The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders Part 24

Our domestic life is an unvaried line of peace and comfort; and O, may Heaven continue it such, so long as it shall permit us to dwell together on this earth."

CHAPTER 29. THE NAVIGATOR.

Not only is Flinders to be regarded as a discoverer whose researches completed the world's knowledge of the last extensive region of the habitable globe remaining in his time to be revealed; not only as one whose work was marked by an unrivalled exact.i.tude and fineness of observation; but also as one who did very much to advance the science of navigation in directions calculated to make seafaring safer, more certain, with better means and methods at disposal. Malte-Brun declared, when he died, that "the geographical and nautical sciences have lost in the person of Flinders one of their most brilliant ornaments,"* and that criticism, coming from a foreign critic than whom there was no better informed savant in Europe, was no mere piece of obituary rhetoric. (*

Annales des Voyages 23 268.)

In 1805 he wrote a paper on the Marine Barometer, based upon observations made during his Australian voyages. The instrument employed was one which had been used by Cook; Flinders always kept it in his cabin. He was the first to discover, and this essay was the first attempt to show, the connection between the rise and fall of the barometer and the direction of the wind. Careful observation showed him that where his facts were collected the mercury of the barometer rose some time before a change from landbreeze to seabreeze, and fell before the change from seabreeze to landbreeze. Consequently a change of wind might generally be predicted from the barometer. The importance of these observations was at once recognised by men connected with navigation. As the Edinburgh Review wrote, dealing with Flinders' paper when presented before the Royal Society on March 27th, 1806:* "It is very easy for us, speculating in our closet upon the theory of winds and their connection with the temperature, to talk of drawing a general inference on this subject with confidence. But when the philosopher chances to be a seaman on a very dangerous coast, it will be admitted that the strength of this confidence is put to a test somewhat more severe; and we find nevertheless that Captain Flinders staked the safety of his s.h.i.+p and the existence of himself and his crew on the truth of the above proposition." (* Edinburgh Review, January, 1807; Flinders' Paper, "Observations on the Marine Barometer," was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Part 2 1806.) Nowadays, indeed, the princ.i.p.al use of a barometer to a navigator aboard s.h.i.+p is to enable him to antic.i.p.ate changes of wind.

Not less important were his experiments and writings upon variations of the compa.s.s aboard s.h.i.+p. The fact that the needle of a compa.s.s showed deviations on being moved from one part of a s.h.i.+p to another had been observed by navigators in the eighteenth century, but Flinders was the first to experiment systematically to ascertain the cause and to invent a remedy.* (* For the history of the matter see Alexander Smith's Introduction to W. Scoresby's Journal of a Voyage to Australia for Magnetic Research, 1859.)

He observed not only that the direction of the needle varied according to the part of the s.h.i.+p where it was placed, but also that a change in the direction of the s.h.i.+p's head made a difference. Further, he found that in northern lat.i.tudes (in the English Channel, for instance) the north end of the needle was attracted towards the bow of the s.h.i.+p; whilst in southern lat.i.tudes, in Ba.s.s Strait, there was an attraction towards the stern; and at the equator there was no deviation. He came to the conclusion that these results were due to the presence of iron in the s.h.i.+p. When he returned to England in 1810, he wrote a memorandum on the subject to the Admiralty, and requested that experiments might be made upon s.h.i.+ps of the Navy, with the object of verifying a law which he had deduced from a long series of observations. His conclusion was that "the magnetism of the earth and the attraction forward in the s.h.i.+p must act upon the needle in the nature of a compound force, and that errors produced by the attraction should be proportionate to the sines of the angles between the s.h.i.+p's head and the magnetic meridian." Experiments were made at Sheerness, Portsmouth, and Plymouth on five vessels. He took a keen personal interest in them; and the result was his invention of the Flinders' bar, which is now used in every properly equipped s.h.i.+p in the world. The purpose of the bar, which is a vertical rod of soft iron, placed so that its upper end is level with or slightly above the compa.s.s needle, is to compensate for the effect of the vertical soft iron in the s.h.i.+p.* (* See the excellent chapter on "Compa.s.ses" in Volume 2 of the British Admiralty's Manual of Seamans.h.i.+p.) Flinders' work upon this technical subject was important even in the days of wooden s.h.i.+ps. In this era of iron and steel s.h.i.+ps it is regarded by every sailor as of the utmost value.

In Flinders' day the delicacy of the compa.s.s, its liability to error, the nature of the magnetic force to which it responds, and the necessity for care in its handling, were very little appreciated. "Among the nautical instruments taken to sea there are not any so ill-constructed, nor of which so little care is taken afterwards, as the compa.s.s," he did not hesitate to write.* (* Ma.n.u.script, "Chapter in the History of Magnetism;"

Flinders' Papers; another copy was sent to the Admiralty.) Compa.s.ses were supplied to the Admiralty by contract, and were not inspected. They were stowed in storehouses without any regard to the attraction to which the needles might be exposed. They might be kept in store for a few years; and they were then sent on board s.h.i.+ps without any re-touching, "for no magnets were kept in the dockyards, and probably no person there ever saw them used." When a compa.s.s was sent aboard a s.h.i.+p of the Navy, it was delivered into the charge of the boatswain and put into his store or sail-room. Perhaps it was put on a shelf with his knives and forks and a few marline-spikes. Flinders urged that spare compa.s.ses should be preserved carefully in officers' cabins. Magnets for re-touching were not kept in one s.h.i.+p in a hundred. Under these circ.u.mstances, he asked, "can it be a subject of surprise that the most experienced navigators are those who put the least confidence in the compa.s.s, or that s.h.i.+ps running three or four days without an observation should be found in situations very different from what was expected, and some of them lost? The currents are easily blamed, and sometimes with reason. s.h.i.+ps coming home from the Baltic and finding themselves upon the sh.o.r.es of the Dutch coast, when they were thought to be on the English side, lay it to the currents; but the same currents, as I am informed, do not prevail when steering in the opposite direction." The last is a neat stroke of irony.

Flinders strongly recommended that the Admiralty should appoint an inspector of compa.s.ses, that there should be at every dockyard an officer for re-touching compa.s.ses, and that a magnet for re-touching should be carried on each flags.h.i.+p. The recommendations may seem like a counsel of elementary precautions to-day, but they involved an important reform of method in 1810.

Flinders also wrote on the theory of the tides; a set of notes on the magnetism of the earth exists in ma.n.u.script; a ma.n.u.script of 106 pages, consisting of a treatise on spheric trigonometry, is ill.u.s.trated by beautifully drawn diagrams, and includes an account of eight practical methods of calculating lat.i.tude and five of calculating longitude. In Mauritius he read all he could obtain about the history of the island, and wrote a set of notes on Grant's History.

He was eager to praise the work of previous navigators. Laperouse was especially a hero of his, and he wrote in French for the Societe d'Emulation of Ile-de-France an account of the probable fate of that celebrated sailor. In an eloquent pa.s.sage in this essay, speaking of the wreck, he cried: "O, Laperouse, my heart speaks to me of the agony that rent yours. Ah, your eyes beheld the hapless companions of your dangers and your glory fall one after another exhausted into the sea. Ah, your eyes saw the fruit of vast and useful labours lost to the world. I think of your sorrowing family. The picture is too painful for me to dwell upon it; but at least when all human hope abandoned you, then--the last blessing that G.o.d gives to the good--a ray of consolation shone upon your eyes, and showed you that beyond those furious waves which broke upon your vessels and swept away from you your companions another refuge was opened to your virtues by the angel of pity."

Knowing the extreme difficulties attaching to navigation, even when in the public interest he had to make a correction in the work of others, he was anxious to cause no irritation. He sent to the editor of the Naval Chronicle a correction in Horsburgh's Directions for Sailing to and from the East Indies, but requested the editor to submit it first to the author of that work, and to suppress publication if Horsburg so desired.

He never expressed a tinge of regret that he had chosen a field of professional employment wherein promotion and reward were not liberally bestowed. Entering the Navy under influential auspices, in a period when active service provided plentiful scope for advancement, he deliberately preferred the explorer's hard lot. The only prize money he ever won was 10 pounds after Lord Howe's victory in 1794. "I chose a branch," he said in a letter to Banks, "which though less rewarded by rank and fortune is yet little less in celebrity. If adverse fortune does not oppose me, I will succeed." He succeeded beyond all he could have hoped.

The excellence of his charts was such that to this day the Admiralty charts for those portions of the Australian coast where he did original work bear upon them the honoured name of Matthew Flinders; and amongst the seamen who habitually traverse these coasts, no name, not even that of Cook, is so deeply esteemed as his. Flinders is not a tradition; the navigators of our own time count him a companion of the watch.

CHAPTER 30. THE NAMING OF AUSTRALIA.

The name Australia was given to the great southern continent by Flinders.

When and why he gave it that name will now be shown.

In the first place a common error must be set right. It is sometimes said that the Spanish navigator, Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, named one of the islands of the New Hebrides group, in 1606, Australia del Espiritu Santo.

This is not the case. The narrative of his voyage described "all this region of the south as far as the Pole which from this time shall be called Austrialia del Espiritu Santo," from "His Majesty's t.i.tle of Austria." The word Austrialia is a punning name. Quiros' sovereign, Philip III, was a Habsburg; and Quiros, in compliment to him, devised the name Austrialia as combining the meaning "Austrian land," as well as "southern land."* (* See Markham, Voyages of Quiros, Hakluyt Society Volume 1 page 30.)

In 1756 the word "Australasia" was coined. Charles de Brosses, in his Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes, wanted a word to signify a new division of the globe. The maps marked off Europe, Asia, Africa and America, but the vast region to the south of Asia required a name likewise. De Brosses simply added "Austral" to "Asia," and printed "Australasia" upon his map.

The earliest use of the word Australia that I have been able to find, occurs in the index to the Dutch Generale Beschrijvinge van Indien (General Description of the Indies) published at Batavia in 1638. The work consists mainly of accounts of voyages by Dutch vessels to the East Indies. Among them is a history of the "Australische Navigatien" of Jacob le Maire and Willem Cornelisz Schouten, made in 1615 to 1617. They sailed through the Straits of Magellan, crossed the Pacific, touched at the Solomon Islands, and thence made their way round by the north of New Guinea to Java. The word Australia does not occur anywhere in the black-letter text of the narrative, and the word Australische in the phrase "Australische Navigatien," simply means southern. There are references in the book to "Terra Australis," but Le Maire and Schouten knew not Australia. Nor does the narrative make any allusion to the continent which we know by that name. The Terra Australis of these Dutch navigators was land of the southern hemisphere in general. But, curiously, the indexer of the Generale Beschrijvinge made four entries, in which he employed the word Australia. Thus, his entry "Australia Incognita Ondeckt" (Australia Incognita Discovered) referred to pa.s.sages in Le Maire and Schouten's voyage relating to the southern lands they had seen. But it did not refer to the Australia of modern geography. It is very strange that the Dutch indexer in Batavia should have hit upon the word and employed it when he did not find it in the text of the book itself.

The use of Australia in an English book of 1693 is also extremely curious. In 1676 Gabriel de Foigny, under the a.s.sumed name of Jacques Sadeur, published at Vannes a quaint little duodecimo volume, purporting to give a description of an unknown southern land. He called his book La Terre Australe connue; c'est a dire, la description de ce pays inconnu jusqu'ici. It was a "voyage imaginaire," a pure piece of fancy. In 1693 it was translated into English, and published in London, by John Dunton, under the t.i.tle A New Discovery of Terra Incognita, or the Southern World, by James Sadeur, a Frenchman, who being cast there by a s.h.i.+pwreck, lived 35 years in that country and gives a particular description of the manners, customs, religion, laws, studies and wars of those southern people, and of some animals peculiar to that place; with several other rarities. In the original French the word Australia does not occur. But in the English translation Foigny's phrase "continent de la Terre Australe," is rendered "Australia." Foigny's ingenious piece of fiction drew its "local colour" from the South American region, not from any supposed land in the neighbourhood of the Australian continent. The instance is all the more interesting from the possibility that the book may have given a hint to Swift in the writing of Gulliver's Travels.* (*

See the Cambridge History of English Literature 9 106; where, however, the English translation is erroneously cited as Journey of Jacques Sadour to Australia.)

In 1770 and 1771 Alexander Dalrymple published An Historical Collection of Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean. In the preface to that work he used the word Australia as "comprehending the discoveries at a distance from America to the eastward."* (* Page 15 of the 1780 edition of Dalrymple.) He did not intend it to include the present Australia at all. De Brosses had used the three names Magellanica, Polynesia and Australasia, which Dalrymple accepted; but he thought there was room for a fourth for the area east of South America. The part of the Australian continent known when Dalrymple published his book--only the west and northern coasts--was included within the division which De Brosses called Australasia.

Here we have three instances of the use of the word Australia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but without reference to the continent which now bears that name.

In 1793, G. Shaw and J.E. Smith published in London a Zoology and Botany of New Holland. Here the word Australia was used in its modern sense, as applied to the southern continent. The authors wrote of "the vast island, or rather continent, of Australia, Australasia, or New Holland, which has so lately attracted the particular attention of European navigators and naturalists."

The word was not therefore of Flinders' devising. But it may be taken to be certain that he was unacquainted with the previous employment of it by the Dutch indexer, by Foigny's English translator, or by Shaw and Smith.

It is doubtful whether he had observed the previous use of it by Dalrymple. Undoubtedly he had read that author's book. He may have had the volumes in his cabin library. But he was so exact and scrupulous a man that we can say with confidence that, had he remembered the occurrence of the word in Dalrymple, he would have mentioned the fact.

The point is not material, however, because, as already observed, Dalrymple did not apply "Australia" to this continent, but to a different region. The essential point is that "Australia was reinvented by Flinders."* (* Morris, Dictionary of Austral English page 10.)

Flinders felt the need of a single word that would be a good name for the island which had been demonstrated by his own researches to be one great continent. It will be remembered that he had investigated the whole extent of the southern coasts, had penetrated to the extremities of the two great gulfs found there, had proved that they did not open into a pa.s.sage cutting Terra Australis in two, and had thoroughly examined the Gulf of Carpentaria, finding no inlet southward there. The country was clearly one immense whole. But what was it to be called? Terra Australis, Southern Land, was too long, was c.u.mbrous, was Latin. That would not be a convenient name for a country that was to play any part in the world. The Dutch had named the part which they found New Holland. But they knew nothing of the east. Cook called the part which he had discovered New South Wales. But Cook knew nothing of the west. Neither the Dutch nor Cook knew anything of the south, a large part of which Flinders himself had discovered.

We find him for the first time using the word "Australia" in a letter written to his brother Samuel on August 25th, 1804.* (* Flinders'

Papers.) He was then living at Wilhelm's Plains: "I call the whole island Australia, or Terra Australis. New Holland is properly that portion of it from 135 degrees of longitude westward; and eastward is New South Wales, according to the Governor's patent."

Flinders' first public use of the word was not in English, but in French.

In the essay on the probable fate of Laperouse, written for the Societe d'Emulation in Ile-de-France (1807), he again stated the need for a word in terms which I translate as follows: "The examination of the eastern part was commenced in 1770 by Captain Cook, and has since been completed by English navigators.* (* By himself; but in this paper he modestly said nothing of his own researches.) The first (i.e., the west) is New Holland properly so called, and the second bears the name of New South Wales. I have considered it convenient to unite the two parts under a common designation which will do justice to the discovery rights of Holland and England, and I have with that object in view had recourse to the name Austral-land or Australia. But it remains to be seen whether the name will be adopted by European geographers."* (* "Il reste a savoir si ce nom sera adopte par des geographes europeens." The paper was printed in the Annales des Voyages by Malte-Brun (Paris, 1810). Flinders kept a copy, and his ma.n.u.script is now in the Melbourne Public Library. It is an exquisite piece of calligraphy, perhaps the most beautifully written of all his ma.n.u.scripts.)

After 1804 Flinders repeatedly used the word Australia in his correspondence. Before that date he had invariably written of "New Holland." But in a letter to Banks (December 31st, 1804) he referred to "my general chart of Australia;"* (* Historical Records 5 531.) in March, 1806, he wrote of "the north-west coast of Australia;"* (* Ibid 6 50.) in July, 1806, writing to the King he underlined the word in the phrase "my discoveries in Australia;"* (* Ibid 6 107.) in July, 1807, he spoke of "the north coast of Australia;"* (* Ibid 6 274.) in February, 1809, of "the south coast of Australia;"* (* Ibid 7 52.) and the same phrase was employed in January, 1810.* (* Ibid 7 275.) It is therefore apparent that before his return to England he had determined to use the name systematically and to make its employment general as far as he could. We do not find it occurring in any other correspondence of the period.

When he reached England in 1810 and commenced to work upon his book, he wished to use the name Australia, and brought the subject forward at a meeting at Sir Joseph Banks' house. But Banks was not favourable, and Arrowsmith, the chart-publisher, "did not like the change" because his firm had always used the name New Holland in their charts. A Major Rennell was present at one of the meetings, when Flinders thought he had converted Sir Joseph. But afterwards he found Banks disinclined to sanction the name, and wrote to Major Rennell asking whether he remembered the conversation. The Major replied (August 15th, 1812):* (*

Flinders' Papers.) "I certainly think that it was as you say, that Australia was the proper name for the continent in question; and for the reason you mention. I suppose I must have been of that opinion at the time, for I certainly think so now. It wants a collective name."

Two days after the receipt of Major Rennell's letter Flinders wrote to Banks, reminding him that he was the first person consulted about the name Australia, and that he had understood that it was generally approved. Bligh had not objected to it. When part of the ma.n.u.script of the Voyage was submitted to Mr. Robert Peel, Under-Secretary for the Colonies (afterwards Sir Robert Peel and Prime Minister of England), and to Lord Liverpool, the princ.i.p.al Secretary of State, there had been some discussion respecting the inclusion of the Gulf of Carpentaria as part of New South Wales, and it was accordingly erased. But no objection was raised to the name Australia. Flinders fought hard for his word, but did not succeed completely. Captain Burney suggested that Terra Australis was a name "more familiar to the public." Banks on August 19th withdrew his objection to "the propriety of calling New Holland and New South Wales by the collective name of Terra Australis," and accordingly as A Voyage to Terra Australis his book ultimately went forth. The work being published under the aegis of the Admiralty, he had to conform to the opinion of those who were less sensible of the need for an innovation than he was, and it was only in a modest footnote that he used the name he preferred.

The pa.s.sage in the book wherein he discussed the question may be quoted, together with his footnote:

"The vast regions to which this voyage was princ.i.p.ally directed comprehend, in the western part, the early discoveries of the Dutch, under the name of New Holland; and in the east the coasts explored by British navigators, and named New South Wales. It has not, however, been unusual to apply the first appellation to both regions; but to continue this would be almost as great an injustice to the British nation, whose seamen have had so large a share in the discovery as it would be to the Dutch were New South Wales to be so extended. This appears to have been felt by a neighbouring, and even rival, nation; whose writers commonly speak of these countries under the general term of Terres Australes. In fact, the original name, used by the Dutch themselves until some time after Tasman's second voyage in 1644, was Terra Australis, or 'Great South Land;' and, when it was displaced by 'New Holland,' the new term was applied only to the parts lying westward of a meridian line pa.s.sing through Arnhem's Land on the north, and near the isles of St. Francis and St. Peter on the south; all to the eastward, including the sh.o.r.es of the Gulf of Carpentaria, still remained as Terra Australis. This appears from a chart published by Thevenot in 1663; which, he says 'was originally taken from that done in inlaid work upon the pavement of the new Stadt-House at Amsterdam.' The same thing is to be inferred from the notes of Burgomaster Witsen in 1705 of which there will be occasion to speak in the sequel.

"It is necessary, however, to geographical precision, that so soon as New Holland and New South Wales were known to form one land, there should be a general name applicable to the whole; and this essential point having been ascertained in the present voyage, with a degree of certainty sufficient to authorise the measure, I have, with the concurrence of opinions ent.i.tled to deference, ventured upon the adoption of the original Terra Australis; and of this term I shall hereafter make use when speaking of New Holland and New South Wales in a collective sense; and when using it in the most extensive signification, the adjacent isles, including that of Van Diemen, must be understood to be comprehended.

"There is no probability that any other detached body of land, of nearly equal extent, will ever be found in a more southern lat.i.tude; the name Terra Australis will, therefore, remain descriptive of the geographical importance of this country, and its situation on the globe, it has antiquity to recommend it; and, having no reference to either of the two claiming nations, appears to be less objectionable than any other which could have been selected."

Then comes the footnote in which the name Australia is suggested:

"Had I permitted myself any innovation upon the original term, it would have been to convert it into Australia; as being more agreeable to the ear, and an a.s.similation to the names of the other great portions of the earth."

The name came into general use after the publication of Flinders' book, though it was not always adopted in official doc.u.ments. Governor Macquarie, of New South Wales, in a despatch in April, 1817, expressed the hope that the name would be authoritatively sanctioned.* (* See M.

Phillips, A Colonial Autocracy, London 1909 page 2 note.) As already noted, the officials of 1849 drew a distinction between New Holland, the mainland, and Australia, which included the island of Tasmania; and so Sir Charles Fitzroy, Governor of New South Wales, was styled "Governor-General of Australia," in a commission dated 1851. The proudest of all places wherein this name is used is in the forefront of the majestic instrument cited as 63 and 64 Vict., cap. 12--"An Act to const.i.tute the Commonwealth of Australia."

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX A.

BAUDIN'S ACCOUNT OF ENCOUNTER BAY.

[In a long letter of about 30,000 words, written to the French Minister of Marine from Port Jackson in 1802, Captain Baudin described his explorations in Australian waters up to that date. The ma.n.u.script is in the Archives Nationales, Paris, BB4, 995, Marine. It has never been published. In this appendix, which relates to Chapter 14 of the book, I translate the portion of the letter concerning the meeting of the Investigator and Le Geographe in Encounter Bay, with a few notes.]

"On the 18th,* (* Note 1: That is, the 18th Germinal in the French revolutionary calendar; April 8th by the Gregorian calendar.) continuing to follow the coast and the various coves upon it, we sighted towards the north-east a long chain of high mountains, which appeared to terminate at the border of the sea. The weariness we had for a long time experienced at seeing coasts which for the most part were arid, and offered not the slightest resource, was dissipated by the expectation of coming upon a more promising country. A little later, a still more agreeable object of distraction presented itself to our view. A square-sailed s.h.i.+p was perceived ahead. n.o.body on board had any doubt that it was Le Naturaliste. As she was tacking south and we were tacking north, we approached each other. But what was our astonishment when the other vessel hoisted a white flag on the mainmast. It was beyond doubt a signal of recognition, to which we responded. A little later, that signal was hauled down, and an English ensign and pennant were subst.i.tuted.* (* Note 2: Flinders says: "Our colours being hoisted, she showed a French ensign, and afterwards an English jack forward, as we did a white flag.") We replied by hoisting our colours; and we continued to advance towards each other. The manoeuvre of the English s.h.i.+p indicating that she desired to speak to us, we stood towards her.* (* Note 3: Flinders' own explanation of his manoeuvring is: "We veered round as Le Geographe was pa.s.sing so as to keep our broadside to her lest the flag of truce should be a deception.") When we got within hail, a voice enquired what s.h.i.+p we were.

I replied simply that we were French. "Is that Captain Baudin?" "Yes, it is he." The English captain then saluted me graciously, saying "I am very glad to meet you." I replied to the same effect, without knowing to whom I was speaking; but, seeing that arrangements were being made for someone to come on board, I brought the s.h.i.+p to.

"Mr. Flinders, who commanded the English vessel, presented himself. As soon as I learnt his name, I no longer doubted that he, like ourselves, was occupied with the exploration of the south coast of New Holland; and, in spite of the reserve that he showed upon that first visit, I could easily perceive that he had already completed a part of it. Having invited him to come into my cabin, and finding ourselves alone there, the conversation became freer.* (* Note 4: "Nous trouvant seul, la conversation devint plus libre." Flinders says that Brown accompanied him, and went into the cabin with him. "No person was present at our conversations except Mr. Brown.")

"He informed me that he had left Europe about eight months after us, and that he was bound for Port Jackson, having previously refreshed at the Cape of Good Hope.