It will be necessary to devote some attention to the French expedition of
discovery, commanded by Nicolas Baudin, which sailed from Havre on
October 19th, 1800, nearly two months before the British Admiralty
authorised the despatch of the Investigator, and nine months all but two
days before Flinders was permitted to leave England.
The mere fact that this expedition was despatched while Napoleon
Bonaparte was First Consul of the French Republic, has led many writers
to jump to the conclusion that it was designed to cut out a portion of
Australia for occupation by the French; that, under the thin disguise of
being charged with a scientific mission, Baudin was in reality an
emissary of Machiavellian statecraft, making a cunning move in the great
game of world-politics. The author has, in an earlier book* endeavoured
to show that such was not the case. (* Terre Napoleon (London, 1910).
Since that book was published, I have had the advantage of reading a
large quantity of manuscript material, all unpublished, preserved in the
Archives Nationales and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. It strengthens
the main conclusions promulgated in Terre Napoleon, but of course
amplifies the evidence very considerably. The present chapter is written
with the Baudin and other manuscripts, as well as the printed material,
in mind.) Bonaparte did not originate the discovery voyage. He simply
authorised it, as head of the State, when the proposition was laid before
him by the Institute of France, a scientific body, concerned with the
augmentation of knowledge, and anxious that an effort should be made to
complete a task which the abortive expeditions of Laperouse and
Dentrecasteaux had failed to accomplish.
Moreover, if Bonaparte had wished to acquire territory in Australia, he
was not so foolish a person as to fit out an expedition estimated to cost
over half a million francs,* and which actually cost a far larger sum,
when he could have obtained what he wanted simply by asking. (* Report of
the Commission of the Institute manuscripts, Bibliotheque Nationale,
nouveaux acquisitions, France 9439 page 139.) The treaty of Amiens was
negotiated and signed while Baudin's ships were at sea. The British
Government at that time was very anxious for peace, and was prepared to
make concessions--did, in fact, surrender a vast extent of territory won
by a woful expenditure of blood and treasure. It cannot be said that
Australia was greatly valued by Great Britain at the time. She occupied
only a small portion of an enormous continent, and would certainly not
have seriously opposed a project that the French should occupy some other
portion of it, if Bonaparte had put forward a claim as a condition of
peace. But he did nothing of the kind.
If we are to form sound views of history, basing conclusions on the
evidence, we must set aside suspicions generated at a time of fierce
racial antipathy, when it was almost part of an Englishman's creed to
hate a Frenchman. Neither the published history of Baudin's voyage, nor
the papers relating to it which are now available for study--except two
documents to which special attention will be devoted hereafter, and which
did not emanate from persons in authority--afford warrant for believing
that there was any other object in view than that professed when
application for a passport was made to the Admiralty. The confidential
instructions of the Minister* of Marine (* Manuscripts, Archives
Nationales BB4 999, Marine. I have given an account of this important
manuscript, with copious extracts, in the English Historical Review,
April, 1913.) to Baudin* leave no doubt that the purpose was quite bona
fide. (* Fleurieu to Forfait, manuscripts, Bibliotheque Nationale,
nouveaux acquisitions, France 9439 page 137.) "Your labours," wrote
Forfait, "having for their sole object the perfecting of scientific
knowledge, you should observe the most complete neutrality, allowing no
doubt to be cast upon your exactitude in confining yourself to the object
of your mission, as set forth in the passports which have been furnished.
In your relations with foreigners, the glorious success of our arms, the
power and wisdom of your government, the grand and generous views of the
First Consul for the pacification of Europe, the order that he has
restored in the interior of France, furnish you with the means of giving
to foreign peoples just ideas upon the real state of the Republic and
upon the prosperity which is assured to it." The men of science who had
promoted the voyage were anxious that not even a similitude of
irregularity should be permitted. Thus we find the Comte de Fleurieu, who
drew up the itinerary, writing to the Minister urging him to include in
the instructions a paragraph prohibiting the ships from taking on board,
under any pretext, merchandise which could give to a scientific
expedition the appearance of a commercial venture, "because if an English
cruiser or man-of-war should visit them, and find on board other goods
than articles of exchange for dealing with aboriginal peoples, this might
serve as a pretext for arresting them, and Baudin's passport might be
disregarded on the ground that it had been abused by being employed as a
means of conducting without risk a traffic which the state of war would
make very lucrative."
The question of the origin and objects of the expedition is, however, an
entirely different one from that of the use which Napoleon would have
made of the information collected, had the opportunity been available of
striking a blow at Great Britain through her southern colony. It is also
different from the question (as to which something will be said later) of
the advantage taken by two members of Baudin's staff of the scope allowed
them at Port Jackson, to "spy out the land" with a view of furnishing
information valuable in a military sense to their Government.
The instructions to Baudin were very similar to those which had been
given to Laperouse and Dentrecasteaux in previous years, being drafted by
the same hand, and some paragraphs in an "instruction particuliere," show
that the French were thoroughly up-to-date with their information, and
knew in what parts of the coast fresh work required to be done.* (*
"Projet d'itineraire pour le Commandant Baudin; memoire pour servir
d'instruction particuliere." Manuscripts, Archives Nationales, Marine BB4
999.)
Nicolas Baudin was not a French naval officer. He had been in the
merchant service, and, more recently, had had charge of an expedition
despatched to Africa by the Austrian Government to collect specimens for
the museum at Vienna. War between France and Austria broke out before he
returned; and Baudin, feeling less loyal to his Austrian employers than
to his own country, handed over the whole collection to the Museum in
Paris. This action, which in the circumstances was probably regarded as
patriotic, brought him under the notice of Jussieu, the famous French
botanist; and when the South Sea expedition was authorised, that
scientist recommended Baudin as one who had taken an interest in natural
history researches, and who had given "a new proof of his talent and of
his love for science by the choice of the specimens composing his last
collection, deposited in the museum." The Minister of Marine minuted
Jussieu's recommendation in the margin: "No choice could be happier than
that of Captain Baudin,"* and so he was appointed. (* Manuscripts,
Bibliotheque Nationale, nouveaux acquisitions, France 9439 page 121.) He
was by no means the kind of officer whom Napoleon would have selected had
his designs been such as have commonly been alleged.
Two ships of the navy were commissioned for the service. Under the names
La Serpente and Le Vesuve they had been built with a view to an invasion
of England, contemplated in 1793.* (* Manuscripts, Bibliotheque
Nationale, nouveaux acquisitions, France 9439 report of de Bruix to the
Minister.) They were re-named Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste on being
allotted to a much safer employment. Both were described as solidly
built, good sailers, and easy to control; and the officer who surveyed
them to determine whether they would be suitable reported that without
impairing their sea-going qualities it would be easy to construct upon
their decks high poops to hold quantities of growing plants, which it was
intended to collect and bring home. On these ships Baudin and his
selected staff embarked at Havre, and, a British passport being obtained
under the circumstances already related, sailed south in October.
If Baudin had been the keen and capable commander that those who secured
his appointment believed him to be, he should have discovered and charted
the whole of the unknown southern coast of Australia, before Flinders was
many days' sail from England. The fact that this important work was
actually done by the English navigator was in no measure due to the
sagacity of the Admiralty--whose officials procrastinated in an
inexplicable fashion even after the Investigator had been commissioned
and equipped--but to his own promptness, competence and zeal, and the
peculiar dilatoriness of his rivals. Baudin's vessels reached
Ile-de-France (Mauritius) in March, 1801, and lay there for the leisurely
space of forty days. Two-thirds of a year had elapsed before they came
upon the Australian coast. But Baudin did not even then set to work where
there was discovery to be achieved. Winter was approaching, and sailing
in these southern seas would be uncomfortable in the months of storm and
cold; so he dawdled up the west coast of Australia, in warm, pleasant
waters, and made for Timor, where he arrived in August. He remained in
the Dutch port of Kupang till the middle of November--three whole months
wasted, nearly eleven months consumed since he had sailed from France. In
the meantime, the alert and vigorous captain of the Investigator was
speeding south as fast as the winds would take him, too eager to lose a
day, flying straight to his work like an arrow to its mark, and doing it
with the thoroughness and accuracy that were part of his nature.
The French on board Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste were as unhappy as
their commander was slow. Scurvy broke out, and spread among the crew
with virulence. Baudin appeared to have little or no conception of the
importance of the sanitary measures which Cook was one of the earliest
navigators to enjoin, and by which those who emulated his methods were
able to keep in check the ravages of this scourge of seafaring men. He
neglected common precautions, and paid no heed to the counsel of the
ship's surgeons. As a consequence, the sufferings of his men were such
that it is pitiful to read about them in the official history of the
voyage.
From Timor Baudin sailed for southern Tasmania, arriving there in
January, 1802, and remaining in the neighbourhood till March. There was
no European settlement upon the island at that time, and Baudin described
it as a country "which ought not to be neglected, and which a nation that
does not love us does not look upon with indifference."* (* Baudin to the
Minister of Marine, manuscripts, Archives Nationales BB4 995 Marine.) A
severe storm separated Le Geographe from her escort on March 7 and 8, in
the neighbourhood of the eastern entrance of Bass Strait. Le Naturaliste
spent some time in Westernport, making a survey of it, and discovering
the second island, which Bass had missed on his whaleboat cruise. Her
commander, Captain Hamelin, then took her round to Port Jackson, to
solicit aid from the Governor of the English colony there. Meanwhile
Baudin sailed through the Strait from east to west. He called at
Waterhouse Island, off the north-east coast of Van Diemen's Land, misled
by its name into thinking that he would find fresh water there. The
island was named after Captain Henry Waterhouse of the Reliance, but
Baudin, unaware of this, considered that it belied its name. "It does not
seem," he wrote, "to offer any appearance of water being discoverable
there, and I am persuaded that it can have been named Water House only
because the English visited it at a time when heavy rains had fallen."*
(* Baudin's Diary, manuscripts, Bibliotheque Nationale: "Je suis persuade
qu'on ne l'a nomme Wather House que par ce que les Anglais qui l'ont
visite y auront eu beaucoup de pluie.") Baudin passed Port Phillip,
rounded Cape Otway, and coasted along till he came to Encounter Bay,
where occurred an incident with which we shall be concerned after we have
traced the voyage of Flinders eastward to the same point.