Terre Napoleon-a History of French Explorations Part 3

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-gra.s.s 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 Ba.s.s had discovered, and traced the curve of the coast as far into the blue distance as his eye could penetrate. He had warrant for saying that the country looked "pleasing and fertile." But how did Freycinet come to select those words, "un aspect riant et fertile"? He was not there himself, and, as a matter of probability, it seems most unlikely that such terms would occur to a person who was there, either as applicable to the lands near Points Nepean and Lonsdale, with their bastions of rock and ramparts of sand, or to the scrubby and broken coast running down to Cape Otway, which, as a matter of fact, is not fertile, except in little patches, and, even after half a century of settlement, does not look as if it were. The conclusion is hardly to be resisted that Freycinet thought he was safe in appropriating, to describe land seen from seaward, terms which Flinders had employed to describe land seen inside the port.

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

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

The reader who has carefully followed the argument so far, will probably have come to the conclusion that Captain Baudin's statement to Flinders was perfectly true, and that the a.s.sertions of Peron and Freycinet which, if veracious, would make Le Geographe the second s.h.i.+p 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 Ba.s.s." 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p, while steering across from Cape Schanck in the direction of Cape Otway, diverted a few miles to the north-west, and then abruptly turned south-west. From any part of this course, the stretch of coast where Port Phillip heads are would present the appearance of an unbroken wall of rock, the gap being covered by the overlapping land on the western side. The sudden north-westerly diversion, and then the sharp turn south-west, seem to indicate that Baudin thought it well to sail up to see if there was anything worth examining at the head of the bight, and concluded that there was not.

There can be no more authoritative opinion on the possibility of doing what Peron and Freycinet claimed was done, than that of a member of the Port Phillip pilot service. The pilot steamer is almost incessantly on duty in what the French chose to call Baie Talleyrand. The pilots know the ground intimately; they are familiar with every part of the coast; they see it in all weathers; they observe the entrance under all conditions of light and atmosphere. Wis.h.i.+ng, 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 s.h.i.+p's course was several miles from the coast. In fact, the chart shows more than could have been seen if the French had sailed close up to the heads and looked inside.

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

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

The latter officer tells us, in one of his prefaces, that the French Government was dissatisfied with the work of the expedition, and was at first disposed to refuse to publish any record of it. Sir Joseph Banks, closely in touch with movements relative to scientific work, had news of the displeasure of Napoleon's ministers, and wrote to Flinders, then a prisoner: "M. Baudin's voyage has not been published. I do not hear that his countrymen are well satisfied with his proceedings" (June 1805).

Finally it was determined to issue a history of the expedition; but to have published any charts without showing Port Phillip would have been to make failure look ridiculous. By this time Freycinet, who was preparing the charts, knew of the existence of the port. The facts drive to the conclusion that the French had no drawing of Port Phillip of their own whatever, but that their representation of it was copied from a drawing of which possession had been acquired--how? It is quite clear that Freycinet had to patch up the omissions in the work of his companions from some source, to hide the negligent exploration which had missed one of the two most important harbours in Australia. We shall hereafter see how he did it.

APPENDIX A.

The following are the two pa.s.sages from Peron and Freycinet to which reference is made in the text. Peron wrote (Voyage de Decouvertes 1 316): "Le 30 mars, a la pointe du jour, nous portames sur la terre, que nous atteignimes bientot. Un grand cap, qui fut appele Cap Richelieu [it is now Cape Schanck] se projette en avant, et forme l'entree d'une baie profonde, que nous nommames Baie Talleyrand. Sur la cote orientale de cette baie, et presque vers son fond, se trouve un port, dont on distinguoit a.s.sez 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 pa.s.sages 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-sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.sage sufficiently deep for a s.h.i.+p, 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 sh.o.r.e close on board to the time of his meeting us."

CHAPTER 4. TERRE NAPOLEON AND ITS NOMENCLATURE.

Imprisonment of Flinders in Mauritius.

The French atlas of 1807.

The French charts and the names upon them.

Hurried publication.

The allegation that Peron acted under pressure.

Freycinet's explanations.

His failure to meet the gravest charge.

Extent of the actual discoveries of Baudin, and nature of the country discovered.

The French names in current use on the so-called Terre Napoleon coasts.

Difficulty of identifying features to which Baudin applied names.

Freycinet's perplexities.

The new atlas of 1817.

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

There is no need, for our immediate purpose, to linger over these occurrences, inviting as they are, with a glint of Stevensonian romance in the bare facts, and all the pathos that attaches to the case of a brave and blameless man thwarted and ruined by perversity and malignity.

Frequently have the facts been wrongly written, as for instance when Blair states, in his Cyclopaedia of Australia, that Baudin in Le Geographe called at Mauritius after Flinders was imprisoned, and, instead of procuring his release, "persuaded the Governor to confine him more rigorously." Poor Baudin--he had been in his grave three months when Flinders appeared at the island in dire distress, and Le Geographe itself left the day before his arrival.

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

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

Outside the Terre Napoleon region, on the north coast, the name Golfe Joseph Bonaparte bespoke geographical immortality for another member of the family. But we miss Rousseau and Turgot, deplore the absence of Corneille and La Bruyere, and feel that at least a sand-bank or two might have been found for Quesnay and the economists, if only as a set-off against the disparagement of Burke.

Yet it is on the whole an ill.u.s.trious company, representative of the best and brightest in French intellect and character. When the brave old Spanish navigators of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries discovered a new port or cape, they commonly gave it the name of the saint on whose day in the calendar it was found; and the map of Central and South America is a memorial at once of their piety and their enterprise. But Baudin's expedition having no such guide--Comte's Positivist Calendar, if not of later date, would have been useful--their selection of names was quite an original effort. Unfortunately, the "discoveries" to which the names were applied were not original.

Two facts are incontrovertible: (1) that Flinders had discovered and charted the whole of the south coast of Australia from Fowler Bay to Encounter Bay--except the south of Kangaroo Island, which is represented by a dotted line on his charts--before he met Le Geographe on April 8, 1802; and (2) that the French officers knew that he had done so. Flinders explained to Baudin the discoveries which he had made when they met in Encounter Bay, and afterwards when the Investigator and the French s.h.i.+ps lay together in Port Jackson he showed him one of his finished charts to ill.u.s.trate what he had done. "So far from any prior t.i.tle being set up at that time to Kangaroo Island and the parts westward," wrote Flinders, "the officers of the Geographe always spoke of them as belonging to the Investigator."

The French names would appear to have been applied by Baudin, if Freycinet is to be believed; for he uses the phrase "les nommes que Baudin a donnes."* (* Voyage de Decouvertes 2 Preface page 23.) But when Freycinet wrote those words Baudin was dead, and the publication of the charts had evoked much indignation on account of the gross wrong done to Flinders. In one or two cases the names were certainly not Baudin's, as will be made clear in a later chapter.* (* Take, for instance, Ile Decres, the name given to Kangaroo Island. Decres did not become Minister for the Navy till October 3, 1801. Baudin was then at sea, and probably never knew anything about Decres' accession to office. It is pretty well certain that the name was not given to the island until after the return of the expedition, when Baudin was dead.) Certainly Baudin was in no sense responsible for the publication. Peron and Freycinet were the men who put their names to the charts and volumes; and they were by no means exculpated by the suggestion that Baudin devised a nomenclature calculated to deprive Flinders of the credit that he had won. Both Peron and Freycinet knew, too, when they issued their volume and atlas, that Flinders was being held in captivity in Mauritius; and the dead captain was certainly not guilty of the meanness and mendacity of hurrying forward the issue of books that pretended to discoveries never made, while the real discoverer was prevented from a.s.serting his own rightful claims.

That the publication was hurried forward as soon as Napoleon's government gave the order to print, is evident from the incompleteness of the atlas of 1807. It contained a table of charts--"Tableau General des planches qui composent l'atlas historique"--which were not inserted in the book; and in one of the four copies of this rare volume which the author has been able to examine, the previous owner, or the bookseller from whom it was purchased, collating the contents with the table, had pencilled in the margin, "All wanting," being under the impression that the copy was imperfect. But the charts detailed in the table were not issued with the book. They were not ready, and the table stands as an eloquent indicator of the hurry in which the publication was performed. The first volume of the Voyage de Decouvertes contains numerous marginal references to charts not contained in the atlas issued with it. Readers of the book must have been puzzled by these references,* (* As the present writer was when he began to study the subject closely, and as the Quarterly reviewer was in 1810. He said: "The atlas is of quarto size; it contains not a single chart nor any sketch or plan of a coast, island, bay, or harbour, though frequent references are made to such in the margin of the printed volume"

(page 60). The reviewer should have said, "except the two cartes generales" described on a previous page.) when they turned to the atlas and found no charts corresponding with them. Freycinet's complete folio volume of charts was not published till 1812, five years after the issue of the book which they were necessary to explain. Flinders had then been released; but it is significant that he was held in the clutches of General Decaen, despite constant demands for his liberation, until the preparation of the French charts was sufficiently advanced to make it impossible for his own to be issued until theirs had been placed before the world.

Flinders, generous in his judgments of other men even when smarting under great grievances, put forth an excuse for Peron, suggesting that he had acted under pressure. "How, then, came M. Peron to advance what was so contrary to truth?" he wrote. "Was he a man dest.i.tute of all principle?

My answer is, that I believe his candour to have been equal to his acknowledged abilities, and that what he wrote was from overruling authority, and smote him to the heart. He did not live to finish the second volume."

This would be an acceptable way of disposing of the question if we could reasonably accept the explanation. But can we? Freycinet denied that any pressure was exerted. Those who knew Peron's character, he wrote,* (*

Voyage de Decouvertes 2 page 21.) were aware that he would have refused to do anything with which his conscience could reproach him. He was so able and zealous a man of science, that we should like to believe that of him. justice demands that we should give full weight to every favourable factor in the case as affecting him. Flinders was a British naval officer, and naval men at that period were disposed to see the hand of Napoleon in every bit of mischief. But the "pressure" theory does not sustain examination.

The task thrust upon Peron in the writing of the historical narrative of the voyage was one for which he had not prepared himself, and which did not properly pertain to him. The death of Baudin, whose work this would naturally have been, compelled the naturalist to become historian. He had not kept the log, and it may be reasonably a.s.sumed that he had not concerned himself in a particular degree with those events of which he would have made careful notes had it been intended from the beginning that he should be the official recorder. He had applied himself with pa.s.sionate energy to the collection and cla.s.sification of zoological specimens. This was his special vocation, and he pursued it worthily. It is probably safe to say that no expedition, French or English, that ever came down to Australasian waters, added so much that was new to the world's scientific knowledge, or acc.u.mulated so much material, as did this one whose chief naturalist was Francois Peron. When it is added that two of the greatest figures in British scientific history, Darwin and Huxley, were among the workers in this fruitful field, it will be admitted that the acknowledgment is not made in any n.i.g.g.ard spirit. But we are now concerned with Peron as historian of what related to Terre Naploeon and the surrounding circ.u.mstances. Here his statements have been shown to be unreliable. It is probable that he wrote largely from memory; almost certainly from insufficient data. Further, he was weak and ill when engaged upon the book. The hards.h.i.+ps and unhealthy conditions of the voyage had undermined his const.i.tution. One would conclude from his style of writing that he was by temperament excitable and easily subject to depression. A zealous savant, to whom fishes and birds, beetles and b.u.t.terflies, were the precious things of the earth, and for whom the discovery of a new species was as great a source of joy as a glorious victory was to his imperial master, Peron appeals to us as a pathetic figure whom one would rather screen from blame than otherwise. He suffered severely, and did his final work under the difficulty of breaking health. He died in 1810, before his second volume was ready for publication.

Freycinet wrote a series of notes by way of preface to volumes 2 and 3, in attempted justification of the Terre Napoleon maps.* (* The second volume of the Voyage de Decouvertes was published--out of its due order--in 1816, the third in 1815.) He was put on the defensive because "the audacious attempt which was made in the first volume of this work, to rob Captain Flinders of the well-earned merit of his nautical labours and discoveries, while he was basely and barbarously kept in prison in a French colony, was regarded with becoming indignation throughout Europe, and with shame by the better part of the French nation."* (* Quarterly Review volume 17 (1817) page 229.) That that is a fair description of the state of feeling among people concerned with the advancement of knowledge, is beyond question; and the French above all, with their love of enterprise, their sentiment of honour, their eager applause of high achievement, their chivalrous sense of justice, and their quick sympathy with suffering wrongly inflicted and bravely borne, would have no taste for laurels plucked in their name from the brow of him who was ent.i.tled to wear them. Thoroughly repugnant to French intellect and feeling was conduct of this description. National animosities were more bitter at this period than they have ever been at any other time, but science knows no nationality. Even when the two governments had ceased to have relations with each other, we still find English and French men of science communicating on friendly terms; and Napoleon himself was willing to grant the requests of an English savant while English arms and English diplomacy were at furious war with him. Thus Sir Joseph Banks, who was a corresponding member of the Inst.i.tute of France, could write in 1805, "I have obtained the release of five persons from the gracious condescension of the Emperor, the only five, I believe, that have been regularly discharged from their parole."

Freycinet, then, had to defend his charts. But there never was a more complete example of the remark that "qui s'excuse s'accuse." He argued that when Le Geographe cruised along the coasts discovered by Flinders, there was no published work in which they were described, therefore the French were justified in applying their own names. But this plea ignored the fact that if the coasts were not charted in any work published before 1807, they had been, to the full knowledge of the French officers, charted by Flinders, whose work would have been published earlier if he had not been forcibly detained. Again he argued* (* Preface to volume 3.) that, inasmuch as "jamais Peron ni moi"--where Freycinet a.s.sumed part of the responsibility--knew of the work done by Flinders until his book was published, the work of the French was truly one of discovery; and as to the names given by the English navigator, "it is certain that we could not employ them without knowing them." But it was not true that Freycinet, Peron, or Baudin was unaware of the discoveries made by Flinders. Even were there not his specific statement that he explained his discoveries and showed one of his charts to ill.u.s.trate them, it would be incredible that while the French and English s.h.i.+ps lay together for some weeks at Port Jackson, with tents erected on the same piece of ground, the officers frequently meeting on friendly terms, Freycinet and Peron should not have learnt what the Investigator had been doing. Both the French authors are individually mentioned by Flinders as having been present on one or other of these occasions, and Freycinet does not deny the statement. Further, Captain Hamelin reported to the French Government, in 1803, that Flinders had traced the coast from the Leeuwin to Encounter Bay, and had discovered a large and beautiful island which he had named "L'Ile des Kangaroux."* (* Moniteur, 27 Thermidor, Revolutionary Year 11.)

It is true that the French were not acquainted with Flinders' names, except in the one case of Kangaroo Island. He told Baudin what name he had given in that case. Nevertheless they ignored it, and called the island Ile Decres. But even when they did know of the names given to features of the coast by a previous English navigator, Peron and Freycinet disregarded them. Grant's Narrative of the Voyage of the Lady Nelson was published, together with his eye-chart of the coast from Cape Banks to Wilson's Promontory, in 1803. Flinders states positively that Grant's "discoveries were known to M. Peron and the French expedition in 1802";* (* Voyage 1 201.) as indeed we might well suppose, for Grant was not the man to allow any one with whom he came in contact to remain unaware of his achievements, and he was in Sydney just before the French arrived there. They would hear of him from many people. Yet Grant's names, inscribed in plain print on his published chart, were all ignored on the Terre Napoleon charts--his Cape Nelson becoming Cap Montaigne; his Cape Otway, Cap Desaix; his Cape Schanck, Cap Richelieu; and so forth.

The contention that the south coast exploration of the French was "entirely a work of discovery,"* (* Freycinet, 2 page 23.) although they were forestalled in it by Flinders and Grant, is neither true nor sensible. If it could be held that the voyage of a vessel sailing without a chart or a pilot along a coast previously unknown to its officers was "entirely a work of discovery," then a s.h.i.+p that should sail under such conditions along any piece of coast--say from Boulogne to La Hague--would accomplish "a work of discovery." Discovery is a matter of priority, or the word is meaningless.

Freycinet's notes nowhere meet the gravest feature of the case--the prolongation of the imprisonment of Flinders until the French could complete their own charts for publication. The talk about not knowing what Flinders' names were, the affected ignorance of his prior claims, were crudely disingenuous. Freycinet knew perfectly where Flinders was, and why his charts were not issued. The Moniteur contained several references to his case. Sir Joseph Banks repeatedly pressed leading members of the Inst.i.tute to lend their influence to secure his liberation. But Freycinet, who had shared in the generous hospitality of the British governor in Sydney--extended at a time when the French crews were sorely stricken--and should have been moved by grat.i.tude, to say nothing of justice, to help in undoing an act of wrong to a fellow-navigator, does not seem to have taken the slightest step in this direction, nor does he in any of his writings express any regret concerning the unhappy fate that overtook the English captain.

The claim made in behalf of Baudin's expedition can best be stated in the language of Peron. Dentrecasteaux, he wrote, not having advanced beyond the islands of St. Peter and St. Francis, which form the extremity of Nuyts Land, and the English not having carried their researches farther than Westernport, "it follows that all the portion between the last-mentioned port and Nuyts Land was unknown at the time when we arrived on these sh.o.r.es." Peron's words were not candid. It is true that part of the sh.o.r.es in question were unknown when Baudin's s.h.i.+ps "arrived." They "arrived" off Cape Leeuwin in May 1801, before Flinders left England, though not before Grant had discovered his stretch of coast. (Grant reached Sydney, having roughly traced the coast from Cape Banks to Cape Schanck, on December 16, 1800.) If, however, Peron meant to convey that the coasts were unknown when Baudin's s.h.i.+ps actually sailed along them, he stated what was not the case. Let us hear Flinders in reply. "M. Peron should not have said that the south coast from Westernport to Nuyts Land was then unknown, but that it was unknown to them, for Captain Grant, of the Lady Nelson, had discovered the eastern part from Westernport to the longitude 140 degrees 14 minutes in the year 1800, before the French s.h.i.+ps sailed from Europe, and on the west I had explored the coast and islands from Nuyts Land to Cape Jervis in 138 degrees 10 minutes." In other words, Grant's eye-chart connected up the coast between the extremity of George Ba.s.s's exploration, Westernport, and Cape Banks to the east, while Flinders had traversed the coast between Nuyts Land and Encounter Bay to the west, leaving a gap of only about fifty leagues of sandy sh.o.r.e, upon which there is "neither river, inlet, or place of shelter," that was actually discovered by Baudin.

Flinders not only admitted that the French had discovered this particularly barren and uninteresting stretch of land, but marked it upon his charts* (* Cf. plate 4 in Flinders' Atlas, for example.) as "discovered by Captain Baudin, 1802." The French on their charts, however, made not the slightest reference to the discoveries of either Flinders or Grant.

The true Terre Napoleon, therefore, if the name were to survive at all, would be from a point north-west of Cape Banks in the state of South Australia, to the mouth of the river Murray in Encounter Bay. The names marked on a modern map indicate the sort of country that it is in the main. Chinaman's Wells, M'Grath's Flat, Salt Creek, Martin's Washpool, Jim Crow's Flat, and Tilley's Swamp are examples. They are not n.o.ble-sounding designations to inscribe at the back of coasts once dignified by the name of the greatest figure in modern history. It is rather to be regretted that the name Terre Napoleon has slipped off modern maps. It is historically interesting. When Eric the Red, as the Saga tells us, discovered Greenland, he so called it because "men would be the more readily persuaded thither if the land had a good name." Most will agree that Terre Napoleon sounds a bit better than Pipe Clay Plain or Willow Swamp, which are other choice flowers in the same garden.* (*

These "virginal chaste names" are taken from the map of South Australia, by the Surveyor-General of that State, 1892.)

There is no evidence to warrant the belief that Napoleon had anything whatever to do with affixing his name to the territory to which it was applied, or with the nomenclature of the features of the coast. Nor would there be anything remarkable in the use of the name Terre Napoleon, if the French had really discovered the region so described. In every part of the world there are lands named after the rulers of the nations to which the discoverers or founders belonged. Raleigh named Virginia "from the maiden Queen"; the two Carolinas preserve the name of the amorous monarch who granted the original charter of colonisation "out of a Pious and good intention for ye propogacion of ye Christian faith amongst ye Barbarous and Ignorant Indians, ye Inlargement of his Empire and Dominions, and Inriching of his Subjects"; and two states of Australia commemorate by their names the great Queen who occupied the British throne when they were founded. There would have been nothing unusual or improper in the action of the French in styling the country from Wilson's Promontory to Cape Adieu "Terre Napoleon," except that they did not discover it. What they did excites a feeling akin to derision, because it bore the character of "jumping a claim," to use an Australian mining phrase.

Nor is it to be inferred that affixing the name was intended to a.s.sert possession. An examination of the large chart of Australia shows that the whole of the coast-line, except this particular stretch, was previously named. There was Terre de Nuyts on the south-west; Terre de Leeuwin, Terre d'Endrels, Terre d'Endracht were on the west; Terre de Witt on the north-west; Terre d'Arnheim and Terre de Carpentarie on the north. New South Wales was marked as occupying the whole of the east. The styling of the freshly discovered south Terre Napoleon was a mere piece of courtiers.h.i.+p. If Napoleon had ever been strong enough to strike a blow at the British in Australia, the probabilities are that he would have endeavoured to oust them from New South Wales, and would not have troubled himself very much about the coasts that were named after him. It was his way to strike at the heart of his enemy, and the heart of British settlement in Australia was located at Port Jackson.

It has been represented in one of the best books in English on the Napoleonic period,* (* Dr. Holland Rose's Life of Napoleon 1 381.) that "the names given by Flinders on the coasts of Western and South Australia, have been retained owing to the priority of his investigation, but the French names have been kept up on the coast between the mouth of the Murray and Ba.s.s Straits for the same reason." That statement, however, is very much too wide. Capes Patton, Otway, Nelson, Bridgewater, Northumberland and Banks, Portland Bay and Julia Percy Island, all lie between the points mentioned, and all of them were named by Grant, who first discovered them and marked them on his chart. None of the French names is properly in present employment east of Cape Buffon; for their Cap Boufflers, which is marked on a few maps, is really the Cape Banks of Grant. The only names freshly applied by Baudin to natural features of the mainland on the Terre Napoleon charts, and which are in current use, are Cape Buffon, Cape Lannes, Rivoli Bay, Cape Jaffa, Cape Rabelais, Cape Dombey, Guichen Bay, Cape Bernoulli, Lacepede Bay, and Cape Morard de Galles. Some or other of these names may be found, in some order, on some modern map, but the sequence is variable, and they are not all to be found on any single map with which the author is acquainted; because there are more names than there are natural capes and bays to which they can apply. The remainder of the French names between Lacepede Bay and Cape Jervis, and most of those in the more easterly section, are not marked on any current map, because in some instances they do not represent features of the coast which are sufficiently p.r.o.nounced to require names, whilst in other cases they are applied to islands, capes, and bays that do not exist.* (* The difficulty of identifying the features marked on the Terre Napoleon charts is made clear by comparing them with a few good modern maps. Thus, taking them from south-east to north-west, they appear on the French charts in the following order: 1, Cap Buffon; 2, Cap Lannes; 3, Baie de Rivoli; 4, Cap de Jaffa; 5, Cap Rabelais; 6, Cap Dombey; 7, Baie de Guichen; 8, Cap Bernoulli; 9, Baie Lacepede; 10, Cap Morard de Galles; 11, Cap Fermat; 12, Cap Monge 13, Cap Caffarelli; 14, Cap Villars; 15, Baie Mollien; 16, Cap Mollien 17, Baie Cretet; 18, Cap Cretet; 19, Iles Decaen; 20, Cap Decaen; 21, Cap Montelivet. On the large Continental map constructed by the Department of Lands and Survey, State of Victoria, 1879, the order of the names included is as follows: 1, Buffon; 2, Rivoli; 3, Lannes; 4, Guichen; 5, Jaffa; 6, Lacepede. Rabelais, Dombey, Bernoulli, and the rest are omitted, the draftsman evidently being unable to find features to which to apply them. On the large map compiled in the office of the Surveyor-General, State of South Australia, 1892, the order of the names is: 1, Buffon; 2, Rivoli; 3, Rabelais; 4, Lannes; 5, Dombey; 6, Guichen; 7, Jaffa; 8, Lacepede. On the excellent map in M'Lean's New Atlas of Australia, 1886, we find: 1, Buffon; 2, Rivoli; 3, Lannes; 4, Guichen; 5, Jaffa; 6, Lacepede. Flinders, on his separate chart of this part of the coast, found features for the names of Buffon, Lannes, Rivoli, and Bernoulli, but left out Rabelais, Dombey, Guichen, and Lacepede. In no case is the cape or bay on the Terre Napoleon chart of this part of the coast a tolerably good representation of an actuality.) Where are Cap Monge, Cap Caffarelli, Cap Mollien, Cap du Mont St. Bernard, Ile Latrelle, or Baie Descartes? They are not to be found. Freycinet* (*

Preface to the 1824 edition of the Voyage de Decouvertes page 13, note.) complained that Flinders, on his charts, had erroneously applied the French names between Cap Monge and Cap Lannes. It was a singular complaint to make, seeing that Flinders gave the French full credit for their discoveries, whilst they omitted all reference to his work on their charts. But Flinders' difficulty was that of all later map-makers: he could not find all the places to which Baudin had given names. He did his best; but it is evidently easier to sprinkle a coast-line with the contents of a biographical dictionary, than to fit all the names in.