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic generals. Flinders, just in his opinion even of an enemy, wrote to Sir Joseph Banks that Decaen bore among the people of the island "the character of having a good heart, though too hasty and violent." It is pleasant to find him writing thus of the man who had wronged him, at a time when he had good reason for feeling bitter; and we certainly need not think worse of Decaen than did the man who suffered most from the general's callous insensibility.

Now, the clear facts with regard to the taking from Flinders of his charts, papers, log-books, and journals are these. On December 17, the day after his arrival at the island, it was signified to him that the governor intended to detain him. All his charts and journals relating to the voyage, and the letters and official packets which he was carrying to England from Sydney, were put in a trunk, which was sealed by Flinders at the desire of the French officers who were sent by Decaen to arrest him. He signed a paper certifying that all the "charts, journals, and papers of the voyage" had been thus placed in the trunk.* (* Flinders, Voyage 2 361.) On the following day (Sunday, December 18) he was informed that the governor wished to have extracts made from his journals, showing the causes which had compelled him to quit the Investigator, for which ship and for no other, according to Decaen's contention, the passport had been granted. He also wished to elicit from the journals evidence of the reasons which had induced Flinders to stop at Mauritius, instead of sailing for the Cape of Good Hope. The officers explained that General Decaen considered it to be necessary to have these extracts for transmission to the French Government, "to justify himself for granting that assistance to the Cumberland which had been ordered for the Investigator." So far he had not, as a fact, granted any assistance to the Cumberland; for the imprisonment of her commander and crew can hardly be called "assistance." But as Flinders was convinced that an examination of his latest log-book would manifest his bona fides, and assure both the governor and the French Government that he was no spy, as Decaen accused him of being, he broke the seal of the trunk, and took out "the third volume of my rough log-book, which contained the whole of what they desired to know, and pointing out the parts in question to the secretary, told him to make such extracts as should be thought requisite."* (* Flinders, Voyage 2 364.) All the other papers and books were at once returned to the trunk, and sealed as before.

The third log-book was the only document pertaining to Flinders' discoveries which Decaen ever had in his possession. It was never returned. The rightful owner never saw it again. It has never since been produced. Flinders applied for it repeatedly. On the very day before he was liberated, he made a final demand for it. Mr. Hope, the British commissary for the exchange of prisoners, made a formal official application for it in 1810, but met with "a positive refusal both of the book and of permission to take a copy of it."* (* Hope's report to the Admiralty, October 25, 1810 (Historical Records of New South Wales 7 435).) In 1811, after Flinders reached England, the Admiralty, at his instance, requested the French Government to insist upon its restoration. At the end of his book, published 1814, Flinders earnestly protested against Decaen's continued detention of it. But it was not restored.

This book contained Flinders' "Journal of transactions and observations on board the Investigator, the Porpoise, the Hope cutter, and Cumberland schooner," for the preceding six months.* (* Flinders, Voyage 2 378 and 463.) There was therefore nothing in it which could have been of any use in relation to the so-called Terre Napoleon. The log-book embodying Flinders' observations on those coasts pertained to a period before the six months just mentioned, and was never seen by Decaen, nor did he see any of Flinders' charts whatever.

Towards the end of December the whole of the remaining books and papers of Flinders, even including his family letters, were, in his presence, collected from the ship by M. Bonnefoy, an interpreter, and Colonel Monistrol, Decaen's secretary--who "acted throughout with much politeness, apologising for what they were obliged by their orders to execute"--and sealed up in another trunk.* (* Ibid 2 367.) Later in the same month (December 26), Flinders, wishing to occupy his time in confinement by proceeding with his work, wrote to the governor, requesting that he might have his printed volumes, and two or three charts and manuscript books, for the purpose of finishing his chart of the Gulf of Carpentaria, adding in explanation that some of his papers were lost in the wreck of the Porpoise, and he wished to finish the work from memory, with the aid of the remaining materials, before the details faded from his recollection. Decaen acceded to his request, and Flinders took out two log-books, such charts as were necessary, all his private letters, and his journals of bearings and astronomical observations. He also took out his naval signal-book, which he destroyed, lest it should be seen by any French officer. He gave a receipt for the documents, and the remainder were once more locked up in the trunk, which was again sealed by Flinders.* (* Voyage 2 378.) The papers so obtained were the "greatest part"* (* Flinders, letter to Governor King, August 1804, and letter to Banks, July 12. Historical Records of New South Wales 4 411 and 396.) of his books and charts, and the possession of them, enabling Flinders to devote his energies to the work he loved, relieved the depression which imprisonment and illness cast upon his active brain and body.

In February of the following year Flinders made another application for more books and papers, consisting of the greater part of his "original fair charts,"* (* Voyage 2 384.) for the purpose of making an abridgment of his discoveries upon a single sheet. The governor was by this time very angry with his captive; the more so, probably, as he was conscious of the inadequacy of the reasons for detaining him. But the demeanour of the English captain did not please him either. Flinders, maintaining the dignity of his uniform, had not assumed a humble mien, and had even refused an invitation to dine with the general unless he could attend, not as a prisoner, but as an officer free and unsuspect. If Decaen really believed him to be a spy, why did he invite him? The governor, however, was not now in a mood to oblige his prisoner, and in response to his application for more papers, curtly replied that he would attend to the request when freed from more pressing business. Flinders in March urged Colonel Monistrol to intercede; complained in May that the manuscripts were still withheld; and, being unable to make any impression on the obdurate Decaen, completed his map with the aid of another journal kept by Mr. Akin, the master of the Investigator, who was a fellow-prisoner until May 1805.

These remaining documents were not restored till August 1807, when Flinders was invited to go to Port Louis from the house in the country where part of his imprisonment was spent, and take possession of the trunk. He found that rats had eaten their way into it, and had made great havoc among his papers, totally destroying some. But the seals were unbroken, and Flinders gave a receipt for the contents, acknowledging that the most important documents had happily escaped the rats.* (* Voyage 2 462.) He was an observant man, and if he had had any suspicion that the charts had been tampered with, would have promptly said so. There is not, however, the faintest reason for believing that the trunk had been opened between December 1803, when Flinders was permitted to take out the "greatest part" of his important papers, and August 1807, when the remainder were restored to him. The only missing documents were the few which the rats had eaten, the third log-book, which Decaen refused to give up, and two packets of official despatches which the Cumberland was carrying from Sydney to England, and which Colonel Monistrol informed him had been "long ago disposed of." The Colonel "supposed that something in them had contributed to my imprisonment." They had been "disposed of" by being sent to Paris for the perusal of Napoleon's Government.

Why, however, did Decaen refuse permission to Flinders to have the last of his papers till the year 1807? Why had he willingly permitted him to take some of them in December 1803, but declined to let him have any more till nearly four years later? A comparison of dates is instructive on this point. As has already been said, the first volume of Péron's Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres Australes, and the first edition of the atlas containing two of Freycinet's charts, were published in 1807. Making all allowances for the obstinate character of Decaen, it is most significant that the remainder of Flinders' charts and papers were kept from him until the very time when Freycinet was ready to publish the first and hurried edition of his atlas. It is impossible to resist the conclusion that the governor was acting under influences exerted from Paris, private if not official, in refusing the navigator access to the material which it was believed was essential to the completion of the charts that would demonstrate his discoveries, until the French officer could hurry out a makeshift atlas and fictitious claims could be based upon it.

This conduct was reprehensible enough, but, it must be insisted, there is no ground whatever for the too frequently made assertion that Flinders' charts were surreptitiously copied or actually stolen--for the loose manner in which the affair has been related in some books renders doubtful which of the two accusations the authors desired to make.* (* Blair, Cyclopaedia of Australasia page 131, actually says that Baudin, "having taken copies of Flinders' charts, sailed for France, where he published a book and received great applause from the French nation, who called him the greatest discoverer of the present century." Spirit-writing one has heard of, but not even the Psychical Research Society has recorded the case of a dead man copying hydrographical charts. A similar disregard of the fact that Baudin died before the return of his ships occurs in J.E. Tenison Woods' History of Exploration in Australia (1865) volume 1 page 174, where we are informed that Flinders was detained in Mauritius, because "at that time the Emperor Napoleon was obliging Admiral Baudin [sic] to usurp the glory of his discoveries"; a case of post-mortem promotion.) Not only is there no evidence to support any such charge, but Flinders himself never accused Decaen of making an improper use of the papers in the trunk, nor did he ever allege that the two charts contained in the French atlas of 1807, or those in Freycinet's folio atlas of 1812--which he probably saw before his death in July 1814--were founded upon or owed anything to his drawings. He simply set forth the facts with his habitual exactness and fairness; and where Flinders was just, there is surely no warrant for others to perpetuate an accusation which originated in a period of intense national hatred and jealousy, and bears its birth-mark upon it.

A critical examination of Freycinet's charts is alone sufficient to shatter the opinion that he utilised the drawings of the English navigator. Had he even seen them, his own work would have been more accurate than it was, and his large chart of New Holland would have been more complete. It has already been shown that the French chart of the so-called Terre Napoleon coasts was in large measure defective, many capes, islands, and bays being represented that have no existence in fact, and a large portion of the outline being crudely and erroneously drawn. Not only so, but if Freycinet had had copies of Flinders' charts before him, use would certainly have been made of them to give greater completeness to the eastern and north-western shores. Flinders, in his last voyage in the Investigator, had made important discoveries on the Queensland coast and in the Gulf of Carpentaria. He had discovered, for instance, Port Bowen and Port Curtis, which had been missed by Cook, had given greater definiteness to the islands near the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef, and had made a dangerous acquaintance with the Reef itself, discovering one narrow alley through it which is marked on modern maps as Flinders' Passage. In the Gulf of Carpentaria he had also done some entirely original work. He had shown, for example, that Cape Van Diemen, represented as a projection from the mainland on all previous maps, was really part of an island, which he named Mornington Isle. Freycinet's charts reveal not the faintest trace of the fresh discoveries which Flinders had achieved around east and north-east Australia, nor do they in any particular indicate that their manifold serious imperfections had been corrected by reference to Flinders' superb charts. In short, the French work, though beautifully engraved and printed, was, in a geographical sense, for the most part too poor to justify the suspicion that Freycinet received aid from the drawings of the persevering captain of the Investigator.

The circumstances attending the imprisonment of Flinders, and the precipitate haste with which Freycinet's work was pushed forward, undoubtedly furnished prima facie justification for the suspicion, indignantly voiced by contemporary English writers, and which has been hardened into a direct accusation since, that an act of plagiarism was committed, dishonest in itself, and doubly guilty from the circumstances in which it was performed. The Quarterly reviewer of 1817* pointed out that the few charts in Freycinet's atlas "ARE VERY LIKE THOSE OF CAPTAIN FLINDERS, ONLY MUCH INFERIOR IN POINT OF EXECUTION." (* Volume 17 pages 229 to 230; the italics are the reviewer's. The plagiarism legend--for such it is--originated with this Quarterly article. The earliest biographer of Flinders, in the Naval Chronicle 32 page 177, wrote very strongly of General Decaen, considering that he was "worthy of his Corsican master," and that his name "will be consigned to infamy as long as mankind shall consider it honourable to promote science and civilised to practise hospitality," but alleged no improper use of the charts. C.A. Walckenaer, who wrote the excellent life of Flinders in the Biographie Universelle, published in 1856, said that the French Government was "inexcusable d'avoir retenu Flinders en captivite," but denied that his charts were improperly used, and promised that when he came to write the life of Péron in a succeeding volume, he would by an analysis of the evidence refute the story. But Walckenaer died in 1852, before his Flinders article was published, and the author of the article on Péron did not carry out his predecessor's undertaking. It is to be presumed that Walckenaer would have exhibited the facts set out above. Alfred de Lacaze, in his article on Flinders in the Nouvelle Biographie Generale 17 932, wrote that the excuses given for the imprisonment of Flinders formed "pauvres pretextes"; but declared that the seals put on Flinders' papers in Mauritius were "loyalement respecte pendant les six ans que dura la captivite du navigateur anglais." That was true. It is a pleasure to acknowledge that all the references to Flinders which the author has seen in French works unanimously and strongly condemn the treatment of him, and do ample justice to his splendid qualities.) They are very like in one respect, namely, in the representation of Spencer's and St. Vincent's Gulfs and Kangaroo Island. In other particulars, at all events as far as relates to the Terre Napoleon coasts, the French charts are quite unlike those of Flinders. But contemporaries--knowing that Flinders' charts had been taken from him by Decaen, and that he had been held in captivity until the French could finish their work, and then, comparing his charts with Freycinet's, finding that parts of the coasts discovered by the English captain were well represented on the French charts, while other parts of the outline of Terra Australis were badly done or inadequate--not unnaturally drew the inference that the well-drawn sections were based upon drawings improperly acquired. If the chain of evidence was not complete, the violent racial animosities then prevalent moulded the missing links in the fervent heat of imagination.

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. Péron 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 Péron, 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. Péron, 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, Péron 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.* (* Péron'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.) Péron 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 Péron'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 Péron'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 Péron, 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 Péron, 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 Péron 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.

GENERAL CHARLES DECAEN

After the portrait in the library at Caen

Napoleon was, however, a soldier after all--much else as well, but a soldier first and foremost; and so was Decaen. When the general returned to France, his Imperial master had urgent need for stern, stubborn, fighting men of his type. He submitted to a court-martial* (* "Un conseil d'enquete." Biographie Universelle 10 248.) in reference to the surrender of Mauritius, but was exonerated. The discretion that he had exercised in not obeying the decree for the liberation of Flinders was evidently not made the ground of serious complaint against him, for in 1813 we find him commanding the army of Catalonia, participating gallantly in the campaign of the Pyrenees, and distinguishing himself at Barcelona under Marshal Suchet. For this service he was made a Comte of the Empire. When Napoleon was banished to Elba the Comte Decaen donned the white cockade, and took service under Louis XVIII, but on the return of his old master he, like Ney and some other of the tough warriors of the First Empire, forswore his fidelity to the Bourbons. He was one of the generals left to guard the southern frontiers of France while Napoleon played his last stake for dominion in the terrific war game that ended with the cataclysm of Waterloo. That event terminated Decaen's military course. For a while he was imprisoned, but his life was not taken, as was that of the gallant Ney; and in a few months he was liberated at the instance of the Duchesse d'Angouleme. Thenceforth he lived a colourless, quiet, penurious life in the vicinity of his native Caen, regretting not at all, one fancies, the ruin of the useful career of the enterprising English navigator. His poverty was honourable, for he had handled large funds during the Consulate and Empire; and there is probably as much sincerity as pathos in what he said to Soult and Gouvion-Saint-Cyr in his declining days, that nothing remained to him after thirty years of honourable service and the occupancy of high offices, except the satisfaction of having at all times done his duty. He died in 1832. His official papers fill no fewer than one hundred and forty-nine volumes and are preserved in the library of the ancient Norman city whose name he bore as his own.

Chapter 5 DID THE FRENCH USE FLINDERS' CHARTS

You might like