Terre Napoleon

The Investigator at Kangaroo Island.

Thoroughness of Flinders' work.

His aims and methods.

His explorations; the theory of a Strait through Australia.

Completion of the map of the continents.

A direct succession of great navigators: Cook, Bligh, Flinders, and Franklin.

What Flinders learnt in the school of Cook: comparison between the healthy condition of his crew and the scurvy-stricken company on the

French vessels.

On April 7, 1802, His Majesty's ship Investigator, 334 tons, Commander Matthew Flinders, was beating off the eastern extremity of Kangaroo Island, endeavouring to make the mainland of Terra Australis, to follow the course of discovery and survey for which she had been commissioned. The winds were very baffling for pursuing his task according to the carefully scientific method which Flinders had prescribed for himself. He had declared to Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, before he left England, that he would endeavour so to explore the then unknown coasts of the vast island for which he himself afterwards suggested the name Australia, "that no person shall have occasion to come after me to make further discoveries."* (* Flinders to Banks, April 29, 1801, Historical Records of New South Wales 4 351.) This principle of thoroughness distinguished his work throughout the voyage. Writing thirteen years later, after the long agony of his imprisonment in Mauritius, he said that his "leading object had been to make so accurate an investigation of the shores of Terra Australis, that no future voyage to the country should be necessary" for the purpose; and that had not circumstances been too strong for him, "nothing of importance should have been left for future discoverers upon any part of these extensive coasts."* (* Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis 2 143.) Nobody can study Flinders' beautiful charts without recognising them as the work of a master of his craft; and so well did he fulfil his promise, until the debility of his ship and a chain of misfortunes interposed to prevent him, that the Admiralty charts in current use are substantially those which Flinders made over a hundred years ago.* (* Sir J.K. Laughton in Dictionary of National Biography 19 328.)

His method, though easy enough to pursue in a modern steamer, comparatively indifferent to winds and currents, was one demanding from a sailing ship hard, persistent, straining work, with unflagging vigilance and great powers of endurance. It was this. The Investigator was kept all day so close along shore that the breaking water was visible from the deck, and no river mouth or inlet could escape notice. When the weather was too rough to enable this to be done with safety, Flinders stationed himself at the masthead, scanning every reach of the shore-line. "Before retiring to rest," he wrote, "I made it a practice to finish the rough chart for the day, as also my astronomical observations and bearings." When darkness fell, the ship hauled off from the coast, and every morning, as soon after daylight as possible, she was brought in-shore again, great care being taken to resume the work at precisely the point where it was suspended the night before. "This plan," he wrote, "to see and lay down everything myself, required constant attention and much labour, but was absolutely necessary to obtaining that accuracy of which I was desirous."

Before Flinders reached Kangaroo Island, he had, in this painstaking manner, discovered and mapped the stretch of coast westward from the head of the Great Australian Bight, charted all the islands, and, by following the two large gulfs, Spencer's and St. Vincent's, to their extremities, had shattered the theory commonly favoured by geographers before his time, that a passage would be found cleaving the continent from the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Strait which George Bass had discovered in 1798.* (* Pinkerton, in his Modern Geography (1807) volume 2 588, published after Flinders had made his principal discoveries, but before the results were known, reflected the general opinion in the passage: "Some suppose that this extensive region, when more thoroughly investigated, will be found to consist of two or three vast islands, intersected by narrow seas." The Committee of the Institute of France, which drew up the instructions for the expedition commanded by Baudin, directed him to search for a supposed strait dividing Australia longitudinally into "two great and nearly equal islands" (Péron, Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres Australes 1 5). With these passages may be compared the following from Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, published in 1824, ten years after the appearance of Flinders' book: "There are few voyages from which more important accessions to geographical knowledge have been derived than from this voyage of Captain Flinders, especially when we reflect on the great probability that New Holland...[observe that Kerr had not adopted the name Australia, which Flinders suggested only in a footnote] will soon rank high in population and wealth. Before his voyage it was doubtful whether New Holland was not divided into two great islands, by a strait passing between Bass Straits and the Gulf of Carpentaria. Captain Flinders has put an end to all doubts on this point. He examined the coast in the closest and most accurate manner; he found, indeed, two great openings; these he sailed up to their termination; and consequently, as there were no other openings, and these were mere inlets, New Holland can no longer be supposed to be divided into two great islands. It must be regarded as forming one very large one; or rather, from its immense size, a species of continent" (Kerr 18 462).)

That part of the southern coast of Australia lying between Cape Leeuwin and Fowler Bay, in the Bight, had been explored prior to Flinders' time, partly by Captain George Vancouver, one of Cook's men, in 1791, and partly in 1792 by the French commander, Bruni Dentrecasteaux, who was despatched in search of the gallant La Perouse--"vanished trackless into blue immensity."* (* Carlyle, French Revolution book 2 cap 5.) Flinders carefully revised what they had done, commencing his elaborate, independent survey immediately after the Investigator made the Leeuwin, on December 6, 1801. He had therefore been just four months in this region, when he left his anchorage at Kangaroo Island--four months of incessant daily and nightly labour diligently directed to the task in hand. Always generous in his praise of good work, he paid a warm tribute to the quality of the charts prepared by Beautemps Beaupre, "geographical engineer" of La Recherche, Dentrecasteaux's corvette. "Perhaps no chart of a coast so little known as this is, will bear a comparison with its original better than this of M. Beaupre," he said; and though he put forward his own as being fuller in detail and more accurate, he was careful to point out that he made no claim for superior workmanship, and that, indeed, he would have been open to reproach if, after having followed the coast with Beaupre's chart in hand, he had not effected improvements where circumstances did not permit his predecessor to make so close an examination. It is an attractive characteristic of Flinders, that he never missed an opportunity of appreciating valuable service in other navigators.

But from the time when the Investigator passed the head of the Bight, the whole of the coast-line traversed was virginal to geographical science. With a clean sheet of paper, Flinders began to chart a new stretch of the earth's outline, and to link up the undiscovered with the known portions of the great southern continent. Our interest in his work is intensified by the reflection that of all the coasts of the habitable earth, this was the last important portion still to be discovered. True it is that research in the arctic and antarctic circles remained to be pursued, and still remains. Man will not cease his efforts till he knows his planet in its entirety, though the price of the knowledge may be high. But when he has compassed the extreme ends of the globe, he will not have found a rood of ground upon which any one will ever wish to live. The earth lust of the nations is not provoked by thoughts of the two poles. Ruling out the frozen regions, therefore, as places where discovery is pursued without thought of future habitation, it is a striking fact that this voyage of Flinders opened up the ultimate belt of the earth's contour hitherto unknown. The continents were finally unveiled when he concluded his labours. Europe, the centre of direction, had comprehended the form of Asia, had encircled Africa, had brought America within ken and control. It had gradually pieced together a knowledge of Australia, all but the extensive area the greater part of which it was left for Flinders to reveal. The era of important modern coastal discovery within habitable regions, which commenced with the researches directed by Prince Henry the Navigator from 1426 to 1460, and attained to brilliancy with Columbus in 1492 and Vasco da Gama in 1497, ended with Flinders in 1802 and 1803. He ranges worthily with that illustrious company of "men full of activity, stirrers abroad, and searchers of the remote parts of the world," of whom Richard Hakluyt speaks, and is outshone by none of them in the faithfulness with which his work was done, and in all the qualities that make up the man of high capacity and character entrusted with a great enterprise.

When Flinders was appointed to the command of the Investigator, he was only twenty-seven years of age. But he had already won distinction by his demonstration that Bass Strait was a strait, and not a gulf, a fact not proved by George Bass's famous voyage from Sydney to Westernport in a whale-boat. His circumnavigation of Tasmania--then called Van Diemen's Land--in the Norfolk; the discovery of the Tamar estuary and Port Dalrymple; some excellent nautical surveying among the islands to the north-west of Tasmania; and an expedition along the Queensland coast, had also earned for him the confidence of his official superiors. His ardour for discovery, and the exact, scientific character of his charts and observations, won him a powerful and steadfast friend in Sir Joseph Banks, who had been with Cook in the Endeavour in 1768 to 1771, and never lost his interest in Australian exploration. At the beginning of his naval career Flinders had tasted the "delights of battle." As a midshipman on the Bellerophon (Captain Pasley), he played his small part on the "glorious first of June" (1794), when "Black Dick," Lord Howe, won his greatly vaunted victory over the French off Brest.

But before this event his tastes and aspirations had set in the direction of another branch of the naval service. A voyage to the South Seas and the West Indies under Bligh, in the Providence, in 1791, had revealed to his imagination the glory of discovery and the vastness and beauty of the world beyond European horizons. The fame and achievements of Cook were still fresh and wonderful in the mouths of all who followed the sea. Bligh, a superb sailor--not even the enemies whom he made by his rough tongue and brusque manner denied that--taught him to be a scientific navigator; and when he threaded the narrow, coral-walled waters of Torres Strait, he knew that to the southward were coasts as yet unmarked on any chart, seas as yet unploughed by any keel. For this work of exploration Flinders nourished a passion as intense as that which inferior natures have had for love, avarice, or honours. It absorbed all his life and thought; and opportunity, becoming in his case the handmaid of capacity, was abundantly justified by accomplishment.

There is one striking fact which serves to "place" Flinders among navigators. As has just been observed, he learnt his practical navigation under Bligh, on that historically unfortunate captain's second bread-fruit expedition, when he was entrusted with the care of the scientific instruments. Now, Bligh had perfected his navigation under Cook, on the Resolution, and actually chose the landing-place in Kealakeakua Bay, where the greatest English seaman who ever lived was slain. Here is a school of great sailors: Cook the master of Bligh, Bligh the master of Flinders; and Flinders in turn had on board the Investigator as a midshipman, his cousin, John Franklin, to whom he taught navigation, and who acquired from him that "ardent love of geographical research" which brought him immortal fame, and a grave amongst the ice-packs and the snows of the North-West Passage.* (* See Markham, Life of Sir John Franklin page 43 and Traill, Life of Franklin page 16. Traill's graceful sentences are worth transcribing: "The example of the fine seaman and enthusiastic explorer under whom he served must indeed, for a lad of Franklin's ardent temperament, have been an education in itself. Throughout his whole life he cherished the warmest admiration for the character of Matthew Flinders, and in later years he welcomed the opportunity of paying an enduring tribute to his old commander's memory in the very region of the world which his discoveries had done so much to gain for civilisation." It is pleasant to find Flinders speaking cordially of his young pupil in a letter written during the voyage. "He is a very fine youth, and there is every probability of his doing credit to the Investigator and himself.") There is nothing comparable with this direct succession of illustrious masters and pupils in the history of navigation. The names of all four are indelibly written on the map of the world. Three of them--Cook, Flinders, and Franklin--are among our very foremost navigators and discoverers, men whom a race proud of the heritage of the sea will for ever hold in honour and affection; whilst the fourth, Bligh, though his reputation is wounded by association with two mutinies, was in truth a daring and a brilliant seaman, and a brave man in a fight. Nelson especially thanked him for noble service at Copenhagen, and his achievement in working a small, open boat from the mid-Pacific, where the mutinous crew of the Bounty dropped him, through Torres Strait to Timor, a distance of 3620 miles, stands memorably on the credit side of his account.

See what it meant to have been trained in a school that observed the rules and respected the traditions of James Cook. When at the end of his long voyage of nine months and nine days, Flinders took the Investigator through Port Jackson heads into harbour (Sunday, May 9, 1802), he had not a sick man on board.* (* Voyage 1 226.) His crew finished hearty, browned, and vigorous. He was able to write from the Cape of Good Hope that "officers and crew were, generally speaking, in better health than on the day we sailed from Spithead, and not in less good spirits." Scrupulous attention to cleanliness and hygiene produced this result in an age when scurvy was more to be feared than shipwreck. On every fine day the decks below and the cockpit were washed, dried with stoves, and sprinkled with vinegar. Care was taken to prevent the crew from sleeping in wet clothes. At frequent intervals beds, chests, and bags were opened out and exposed to the sweetening influences of fresh air and sunshine. Personal cleanliness was enforced. Lime-juice and other anti-scorbutics were frequently served out: a precautionary measure which originated in Cook's day, and which down to our own times has caused all British sailors to be popularly known as "lime-juicers" in the American Navy. The dietary scale and the cooking were subjects of careful thought. This keen young officer of twenty-seven looked after his company of eighty-seven people with as grave and kindly a concern as if he were a grey-bearded father to them all; and was liberally rewarded by their affection. During his imprisonment in Mauritius, one of his men stayed with him voluntarily for several years, enduring the unpleasantness of life in confinement far away from home, out of sheer devotion to his commander; and did not leave until Flinders, becoming hopeless of liberation, insisted on his taking advantage of an opportunity of going to England.

There is a touching proof of Flinders' tender regard for his men in the naming of a small group of islands to the west of the bell-mouth of Spencer's Gulf. A boat's crew commanded by the mate, John Thistle, was drowned there, through the boat capsizing. Thistle was an excellent seaman, who had been one of Bass's whale-boat crew in 1798, and had volunteered for service with the Investigator. Not only did Flinders name an island after him, and another after a midshipman, Taylor, who perished on the same occasion, but he gave to each of the islands near Cape Catastrophe the name of one of the seamen who lost their lives in the accident. In a country where men are valued for their native worth rather than on account of rank or wealth, such as is happily the case to a very large degree in Australia--and this is a far finer thing than mere political democracy--perhaps nothing in the career of Flinders is more likely to ensure respect for his memory, apart from the value of his achievements, than this perpetuation of the names of the sailors who died in the service.

Throughout the voyage he promoted amusements among his people; "and when the evenings were fine the drum and fife announced the forecastle to be the scene of dancing; nor did I discourage other playful amusements which might occasionally be more to the taste of the sailors, and were not unseasonable."* (* Voyage 1 36.) The work may have been strenuous, and the commander was unsparing of his own energies; but the life was happy, and above all it was healthy. The pride which Flinders had in the result was modestly expressed: "I had the satisfaction to see my people orderly and full of zeal for the service in which we were engaged." Really, it was a splendid achievement in itself, and it showed that, if the hardship of life in a small ship, on a long voyage, could not be abolished, at least horror could be banished from it.

Compare this genial record with that of the French exploring ships Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste, which were quite as well equipped for a long voyage. They had, it is true, been longer at sea, but they had an advantage not open to Flinders in being able to refit at Mauritius, had rested again for some weeks at Timor, and had spent a considerable time in the salubrious climate of southern Tasmania, where there was an abundance of fresh food and water. When, on June 23, 1802, Le Geographe appeared off Port Jackson, to solicit help from Governor King, it was indeed "a ghastly crew" that she had on board. Her officers and crew were rotten with scurvy. Scarcely one of them was fit to haul a rope or go aloft. Out of one hundred and seventy men, only twelve were capable of any kind of duty, and only two helmsmen could take their turn at the wheel. Not a soul aboard, of any rank, was free from the disease.* (* Péron, Voyage de Decouvertes 1 331 to 340; Flinders, Voyage 1 230.) Of twenty-three scientific men and artists who sailed from Havre, in 1800, only three returned to France with the expedition, and before its work was over the Commander, Baudin, and several of the staff were dead. The chief naturalist, Francois Péron, and one of the surgeons, Taillefer, have left terrible accounts of the sufferings endured. Putrid water, biscuits reduced almost to dust by weevils, and salt meat so absolutely offensive to sight and smell that "the most famished of the crew frequently preferred to suffer the agonies of hunger" rather than eat it--these conditions, together with neglect of routine sanitary precautions, produced a pitiable state of debility and pain, that made the ship like an ancient city afflicted with plague. Indeed, the vivid narratives of Thucydides and Boccaccio, when they counted:

"the sad degrees

Upon the plague's dim dial, caught the tone

Of a great death that lay upon the land,"

are not more haggard in their naturalism than is Taillefer's picture of the sufferings of the sailors to whom he ministered. Their skin became covered with tumours, which left ugly black patches; where hair grew appeared sores "the colour of wine lees"; their lips shrivelled, revealing gums mortified and ulcerated. They exhaled a breath so fetid in odour that Taillefer loathed having to administer to them such remedies as he had to give; and at one part of the voyage even his stock of drugs was depleted, so great was the demand upon his resources. Their joints became stiff, their muscles flaccid and contracted, and the utter prostration to which they were reduced made him regret that they retained so much of their intellectual faculties as to make them feel keenly the weight of despair.* (* Voyage de Decouvertes 1 340.)

When Le Geographe stood outside Sydney Harbour, a boat's crew of Flinders' bluejackets from the Investigator, themselves fresh from their own long voyage, had to be sent out to work her into port. So enfeebled were the French sailors that they could not even muster sufficient energy to bring their vessel to the place where succour awaited them. While we deplore this tale of distress, we can but mark the striking contrast with the English vessel and her jolly crew. Truly, it meant something for a commander to have learnt to manage a ship in a school nourished on the example of Cook, whose title to fame might rest on his work as a practical reformer of life at sea, even if his achievements as a discoverer were not so incomparably brilliant.

We must now return to the Investigator, which, at the commencement of the chapter, we left fighting with a contrary wind east of Kangaroo Island. Although the sloop quitted her anchorage early on the morning of April 7, at eight o'clock in the evening she had made very little headway across Backstairs Passage. On the 8th, she was near enough to the mainland for Flinders to resume his charting, and late in the afternoon of that day occurred an incident to which the next chapter will be devoted. Meanwhile, it is important to observe that had the wind blown from the west or south-west, instead of from the east or south-east, Flinders would have accomplished the survey of the coast between Cape Jervis, at the entrance of St. Vincent's Gulf, and Cape Banks, before the French discovery ship, Le Geographe, emerged from Bass Strait on her voyage westward. The wind that filled Captain Baudin's sails, and drove his ship forward towards the seas in which the Investigator was making important discoveries, was the wind that delayed Flinders at Kangaroo Island. Had the weather been more accommodating to the English captain and less to the French, there cannot be the slightest doubt that even the fifty leagues of coast, or thereabouts, which are all that can be claimed to have been discovered by Baudin, would have been first charted by Flinders. But the French expedition was so unfortunate, both as to results and reputation--so undeservedly unfortunate, in some respects, as will be shown in later chapters--that this small measure of success may be conceded ungrudgingly. It is, indeed, somewhat to be regretted that the small part of the Australian coast which was genuinely their own discovery, should not have been in a more interesting region than was actually the case; for the true "Terre Napoleon" is no better for the most part than a sterile waste, with a back country of sand, swamp, and mallee scrub, populated principally by rabbits, dingoes, and bandicoots.

Meeting of the Investigator and Le Geographe in Encounter Bay.

Flinders cautious.

Interview of the two captains.

Péron's evidence.

The chart of Bass Strait.

Second interview: Baudin inquisitive.

Baudin's account of his explorations.

On the afternoon of April 8,* (* In his manuscript journal, which was used by the Quarterly reviewer of the first volume of the Voyage de Decouvertes, in August 1810, Flinders gave the date on which he met Le Geographe as April 9th (Quarterly Review volume 4 52). But there is no contradiction. In his journal Flinders gave the date of the nautical day, which commenced at noon. As he met Baudin's corvette in the late afternoon, it was, by nautical reckoning, April 9th. But by the calendar, the civil day commencing at midnight, the date was April 8th, as stated by Flinders in his published volumes, by both Péron and Louis de Freycinet, and in the log of Le Geographe. A similar difference of dates, which puzzled Labilliere in writing his Early History of Victoria 1 108, occurs as to the first sighting of Port Phillip by Flinders. It is explained in exactly the same way.) the man at the masthead of the Investigator reported a white rock ahead. He was mistaken. Glasses were turned towards it, and as the distance lessened it became apparent that the white object was a sail. The sloop was at this time in latitude 35 degrees 40 minutes south, longitude 138 degrees 58 minutes east. To meet another vessel in this region, many leagues from regular trading routes, in a part of the world hitherto undiscovered, was surprising. The Investigator stood on her course, and as the strange ship became more clearly defined it was evident that she was making towards the British sloop. Flinders therefore "cleared for action in case of being attacked."

He knew that the French Government had sent out ships having like objects with his own; he knew that some influential persons in England, especially the Court of Directors of the East India Company, were uneasy and suspicious about French designs; and he had been fully instructed by the Admiralty as to the demeanour he should maintain if he met vessels flying a hostile flag. But though his duty prescribed that he must not offer any provocation, he could not forget that when he left Europe Great Britain and France were still at war, and preparation for extremities was a measure of mere prudence.

The stranger proved to be "a heavy-looking ship without any top-gallant masts up." On the Investigator hoisting her colours, Le Geographe "showed a French ensign, and afterwards an English jack forward, as we did a white flag." Flinders manoeuvred so as to keep his broadside to the stranger, "lest the flag of truce should be a deception." But the demeanour of the French being purely pacific, he had a boat hoisted out and went on board, Le Geographe having also hove to.

On the French vessel, meanwhile, similar curiosity had been provoked as to the identity of the ship sailing east. Captain Baudin's men had been engaged during the morning in harpooning dolphins, which they desired for the sake of the flesh. Péron, in his narrative, waxes almost hysterically joyous about the good fortune that brought along a school of these fish just as the ship's company were almost perishing for want of fresh food. They appeared, he says, like a gift from Heaven.* (* "Cette peche heureuse nous parut comme un bienfait du ciel. Alors, en effet, le terrible scorbut avoit commence ses ravages, et les salaisons pourries et rongees de vers auxquelles nous etions reduits depuis plusieurs mois precipitoient chaque jour l'affreux developpement de ce fleau." Voyage de Decouvertes 1 323.) Unlike the bronzed and healthy crew of the Investigator, the company on Le Geographe were suffering severely from scurvy. The virulence of the disease increased daily. They were rejoicing at the capture of nine large dolphins, which would supply them with a feast of fresh meat, when the look-out man signalled that a sail was in sight.* (* Mr. T. Ward, in his Rambles of an Australian Naturalist (1907) page 153, relates that in 1889 he harpooned a large dolphin, Grampus gris, in King George's Sound, and that whalers told him that dolphins were at one time common in the Bight, in schools of two and three hundred. As to dolphin flesh as food, the reader may like to be reminded that Hawkins's men, in 1565, found dolphins "of very good colour and proportion to behold, and no less delicate in taste" (Hakluyt's Voyages edition of 1904 10 61). So also in 1705 a voyager to Maryland related the capture of dolphins, "a beautiful fish to see...it is also a good fish to eat." "Narrative of a Voyage to Maryland," printed from manuscript in American Historical Review 12 328.)

At first it was considered that the ship was Le Naturaliste, the consort of Le Geographe, the two vessels having become separated in a storm off the Tasmanian coast. But as the Investigator steered towards the French and hoisted her flag, the mistake was corrected.

Flinders took Brown, the naturalist, with him on board, because he was a good French scholar; but Captain Baudin spoke English "so as to be understood," and the conversation was therefore conducted for the most part in that language. Brown was the only person present at the first interview on the 8th, and at the second on the following morning;* (* "No person was present at our conversations except Mr. Brown" (Flinders, Voyage 1 190). Robert Brown was a very celebrated botanist. Humboldt styled him "botanicorum facile princeps." His Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae is a classic of price.) both taking place in the French captain's cabin. Péron, in the first volume of the Voyage de Decouvertes, wrote as though he were present and heard what occurred between the two commanders. "En nous fournissant tous ces details M. Flinders se montre d'une grande reserve sur ses operations particulieres," he wrote; and again: "apres avoir converse plus d'une heure avec nous." But his testimony in this, as in several other respects, is not reliable. Baudin wrote no detailed account of the conversations, nor did Brown; but Flinders related what occurred with the minute care that was habitual with him. Péron's evidence is at best second-hand, and he supplemented it with such information as could be elicited by "pumping" the sailors in Flinders' boat.* (* "Nous apprimes toutefois par quelques-uns de ses matelots qu'il avoit eu beaucoup a souffrir de ces memes vents de la partie du Sud qui nous avoient ete si favorables." The boatmen were not questioned by Péron himself, who at this time could not speak English (Freycinet, Voyage de Decouvertes 2 Preface page 17). Freycinet admits that Péron was not present at the interviews, but says that Baudin related what took place with "more or less exactitude." But as Freycinet was not present himself either at the interviews or on the ship when Baudin related what occurred, how could he know that the version of the commander--at whom, after Baudin's death, he never missed an opportunity of sneering--was merely "more or less" exact?) Even then he blundered, for some of the things stated by him were not only contrary to fact, but could not have been ascertained from Baudin, from Flinders, or from the sailors.

Péron stated, for example, that Flinders said that he had been accompanied from England by a second vessel, which had become separated from him by a violent tempest. There had been no second vessel, and Flinders could have made no such assertion. Again, Péron wrote that Flinders said that, hindered by contrary winds, he had not been able to penetrate behind the islands of St. Peter and St. Francis, in Nuyts Archipelago. Flinders made no such absurd statement. He had followed the coast behind those islands with the utmost particularity. His track, with soundings, is shown on his large chart of the section.* (* On this statement the Quarterly reviewer of 1810 bluntly wrote: "Now, we will venture not only to assert that all this is a direct falsehood (for we have seen both the journal and charts of Captain Flinders, which are fortunately arrived safe in this country), but also to pledge ourselves that no such observations are to be found either in Captain Baudin's journal or in the logbook of the Geographe." Quarterly Review 4 52. It was a good guess. No such observation is contained in the printed log of Le Geographe.) Once more, Péron stated that Flinders said that he had lost a boat and eight men in the same gale as had endangered the French ships in Bass Strait. Flinders had lost John Thistle, an officer to whom he was deeply attached, and a crew of eight men off Cape Catastrophe, but the incident occurred during a sudden squall. Moreover, Thistle and his companions were drowned on February 21, whilst the storm in the Strait--as Baudin told Flinders--occurred exactly a month later.

When Flinders got on board Le Geographe, he was received by an officer, of whom he inquired for the commander. Baudin was pointed out to him, and conducted him and Brown into the captain's cabin. Flinders then "requested Baudin to show me his passport from the Admiralty, and when it was found, and I had perused it, I offered him mine from the French marine minister, but he put it back without inspection." The incident serves to remind us that both commanders believed their nations to be at war at this time. As a matter of fact, just a fortnight before the meeting in Encounter Bay, diplomacy had patched up the brittle truce ironically known as the Peace of Amiens (March 25). But neither Flinders nor Baudin could have known that there was even a prospect of the cessation of hostilities. Europe, when they last had touch of its affairs, was still clanging with battle and warlike preparations, and the red star of the Corsican had not yet reached its zenith. Baudin's readiness to produce his own passport when "requested"--in a style prompt if not peremptory, it would seem--and his indifference about that of the English commander, should be noted as the first of a series of facts which establish the purely peaceful character of the French expedition.

Baudin talked freely about the work upon which he had been engaged in Tasmanian waters. Flinders inquired concerning a large island said to lie in the western entrance of Bass Strait--that is, King Island--but Baudin "had not seen it and seemed to doubt much of its existence." As a matter of fact, Le Geographe had sailed quite close to the island, as indicated on the track-chart showing her course, and that it should have been missed indicated that the look-out was not very vigilant. Curiously enough, too, Baudin marked down on his chart, presumably as the result of this inquiry of Flinders, an island "believed to exist," but he put it in the wrong place.

An incident that appealed to Flinders' dry sense of humour occurred in reference to a chart of Bass Strait which Baudin had with him. This chart was one which had been drawn from George Bass's sketch by Flinders himself, and incorporated with his own more scientific chart of the north coast of Tasmania and the adjacent islands. Bass had traversed, in his whale-boat, the southern coast of Victoria as far as Westernport, but not being a surveyor he had furnished only a rough outline of the lay of the shore. Up to this time Baudin had not inquired the name of the commander of the Investigator, and it was from not knowing to whom he was talking that he fell into a blunder which the politeness, native to a French gentleman, would certainly have made him wish to avoid. He began to criticise the chart, finding great fault with the north side, but commending the drawing of the south--that is, of northern Tasmania and the islands near it. "On my pointing out a note upon the chart explaining that the north side of the Strait was seen only in an open boat by Mr. Bass, who had no good means of fixing either latitude or longitude, he appeared surprised, not having before paid attention to it. I told him that some other and more particular charts of the Strait and its neighbourhood had since been published, and that if he would keep company until next morning I would bring him a copy, with a small memoir belonging to them. This was agreed to, and I returned with Mr. Brown to the Investigator."

On the following morning Flinders and Brown again visited Le Geographe with the promised chart. At the conclusion of this second interview, Baudin requested that, should the Investigator fall in with Le Naturaliste, Flinders would inform her captain that it was his intention to sail round to Port Jackson as soon as the bad weather set in. "On my asking the name of the captain of Le Naturaliste, he bethought himself to ask mine, and finding it to be the same as the author of the chart which he had been criticising, expressed not a little surprise, but had the politeness to congratulate himself on seeing me." In a letter to Banks, Flinders said that Baudin "expressed some surprise at meeting me, whom he knew by name."* (* Historical Records of New South Wales 4 755.) He had the name, of course, upon Flinders' chart of 1799.* (* The new chart which Flinders gave to Baudin was published after Le Geographe left Havre. The chart which he had in his possession was the one advertised in the Moniteur on 8th Vendemiaire, Revolutionary Year 10. (September 30, 1800): "Nouvelle carte du detroit de Basse, situe entre la Nouvelle Galles Meridionale, a la Nouvelle Hollande, lequel separe ces deux parties; avec la route du vaisseau qui l'a parcouru et partie de la cote a l'est de la Nouvelle Hollande, levee par Flinders. Prix deux francs." This chart had been reproduced by the French Department of Marine from the one published by Flinders in England in 1799, and several copies of it had been supplied to Baudin and his officers for the use of the expedition, though it was also offered for sale. See the Moniteur, 27 Thermidor, Revolutionary Year 11 (August 15, 1803), as to the engraving of the chart at the French depot for the use of the expedition.)

At the second interview Baudin was more inquisitive than he had been on the previous day. He had then been more disposed to talk about his own discoveries in southern Tasmania than to ask questions about the Investigator's work. "It somewhat surprised me," said Flinders, "that Captain Baudin made no inquiries concerning my business upon this unknown coast, but as he seemed more desirous of communicating information I was happy to receive it." Another of the inaccuracies of Péron is that "M. Flinders showed a great reserve concerning his particular operations." There was no need of reserve, and none was shown. But "tact teaches when to be silent," as Disraeli's Mr. Wilton observed; and an occasion for the exercise of this virtue is presented when information likely to be valuable is being given. Reflection, and what his officers had been able to learn from Flinders' boat crew, however, had stimulated Baudin's curiosity. On the 9th, therefore, he asked questions. Flinders, so far from maintaining reserve, readily explained the discoveries he had made, and furnished Baudin with some useful information for his own voyage. He described how he had explored the whole of the south coast as far as the place of meeting;* (* Manuscript Journal.) related how he had obtained water at Port Lincoln by digging in the clay; pointed out Kangaroo Island across the water, where an abundance of fresh meat might be procured; "told him the name I had affixed to the island," in consequence of the marsupials shot there; and "as proof of the refreshment to be obtained at the island, pointed to the kangaroo skin caps worn by my boat's crew." The return made for this courtesy was that upon the Terre Napoleon maps the name Flinders gave was ignored, and "L'Ile Decres" was scored upon it, this being done while the true discoverer was pent up in French custody in an island of the Indian Ocean.

The most interesting statement made by Baudin will be dealt with in the next chapter. The two commanders conversed on the 8th for about half an hour, and on the second occasion, when Flinders presented the new chart of Bass Strait, for a shorter period. Early on the morning of the 9th they bade each other adieu. Flinders returned to the Investigator, and the two ships sailed away--the French to retrace the coast already followed by Flinders, but to find nothing that was new, because he had left so little to be found; the English to proceed, first to King Island and Port Phillip, and then through Bass Strait to Port Jackson, where the two commanders met again.

Conflict of evidence between Baudin, Péron, and Freycinet as to whether the French ships had sighted Port Phillip.

Baudin's statement corroborated by documents.

Examination of Freycinet's statement.

The impossibility of doing what Péron and Freycinet asserted was done.

One statement made by Captain Baudin to Flinders has been reserved for separate treatment, because it merits careful examination.* (* The more so as the conflict of evidence to be pointed out seems to have escaped the notice of writers on Australian history. The contradictions are not observed in Bonwick's Port Phillip Settlement, in Rusden's Discovery, Survey, and Settlement of Port Phillip, in Shillinglaw's Historical Records of Port Phillip, in Labilliere's Early History of Victoria, in Mr. Gyles Turner's History of the Colony of Victoria, nor in any other work with which the author is acquainted.)

He gave an account of the storm in Bass Strait which had separated him from Le Naturaliste on March 21, and went on to say that "having since had fair winds and fine weather, he had explored the south coast from Westernport to our place of meeting without finding any river, inlet, or other shelter which afforded anchorage." In his report to the Admiralty, dated May 11, 1802, Flinders related what Baudin told him on this point, in the following terms, which it is worth while to compare with those used by him in his book, quoted above: "Captain Baudin informed me that after parting with the Naturaliste in the Strait, in a heavy gale, he had had fine weather, and had kept the coast close on board from Westernport to the place of meeting, but that he had found no bay or place where a vessel could anchor, the coast having but few bights in it, and those affording nothing to interest." It will be seen that the official report and the account given to the public twelve years later are in close agreement. The important fact to be noticed is that Le Geographe had slipped past Port Phillip without observing the entrance, and that her captain was at this time entirely ignorant of the existence of the harbour which has since become the seat of one of the greatest cities in the southern hemisphere.

ADMIRALTY CHART OF ENTRANCE TO PORT PHILIP

Now this statement, which is sufficiently surprising without the introduction of complicating contradictions, becomes quite mysterious when compared with the accounts given by Lieutenant Louis de Freycinet and Francois Péron, the joint authors of the official history of the French voyage. It is astonishing in itself, because a vessel sent out on a voyage of exploration would not be expected to overlook so important a feature as Port Phillip. Here was not a small river with a sandbar over its mouth, but an extensive area of land-locked sea, with an opening a mile and a half wide, flanked by rocky head-lands, fronted by usually turbulent waters, at the head of a deep indentation of the coast. The entrance to Port Phillip is not, it must be acknowledged, so easy to perceive from the outside as would appear from a hasty examination of the map. If the reader will take a good atlas in which there is a map of Port Phillip, and will hold the plate in a horizontal position sufficiently below the level of the eye to permit the entrance to be seen ALONG the page, he will look at it very much as it is regarded from a ship at sea.* (* A reduced copy of the Admiralty chart of the entrance (1907) is prefixed to this chapter. The reader can perform the experiment with that.) It will be noticed that a clear view into the port, except from a particular angle, is blocked by the land on the eastern side (Point Nepean) overlapping the tongue of land just inside the port on the western side (Shortland's Bluff). Not until a vessel stands fairly close and opposite to the entrance, so that the two lighthouses on the western side, at Queenscliff, "open out," can the passage be discerned.* (* Ferguson, Sailing Directions for Port Phillip, 1854--he was harbour-master at the time--says (page 9): "Vessels having passed Cape Schanck should keep a good offing in running down towards the entrance until they open out the lighthouses, WHICH ARE NOT SEEN BEFORE BEARING NORTH 1/2 EAST OWING TO THE HIGH LAND OF POINT NEPEAN INTERVENING." Findley, Navigation of the South Pacific Ocean, 1863, has a remark about the approach to the port from the west: "In approaching Port Phillip from the westward, the entrance cannot be distinguished until Nepean Point, the eastern point, bears north-north-east, when Shortland's Bluff, on which the lighthouses are erected, opens out, and a view of the estuary is obtained." A Treatise on the Navigation of Port Phillip, by Captain Evans (a pilot of thirty-six years' experience), has also been consulted.) Indeed, a pilot of much experience has assured the writer that ships, whose captains know the port, are sometimes seen "dodging about" (the phrase is the pilot's) looking for the entrance. Yet it may be allowed that if Le Geographe had sailed close in, with the shore on her starboard quarter, and the coast had been examined with care, she would hardly have missed the port; and, her special business being exploration, she certainly ought not to have missed it.* (* In Appendix B, at the end of this chapter, are given quotations from the journals of Murray and Flinders, in which they record how they first saw the port.)

But although Baudin said he had seen nothing "to interest," both Péron and Freycinet, in their volumes--published years later, after they had learnt of the discovery of Port Phillip by Lieutenant John Murray in January 1802--stated that it was seen from Le Geographe on March 30. Péron wrote that shortly after daybreak, the ship being in the curve of the coast called Baie Talleyrand on the Terre Napoleon maps--that is, between Cape Schanck on the eastern side of Port Phillip heads, and Cape Roadknight on the western side--the port was seen and its contours were distinguished from the masthead.* (* The matter is sufficiently important to justify the quotation of the passages in which Péron and Freycinet recorded the alleged observation, and these are given at length in Appendix A to this chapter.) Péron did not say that he saw it himself. He merely recorded that it was seen. Freycinet did not see it himself either. He was at this time an officer on Le Naturaliste, and was not on the Terre Napoleon coasts at all until the following year, when he penetrated St. Vincent's and Spencer's Gulfs. He, without indicating the time of day, or stating that the port was merely viewed from aloft, asserted that the entrance was observed, though the ship did not go inside.

In the first place, the statements of Péron and Freycinet are not in agreement. To observe the entrance was one thing; to trace the contours from the masthead quite another. To do the first was quite possible, though not, as will be shown, from any part of the route indicated on the track-chart of Le Geographe. But to distinguish the contours of Port Phillip from outside, over the peninsula, was not possible.

Here, at all events, is a sharp conflict of evidence. We must endeavour to elicit the truth.

It is certain that Baudin had no motive for concealing his knowledge, if he knew of the existence of Port Phillip when he met Flinders. Had his cue been to prefer claims on account of priority of discovery, he would have been disposed to make his title clear forthwith. Frankness, too, was an engaging characteristic of Baudin throughout. He was evidently proud of what his expedition had already done, and was, as Flinders wrote, "communicative." Had he discovered a new harbour, he would have spoken about it jubilantly. Moreover, as Flinders explained to him how he could obtain fresh water at Port Lincoln, a fellow-navigator would surely have been glad to reciprocate by indicating the whereabouts of a harbour in which the Investigator might possibly be glad to take shelter on her eastern course.

It is also clear that Flinders did not misunderstand Baudin. He was an extremely exact man, and as he said that he was "particular in detailing all that passed," we may take it that one with whom precision was something like a passion would be careful not to misunderstand on so important a point. Brown, too, was with him, a trained man of science, who would have been quick to correct his chief in the event of a misapprehension. Flinders so far relied on Baudin's statement that when, on April 26, he sighted Port Phillip heads himself, he thought he was off Westernport, which his friend George Bass had discovered in 1798. "It was the information of Captain Baudin which induced this supposition," he wrote.* (* See also the entry in his journal, Appendix B.) It was not till he bore up and took his bearings that he saw that he could not be at Westernport; and he then congratulated himself on having made "a new and useful discovery"--unaware, of course, that Murray had found Port Phillip in the Lady Nelson in the previous January.

It must be noted in addition that Baudin wrote a letter to Jussieu, the distinguished French botanist and member of the Institute, nine months later, in which he gave an account of his voyage up to date.* (* Printed in the Moniteur, 22 Fructidor, Revolutionary Year 11. (September 9, 1803).) Therein he said not a word about seeing Port Phillip, nor did he allude to the possibility of there being a harbour between Westernport and Encounter Bay.

Baudin, then, knew nothing about Port Phillip when he met Flinders on April 8. But if somebody else saw it from the masthead on March 30, why was not the fact reported to the commander? Why was he not asked the question whether so large a bay should be explored? Again, if Le Geographe did sight Port Phillip, why did she not enter it? Here was a magnificent chance for discoverers. They were necessarily unaware of Murray's good fortune in January. As far as their knowledge could have gone, the port was absolutely new to geography. If we believe Péron and Freycinet, surely these were the most negligent explorers who ever sailed the seas.* (* It is true that Cook did not enter Port Jackson when he discovered and named it on May 6, 1770. But exploration, it must always be remembered, was not the primary object of the voyage of the Endeavour, as it was of Le Geographe. Cook, when he achieved the greatest extent of maritime discovery made at one time by any navigator in history, was simply on his way homeward from a visit to Tahiti, the primary purpose of which was to enable astronomers to observe the transit of Venus. Cook, too, made a record of the latitude and longitude of Port Jackson. No such entry was made by the French relative to Port Phillip, as will presently be shown.) But if we believe that Baudin spoke the truth to Flinders--and the absence of all reference to the port in his letter to Jussieu is alone sufficient to show that he did--what shall we say of the statements of Péron and Freycinet, written after Baudin's death, after they had learnt of Murray's discovery, and when they had set themselves the task of making the work of the expedition appear as important as possible?

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 Péron'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, Péron 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, Péron'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; Péron 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 Péron 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 Péron, 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 Péron 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) Péron 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.

TRACK CHART OF Le Géographe, From Freycinet's Atlas Of 1812.

The Track Of Le Géographe is indicated by dots and dashes ..._..._..._...

The track marked by dashes only ---------- is that of Le Naturaliste

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 Péron 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 Péron 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.

Péron'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 Péron'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 Péron, "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 Péron 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 Péron and Freycinet to which reference is made in the text. Péron 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."