Produced by Sue Asscher and Col Choat
TERRE NAPOLEON.
A HISTORY OF FRENCH EXPLORATIONS
AND PROJECTS IN AUSTRALIA
BY
ERNEST SCOTT.
WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS.
SECOND EDITION.
METHUEN & CO., LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON.
FIRST PUBLISHED JULY 7TH, 1910.
SECOND EDITION 1911.
PREFACE.
The main object of this book is to exhibit the facts relative to the
expedition despatched to Australia by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800 to 1804,
and to consider certain opinions which have been for many years current
regarding its purpose.
Until about five years ago the writer accepted without doubt the
conclusions presented by leading authorities. One has to do that in
regard to the vast mass of historical material, because, obviously,
however much disposed one may be to form one's opinions on tested facts
apart from the writings of historians, several lifetimes would not be
sufficient for a man to inquire for himself as to the truth of a bare
fraction of the conclusions with which research is concerned.
But it so happened that the writer was interested, for other reasons than
those disclosed in the following pages, in ascertaining exactly what was
done by the expedition commanded by Captain Nicolas Baudin on the coasts
which were labelled Terre Napoleon. On scrutinising the facts somewhat
narrowly, he was surprised to find that opinions accepted with
unquestioning faith began to crumble away for lack of evidence to support
them.
So much is stated by way of showing that the book has not been written to
prove a conclusion formulated a priori, but with a sincere desire that
the truth about the matter should be known. We read much in modern books
devoted to the era of the Corsican about "the Napoleonic legend." There
seems to be, just here, a little sporadic Napoleonic legend, to which
vitality has been given from quarters whence have come some heavy blows
at the larger one.
The plan adopted has been, after a preliminary sketch of the colonial
situation of Great Britain and France in the period under review, to
bring upon the scene--the Terre Napoleon coasts--the discovery ship
Investigator, despatched by the British Government at about the same time
as Napoleon's vessels were engaged upon their task, and to describe the
meeting of the two captains, Flinders and Baudin, in Encounter Bay. Next,
the coasts denominated Terre Napoleon are traversed, and an estimate is
made of the original work done by Baudin, and of the serious omissions
for which he was to blame. A second part of the subject is then entered
upon. The origin of the expedition is traced, and the ships are carefully
followed throughout their voyage, with a view to elicit whether there
was, as alleged, a political purpose apart from the scientific work for
which the enterprise was undertaken at the instance of the Institute of
France.
The two main points which the book handles are: (1) whether Napoleon's
object was to acquire territory in Australia and to found "a second
fatherland" for the French there; and (2) whether it is true, as so often
asserted, that the French plagiarised Flinders' charts for the purpose of
constructing their own. On both these points conclusions are reached
which are at variance with those commonly presented; but the evidence is
placed before the reader with sufficient amplitude to enable him to
arrive at a fair opinion on the facts, which, the author believes, are
faithfully stated.
A third point of some importance, and which is believed to be quite new,
relates to the representation of Port Phillip on the Terre Napoleon maps.
It is a curious fact that, much as has been written on the early history
of Australia, no writer, so far as the author is aware, has observed the
marked conflict of evidence between Captain Baudin and his own officers
as to that port having been seen by their discovery ships, and as to how
the representation of it on the French maps got there. Inasmuch as Port
Phillip is the most important harbour in the territory which was called
Terre Napoleon, the matter is peculiarly interesting. Yet, although the
author has consulted more than a score of volumes in which the expedition
is mentioned, or its work dealt with at some length, not one of the
writers has pointed out this sharp contradiction in testimony, still less
attempted to account for it. It is to be feared that in the writing of
Australian, as of much other history, there has been on the part of
authors a considerable amount of "taking in each other's washing."
The table of comparative chronology is designed to enable the reader to
see at a glance the dates of the occurrences described in the book, side
by side with those of important events in the world at large. It is
always an advantage, when studying a particular piece of history, to have
in mind other happenings of real consequence pertaining to the period
under review. Such a table should remind us of what Freeman spoke of as
the "unity and indivisibility of history," if it does no more.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
A continent with a record of unruffled peace.
Causes of this variation from the usual course of history.
English and French colonisation during the Napoleonic wars.
The height of the Napoleonic empire and the entire loss of the French
colonies.
The British colonial situation during the same period.
The colony at Port Jackson in 1800.
Its defencelessness.
The French squadron in the Indian Ocean.
Rear-Admiral Linois.
The audacious exploit of Commodore Dance, and Napoleon's direction to
"take Port Jackson" in 1810.
CHAPTER 1. FLINDERS AND THE INVESTIGATOR.
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.
CHAPTER 2. THE AFFAIR OF ENCOUNTER BAY.
Meeting of the Investigator and Le Geographe in Encounter Bay.
Flinders cautious.
Interview of the two captains.
Peron's evidence.
The chart of Bass Strait.
Second interview: Baudin inquisitive.
Baudin's account of his explorations.
CHAPTER 3. PORT PHILLIP.
Conflict of evidence between Baudin, Peron, 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 Peron and Freycinet asserted was done.
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.
CHAPTER 5. DID THE FRENCH USE FLINDERS' CHARTS?
Assertions commonly made as to French plagiarism of Flinders' charts.
Lack of evidence to support the charges.
General Decaen and his career.
The facts as to Flinders' charts.
The sealed trunks.
The third log-book and its contents; detention of it by Decaen, and the
reasons for his conduct.
Restoration of Flinders' papers, except the log-book and despatches.
Do Freycinet's charts show evidence of the use of Flinders' material?
How did the French obtain their chart of Port Phillip?
Peron's report to Decaen as to British intentions in the Pacific and
Indian Oceans, and the effect on his mind.
Liberation of Flinders.
Capture of Mauritius by the British.
English naval officers and the governor.
Later career of Decaen.
CHAPTER 6. THE MOTIVES OF BONAPARTE.
Did Bonaparte desire to establish French colonial dominions in Australia?
The case stated.
CHAPTER 7. GENESIS OF BAUDIN'S EXPEDITION.
Baudin's one of a series of French expeditions.
The building up of the map of Australia.
Early map-makers.
Terra Australis.
Dutch navigators.
Emmerie Mollineux's map.
Tasman and Dampier.
The Petites Lettres of Maupertuis.
De Brosses and his Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes.
French voyages that originated from it.
Bougainville; Marion-Dufresne; La Perouse; Bruni Dentrecasteaux.
Voyages subsequent to Baudin's.
The object of the voyages scientific and exploratory.
The Institute of France and its proposition.
Received by Bonaparte with interest.
Bonaparte's interest in geography and travel.
His authorisation of the expedition.
The Committee of the Institute and their instructions.
Fitting out of the expedition.
Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste.
The staff.
Francois Peron.
Captain Nicolas Baudin.
CHAPTER 8. EXODUS OF THE EXPEDITION.
The passports from the English Government.
Sailing of the expedition.
French interest in it.
The case of Ah Sam.
Baudin's obstinacy.
Short supplies.
The French ships on the Western Australian coast.
The Ile Lucas and its name.
Refreshment at Timor.
The English frigate Virginia.
Baudin sails south.
Shortage of water.
The French in Tasmania.
Peron among the aboriginals.
The savage and the boat.
Among native women.
A question of colour.
Separation of the ships by storm.
Baudin sails through Bass Strait, and meets Flinders.
Scurvy.
Great storms and intense suffering.
Le Geographe at Port Jackson.
CHAPTER 9. PORT JACKSON AND KING ISLAND.
Le Naturaliste at Sydney.
Boullanger's boat party.
Curious conduct of Baudin.
Le Naturaliste sails for Mauritius, but returns to Port Jackson.
Re-union of Baudin's ships.
Hospitality of Governor King.
Peron's impressions of the British settlement.
Morand, the banknote forger.
Baudin shows his charts and instructions to King.
Departure of the French ships.
Rumours as to their objects.
King's prompt action.
The Cumberland sent after them.
Acting Lieutenant Robbins at King Island.
The flag incident.
Baudin's letters to King.
His protestations.
Views on colonisation.
Le Naturaliste sails for Europe.
CHAPTER 10. RETURN OF THE EXPEDITION.
Le Geographe sails for Kangaroo Island.
Exploration of the two gulfs in the Casuarina by Freycinet.
Baudin's erratic behaviour.
Port Lincoln.
Peron among the giants.
A painful excursion.
Second visit to Timor.
Abandonment of north coast exploration.
Baudin resolves to return home.
Voyage to Mauritius.
Death of Baudin.
Treatment of him by Peron and Freycinet.
Return of Le Geographe.
Depression of the staff and crew.
CHAPTER 11. RESULTS.
Establishment of the First Empire.
Reluctance of the French Government to publish a record of the
expedition.
Report of the Institute.
The official history of the voyage authorised.
Peron's scientific work.
His discovery of Pyrosoma atlanticum.
Other scientific memoirs.
His views on the modification of species.
Geographical results.
Freycinet's charts.
CHAPTER 12. CONCLUSIONS AND CONSEQUENCES.
Further consideration of Napoleon's purposes.
What Australia owes to British sea power.
Influence of the Napoleonic wars.
Fresh points relative to Napoleon's designs.
Absence of evidence.
Consequences of suspicions of French intentions.
Promotion of settlement in Tasmania.
Tardy occupation of Port Phillip.
The Swan River Settlement.
The Westernport scheme.
Lord John Russell's claim of "the Whole" of Australia for the British.
The designs of Napoleon III.
Australia the nursling of sea power.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
INDEX.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS.
LE GEOGRAPHE AND LE NATURALISTE. From the drawing in Freycinet's Atlas of
1807.
MAP OF NEW HOLLAND (AUSTRALIA). From Freycinet's Atlas of 1807.
ADMIRALTY CHART OF ENTRANCE TO PORT PHILLIP.
TRACK CHART OF LE GEOGRAPHE. From Freycinet's Atlas of 1812.
MAP OF TERRE NAPOLEON. From Freycinet's Atlas of 1807.
FRENCHMAN'S ROCK, KANGAROO ISLAND. From a photograph by Mr. Alfred
Searcy, Harbourmaster, South Australia.
GENERAL CHARLES DECAEN. After the portrait in the Library at Caen.
CAPTAIN NICOLAS BAUDIN. From an engraving.
FRANCOIS PERON. From the drawing by Lesueur.
TITLE-PAGE OF FREYCINET'S ATLAS OF CHARTS, 1812.
COMPARATIVE CHRONOLOGY.
1602. Abel Tasman born.
1603. Death of Queen Elizabeth.
1606. Voyage of Quiros; finding and naming of Austrialia del Espiritu
Santo.
1606. First charter to the Virginia Company.
1620. Pilgrim Fathers found colony of New Plymouth.
1642. Tasman's first voyage; discovery of Tasmania.
1643. Death of Louis XIII.
1644. Tasman's second voyage; exploration of northern Australia.
1649. Execution of Charles I.
1652. Birth of William Dampier.
1655. English conquest of Jamaica.
1658. Death of Oliver Cromwell.
1659. Death of Tasman.
1682. Penn founds Pennsylvania.
1683. The French found Louisiana.
1686 to 1688. Dampier's voyage in the Cygnet; anchorage in Cygnet Bay,
Western Australia.
1688. Fall of the Stuart dynasty; accession of William of Orange.
1699. Dampier's voyage in the Roebuck; anchorage in Sharks Bay.
1714. Death of Queen Anne.
1728. Birth of James Cook.
1756. Birth of Nicolas Baudin. De Brosses publishes his Histoire des
Navigations aux Terres Australes.
1759. Wolfe captures Quebec.
1765. Watt's invention of the steam-engine.
1766. Bougainville's voyage to the South Seas.
1768 to 1770. Cook's voyage in the Endeavour; discovery of Botany Bay,
Port Jackson, and eastern Australia.
1769. Charles Decaen born.
1769. Birth of Napoleon Bonaparte.
1771. Marion-Dufresne's voyage to Tasmania and New Zealand.
1773. Boston tea riots.
1774. Matthew Flinders born.
1774. Meeting of first American Congress.
1775. Francois Peron born.
1776. Declaration of Independence.
1778 to 1779. Cook's third voyage and death.
1778. Death of Chatham.
1785 to 1788. Voyage of La Perouse; call at Port Jackson.
1788. Founding of New South Wales.
1789. Mutiny of the Bounty.
1789. Washington elected first President of United States.
Fall of the Bastille.
1790. Flinders joins the Navy.
1790. Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution.
1791. Vancouver on the western Australian coast.
Dentrecasteaux's voyage to Australia.
Flinders sails with Bligh's second bread-fruit expedition.
1791. Passing of the Canada Act.
1795. Flinders' first voyage to Australia in the Reliance.
1795. Ceylon surrendered to the British by the Dutch.
Establishment of the Institute of France.
1797. Battle of Cape St. Vincent.
Battle of Camperdown.
1798. Discovery of Bass Strait and of Westernport by George Bass.
Flinders and Bass circumnavigate Tasmania in the Norfolk.
1798. Battle of the Nile.
Irish Rebellion.
1799. Bonaparte becomes First Consul of the French Republic.
1800. (May) Bonaparte authorises the despatch of Baudin's expedition.
(October) The expedition sails.
(December) Grant reaches Port Jackson in the Lady Nelson.
1800. Battle of Marengo.
1801. (May) Baudin's ships reach Australia.
(July) Flinders sails from England in the Investigator.
(August) Le Geographe reaches Timor.
(November) Baudin's ships sail from Timor to Tasmania.
(December) The Investigator reaches Australia.
1801. Battle of Copenhagen.
1802. (January) Murray discovers Port Phillip.
(February) Flinders discovers Spencer's Gulf; Murray enters Port Phillip.
(March) French ships separated by storm.
(April) Meeting of Flinders and Baudin in Encounter Bay; Flinders enters
Port Phillip.
(May) Investigator reaches Port Jackson.
(June) Baudin reaches Port Jackson.
(July) Flinders sails for Gulf of Carpentaria.
(November) French ships leave Sydney.
(December) Le Naturaliste sails for Europe; the Cumberland at King
Island; Robbins erects the British flag; Le Geographe and Casuarina sail
for Kangaroo Island.
1802. Peace of Amiens.
1803. (January) Freycinet in Spencer's and St. Vincent's Gulfs.
(June) Le Geographe again at Timor; Le Naturaliste enters Havre;
Investigator returns to Port Jackson.
(July) Baudin abandons exploration and sails for Mauritius.
(August) Flinders wrecked in the Porpoise.
Derwent River Settlement formed.
(September) Death of Baudin.
(December) Flinders calls at Mauritius in the Cumberland; is imprisoned.
1803. Sale of Louisiana by France to United States.
Renewal of the great war.
1804. Le Geographe arrives at Lorient.
Hobart Settlement formed.
1804. Napoleon becomes Emperor.
1805. Battle of Trafalgar.
1806. Napoleon signs order for release of Flinders.
1806. Death of William Pitt.
1807. Publication of first volume of Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres
Australes, with first atlas.
1810. (July) Liberation of Flinders.
(October) Mauritius blockaded by the British.
(December) Capitulation of Mauritius; death of Peron.
1810. Napoleon marries Marie Louise.
1811. Second part of French atlas published.
1812. Publication of Freycinet atlas of charts.
1812. The retreat from Moscow.
British Naval War with U.S.A.
1814. Publication of Flinders' Voyage to Terra Australis; death of
Flinders (July).
1814. Abdication of Napoleon.
1815. Publication of volume 3 of Voyage de Decouvertes.
1815. Battle of Waterloo.
1816. Publication of volume 2 of Voyage de Decouvertes, with revised map
of Australia.
1821. Death of Napoleon.
1826. Westernport Settlement projected and abandoned.
1829. Foundation of Western Australia.
1832. Death of Decaen.
1832. English Reform Bill.
1835. Batman finds site of Melbourne.
1836. Foundation of South Australia.
1837. City of Melbourne founded.
1837. Accession of Queen Victoria.
1851. Colony of Victoria established.
1851. Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat.
1853. French annexation of New Caledonia.
1854. Crimean War.
1859. Colony of Queensland established.
1860. Lincoln, President of the United States.
TERRE NAPOLEON.
INTRODUCTION.
PART 1.
A continent with a record of unruffled peace.
Causes of this variation from the usual course of history.
English and French colonisation during the Napoleonic wars.
The height of the Napoleonic empire and the entire loss of the French
colonies.
The British colonial situation during the same period.
The colony at Port Jackson in 1800.
Its defencelessness.
The French squadron in the Indian Ocean.
Rear-Admiral Linois.
The audacious exploit of Commodore Dance, and Napoleon's direction to
"take Port Jackson" in 1810.
Australia is the only considerable portion of the world which has enjoyed
the blessed record of unruffled peace. On every other continent, in
nearly every other island large in area, "war's red ruin writ in flame"
has wrought its havoc, leaving evidences in many a twinging cicatrice.
Invasion, rebellion, and civil war constitute enormous elements in the
chronicles of nations; and Shelley wrote that the study of history,
though too important to be neglected, was "hateful and disgusting to my
very soul," because he found in it little more than a "record of crimes
and miseries." A map of the globe, coloured crimson as to those countries
where blood has flowed in armed conflicts between men, would present a
circling splash of red; but the vast island which is balanced on the
Tropic of Capricorn, and spreads her bulk from the tenth parallel of
south latitude to "the roaring forties," would show up white in the
spacious diagram of carnage. No foreign foe has menaced her thrifty
progress since the British planted themselves at Port Jackson in 1788;
nor have any internal broils of serious importance interrupted her
prosperous career.
This striking variation from the common fate of peoples is attributable
to three causes. First, the development of a British civilisation in
Australia has synchronised with the attainment and unimpaired maintenance
of dominant sea-power by the parent nation. The supremacy of Great
Britain upon the blue water enabled her colonies to grow to strength and
wealth under the protection of a mighty arm. Secondly, during the same
period a great change in British colonial policy was inaugurated.
Statesmen were slow to learn the lessons taught in so trenchant a fashion
by the revolt of the American colonies; but more liberal views gradually
ripened, and Lord Durham's Report on the State of Canada, issued in 1839,
occasioned a beneficent new era of self-government. The states of
Australia were soon left with no grievance which it was not within their
own power to remedy if they chose, and virtually as they chose. Thirdly,
these very powers of self-government developed in the people a signal
capacity for governing and being governed. The constitutional machinery
submitted the Executive to popular control, and made it quickly sensitive
to the public will. Authority and subjects were in sympathy, because the
subjects created the authority. Further, there was no warlike native race
in Australia, as there was in New Zealand and in South Africa, to
necessitate armed conflict. Thus security from attack, chartered
autonomy, and governing capacity, with the absence of organised
pugnacious tribes, have combined to achieve the unique result of a
continent preserved from aggression, disruption, or bloody strife for
over one hundred and twenty years.
There was a brief period, as will presently be related, when this happy
state of things was in some danger of being disturbed. It certainly would
have been impossible had not Great Britain emerged victorious from her
protracted struggle, first against revolutionary France, and later
against Napoleon, in the latter years of the eighteenth century and the
beginning of the nineteenth.
In those wars colonial possessions "became pawns in the game."* (* The
phrase is Professor Egerton's, Cambridge Modern History 9 735.) There was
no Imperialism then, with its strident note, its ebullient fervour and
flag waving. There was no national sense of pride in colonial Empire, or
general appreciation of the great potentialities of oversea possessions.
"The final outcome of the great war was the colonial ascendancy of Great
Britain, but such was not the conscious aim of those who carried through
the struggle."* (* Ibid page 736.) Diplomacy signed away with a dash of
the quill possessions which British arms had won after tough fights,
anxious blockades, and long cruises full of tension and peril. Even when
the end of the war saw the great Conqueror conquered and consigned to his
foam-fenced prison in the South Atlantic, Great Britain gave back many of
the fruits which it had cost her much, in the lives of her brave and the
sufferings of her poor, to win; and Castlereagh defended this policy in
the House of Commons on the curious ground that it was expedient "freely
to open to France the means of peaceful occupation, and that it was not
the interest of this country to make her a military and conquering,
instead of a commercial and pacific nation."* (* Parliamentary Debates 28
462.)
PART 2.
The events with which this book is mainly concerned occurred within the
four years 1800 to 1804, during which Europe saw Bonaparte leap from the
position of First Consul of the French Republic to the Imperial throne.
After great French victories at Marengo, Hochstadt, and Hohenlinden
(1800), and a brilliant naval triumph for the British at Copenhagen
(1801), came the fragile Peace of Amiens (1802)--an "experimental peace,"
as Cornwallis neatly described it. Fourteen months later (May 1803) war
broke out again; and this time there was almost incessant fighting on a
titanic scale, by land and sea, until the great Corsican was humbled and
broken at Waterloo.
The reader will be aided in forming an opinion upon the events discussed
hereafter, by a glance at the colonial situation during the period in
question. The extent of the dependencies of France and England in 1800
and the later years will be gathered from the following summary.
In America France regained Louisiana, covering the mouth of the
Mississippi. It had been in Spanish hands since 1763; but Talleyrand,
Bonaparte's foreign minister, put pressure upon Spain, and Louisiana
became French once more under the secret treaty of San Ildefonso (October
1800). The news of the retrocession, however, aroused intense feeling in
the United States, inasmuch as the establishment of a strong foreign
power at the mouth of the principal water-way in the country jeopardised
the whole trade of the Mississippi valley. President Jefferson,
recognising that the perpetuation of the new situation "would have put us
at war with France immediately," sent James Monroe to Paris to negotiate.
As Bonaparte plainly saw at the beginning of 1803 that another war with
Great Britain was inevitable, he did not wish to embroil himself with the
Americans also, and agreed to sell the possession to the Republic for
eighty million francs. Indeed, he completed arrangements for the sale
even before Monroe arrived.
Some efforts had also been made, at Bonaparte's instance, to induce Spain
to give up the Floridas, East and West, but European complications
prevented the exertion of pressure in this direction; and the whole of
Florida became part of the United States by treaty signed in 1819. The
sale of Louisiana lowered the French flag on the only remaining portion
of American territory that acknowledged the tricolour, except the
pestilential fragment of French Guiana, on the north-east of South
America, where France has had a footing since the beginning of the
seventeenth century, save for a short interval (1809 to 1815) when it was
taken by the British and Portuguese. But the possession has never been a
profitable one, and a contemporary writer, quoting an official
publication, describes it as enjoying "neither agriculture, commerce, nor
industry."* (* Fallot, L'Avenir Colonial de la France (1903) page 237.)
In the West Indies, France had lost Martinique and Guadeloupe during the
naval wars prior to Bonaparte's ascension to supreme authority. These
islands were restored to her under the Treaty of Amiens; were once more
captured by the British in 1809 to 1810; and were finally handed back to
France under the Treaty of Paris in 1814. Tobago and St. Lucia, taken
from France in 1803, were not restored.
The large island of San Domingo (the present republic of Haiti, the
Espanola of Columbus, and the first seat of European colonisation in the
west) had been occupied by French, Spanish, and British planters prior to
1796. The French had been there officially since Richelieu recognised and
protected the settlements made by filibusters early in the seventeenth
century. The decree of the revolutionary Assembly freeing the slaves in
all French possessions led to widespread insurrections. There were scenes
of frightful outrage; and above the storm of blood and horror rose to
fame the huge figure of the black hero, Toussaint L'Ouverture. At the
head of a negro army he at first assisted the French to overturn Spanish
rule; but having attained great personal power, and being a man of
astonishing capacity for controlling the people of his own race, and for
mastering military and governmental problems, he determined to use the
opportunity to found an autonomous state under the suzerainty of France.
By January 1801 Toussaint L'Ouverture was in possession of the capital.
But Bonaparte would not tolerate the domination of the black conqueror,
and despatched an expedition to San Domingo to overthrow his government
and establish French paramountcy. The result was disastrous. It is true
that Toussaint was captured and exiled to France, where he died miserably
in prison at Besancon in 1803; but the white troops under General Leclerc
perished of yellow fever in hundreds; the blacks retired to the mountains
and harassed the suffering French; whilst the vigilance of British
frigates, and the requirements of European policy, obviated all
possibility of effective reinforcements being sent. Gallic authority in
San Domingo ended ingloriously, for the negroes in 1803 drove the
debilitated chivalry of France in defeat and disaster to the sea, and
chose to be their ruler one who, like themselves, had commenced life as a
slave. Napoleon said at St. Helena that his attempt to subjugate San
Domingo was the greatest folly of his life.
In the Indian Ocean the French possessed the Isle of France (now, as a
British colony, called Mauritius) and Reunion. They had not yet
established themselves in Madagascar, though there was some trade between
the Mascareignes and the colonists of the Isle of France. Bonaparte
during the Consulate contemplated making definite attempts to colonise
Madagascar, and, early in 1801, called for a report from his first
colonial minister, Forfait. When he obtained the document, he sent it
back asking for more details, an indication that his interest in the
subject was more than one of transient curiosity. Forfait suggested the
project of establishing at Madagascar a penal colony such as the British
had at Port Jackson;* (* Prentout, L'Ile de France sous Decaen, 302.) but
subsequent events did not favour French colonial expansion, and nothing
was done.
The British captured Pondicherry and the other French settlements in
India in 1793, but agreed to restore them under the Treaty of Amiens. For
reasons which will be indicated later, however, the territories were not
evacuated by British troops, who continued to hold them till the
post-bellum readjustment of 1815 was negotiated.
A similar record applies to Senegal, in West Africa. It had been French
since the era of Richelieu, with intervals of capture, restoration, and
recapture. The British ousted their rivals once more in 1804, and gave
back the conquest in 1815.
A careful examination of these details reveals a remarkable fact.
Although the year 1810 saw the Napoleonic empire at the crest of its
greatness in Europe; although by that time the Emperor was the mightiest
personal factor in world politics; although in that year he married a
daughter of the Caesars, and thought he had laid plans for the foundation
of a dynasty that should perpetuate the Napoleonic name in association
with Napoleonic power--yet, in that very year, France had been stripped
of the last inch of her colonial possessions. The nation in whose
glorious Pantheon were emblazoned the great names of Montcalm and
Dupleix, of Jacques Cartier and La Salle, of Champlain and La
Bourdonnais, and whose inveterate capacity for colonisation of even the
most difficult kind can never be doubted by any candid student of her
achievements in this field, both before and since the disastrous
Napoleonic age, was now naked of even so much as a barren rock in a
distant sea upon which to plant her flag.
Such is the picture of the French colonial system as it presents itself
during the period within which occurred the events described in this
book. These facts give poignancy to the reflection of the distinguished
philosophical historian who has written of his country: "A melancholy
consequence of her policy of interference in neighbouring states, and of
occupying herself with continental conquests, has always been the loss of
her naval power and of her colonies. She could only establish oversea
possessions on a durable foundation on the condition of renouncing the
policy of invasion that she practised in Europe during the centuries.
Every continental victory was balanced by the ruin of our naval power and
of our distant possessions, that is to say, the decrease of our real
influence in the world."* (* Leroy-Beaulieu, Colonisation chez les
Peuples Modernes, 1902 edition, 1 220.)
PART 3.
It would be simple to sum up the colonial situation of Great Britain in
the period under review, by saying that she gained just in the measure
that France lost. But such a crude formula would not convey a sufficient
sense of her actual achievements. The end of the great war left her with
a wider dominion than that with which she was endowed when she plunged
into the struggle; but it left her also with augmented power and
prestige, a settled sense of security, and a steeled spirit of
resolution--elements not measurable on the scale of the map, but counting
as immense factors in the government and development of oversea
possessions.
The details of the British colonial empire during the storm epoch, are as
follow:--
In Canada she governed a belt of country stretching from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, divided for administrative purposes into two areas, one of
which, Lower Canada--embracing the cities of Quebec and Montreal, and
including the basin of the St. Lawrence--was populated principally by
people of French origin. It would be too much to suppose that these
colonists, who jealously preserved the French language and the French
tradition, were indifferent to the doings of their kin across the water;
and there were, indeed, many who cherished the hope that events would so
shape themselves as to restore the authority of France in this part of
the New World. But the habitant was Roman Catholic as well as French, and
the hierarchy was profoundly distrustful of the regime which it regarded
as the heritage of the hateful ideas of 1789. We may speculate as to what
would have happened if Napoleon had set himself to woo the affections of
the French Canadians. But throughout the great wars Canada remained loyal
to the British connection, despite internal difficulties and discontents.
Great Britain also held Newfoundland, as well as those maritime provinces
which have since become federated as part of the Dominion.
In South America she possessed British Guiana, and for a period, as
related above, French Guiana also.
In the West Indies, in 1800, her flag flew over the entire crescent of
the Windward and Leeward groups from Granada to the Virgins; she was
mistress of Trinidad, Tobago, Jamaica, the "still vexd" Bermudas and the
whole bunch of the Bahamas; and she had interests in San Domingo. At the
Peace of Amiens she retained only Trinidad of the islands captured during
the war; and she presented no very stubborn resistance to the negro
revolt that lost her any further control over the largest of the sugar
islands.
She had the Cape of Good Hope in her custody in 1800, but weakly allowed
it to be bartered away by diplomacy at Amiens; only, however, to reassert
her power there six years later, when it became at length apparent to
British statesmen--as it surely should have been obvious to them
throughout--that Australia and India could not be secure while the chief
southern harbour of Africa was in foreign possession.
Ceylon was retained as a sparkling jewel for the British crown when so
much that had been won in fair fight was allowed to slip away. The
capture of Java (1811) and its restoration to the Dutch belong to a later
period; whilst the growth of British power in India scarcely falls within
the scope of a brief review of the colonial situation, though of great
importance in its effects.
Malta, which has usually been classed as a colony, though its principal
value is rather strategic than colonial, was occupied by the British in
September 1800, and the cat-footed efforts of Napoleonic diplomacy to get
her out of the island made it a storm centre in European politics in
these fiery years. Out she would not come, and did not. Neither Tzar nor
Emperor could get her out, by plot or by arms; and there she still
remains.
PART 4.
The position of the British in the South Seas demands special
consideration, as being immediately related to our subject. In 1800 the
only part of Australasia occupied by white people was Norfolk Island and
the small area at Port Jackson shut in between the sea and a precipitous
range of mountains that for thirteen years to come presented an
unconquerable barrier to inland exploration, despite repeated endeavours
to find a way across them. The settlement had spread only a few miles
beyond the spot where Governor Arthur Phillip had resolved to locate his
First Fleet company twelve years before. As yet no attempt had been made
to occupy Tasmania, which had been determined to be an island only two
years previously. New Zealand also was virgin ground for the European
colonist. The Maori had it all to himself.
The means of defending the little colony, in the event of an attack
during the war which raged from five years after its foundation till
1802, and again from 1803 for twelve years more, were insignificant. The
population in 1800 numbered rather more than five thousand, only about
one-half of whom were soldiers, officials, and free people.* (* The total
population of Sydney, Parramatta, and Norfolk Island on January 1, 1801,
was declared to be 5100, of whom 2492 were convicts--1431 men, 500 women,
and 561 children. Of the remainder, 1887 were "free people," being
neither on the civil nor the military establishment.) The remainder were
convicts, some of them being Irishmen transported for participation in
the rebellion of 1798, including not a few men of education. These men
were naturally writhing under a burning sense of defeat and oppression,
and were still rebels at heart. They were incarcerated with a
miscellaneous horde of criminals made desperate and resentful by harsh
treatment. It is scarcely doubtful that if a French naval squadron had
descended on the coast, the authorities would have had to face, not only
an enemy's guns in Port Jackson, but an insurrection amongst the unhappy
people whom the colony had been primarily founded to chastise. The
immigration of a farming and artisan class was discouraged; and it is
scarcely conceivable that, apart from the officials, the gaolers, and the
military, who would have done their duty resolutely, there were any in
the colony who, for affection, would have lifted a hand to defend the
land in which they lived, and the regime which they hated.
There was at the Governor's command a small military force, barely
sufficient to maintain discipline in a community in which there were
necessarily dangerously turbulent elements;* (* In a report to Governor
King, April 1805, Brevet-Major Johnson pointed out that the military were
barely sufficient for mounting guard, and urged "the great want of an
augmentation to the military forces of this colony" (Historical Records
of New South Wales 6 183). Colonel Paterson, in a letter to Sir Joseph
Banks, 1804, remarked that "it will certainly appear evident that our
military force at present is very inadequate" (Ibid 5 454). John
Blaxland, in a letter to Lord Liverpool, 1809, wrote that "it is to be
feared that if two frigates were to appear, the settlement is not capable
of opposing any resistance" (Ibid 7 231). An unsigned memorandum in the
Record Office, "bearing internal evidence of having been written by an
officer who was in the colony during the Governorship of Hunter," pointed
out that "a naval force is absolutely necessary on the coast of New South
Wales...to protect the colony from an attack by the French from the
Mauritius, which would have taken place long ago if the enemy had
possessed a naval force equal to the enterprise" (Ibid 7 248 to 250).)
but he was destitute of effective vessels for service afloat. When the
navigator Flinders was wrecked in the Porpoise in August 1803--his own
exploring ship, the Investigator, being by this time
unseaworthy--Governor King had no other craft to give him for his return
voyage than the decrepit Cumberland, a mere leaky little barge hardly fit
for better uses than ferrying a placid lake. The colony was, in short,
simply a kraal for yarding British undesirables and housing their
keepers; its remoteness was an advantage for the purpose in view; and it
never seemed to strike the officials in England who superintended its
affairs, that the adequate defence of a gaol against foreign aggression
was an undertaking that called for exertion or forethought. The
unreluctant retrocession of the Cape to the Dutch in 1800 indicates that
the interest of defending Australia was lost sight of in the midst of
what appeared to be more pressing considerations.
It has been remarked above that there was a period when the peace of
Australia was imperilled. The danger was obviated, certainly not because
of the efficiency of the defence, but rather through lack of enterprise
on the part of the Admiral in command of the French squadron in the
Indian Ocean. It will be well to narrate the circumstances, together with
an incident which illustrates in an amusing manner the kind of man this
officer was.
After the signing of the Treaty of Amiens, Bonaparte sent out a squadron
commanded by Rear-Admiral Linois, conveying General Charles Decaen, who
was commissioned to administer the former French possessions in India,
which, under the terms of the treaty, were to be surrendered to France.
But when the expedition arrived at Pondicherry, the Governor-General of
India, Lord Wellesley, gave orders to his subordinates that no
concessions were to be made to the French without his express authority;
and as he stubbornly refused to give his warrant for surrendering an inch
of territory, there was nothing for General Decaen to do but sail away to
Mauritius, then, as already remarked, a French colony. Lord Wellesley
acted under secret orders from the Secretary of State, Lord Hobart, dated
October 17, 1802, only seven months after the treaty was signed, for the
British Government did not believe in the permanency of the peace and did
not desire the French to re-assert a footing in India, where their
presence, in the event of a renewal of hostilities, would be dangerous.
When the war was renewed, Linois, with his squadron, was still in the
Indian Ocean. The Isle of France was not a self-supporting colony, but
had to depend on money and supplies obtained either from Europe or from
the vessels of the East India Company, which, from time to time, were
captured by French privateers and men-of-war. When Nelson shattered the
naval power of France at Trafalgar in 1805, and vigilant British frigates
patrolled the whole highway of commerce from Europe to the Cape of Good
Hope, Decaen's position became precarious. The supplies sent out to him
were frequently captured by the enemy; and had it not been that Port
Louis became a regular nest of adventurous French privateers--"pirates,"
the British called them--who frequently found a rich prey in the shape of
heavily laden India merchantmen, his garrison must soon have been starved
out.
The incident to which reference has been made occurred in 1804, and is
probably without a parallel in naval history as an example of the effect
of audacity acting on timidity. It was known that a convoy of ships
belonging to the East India Company was to leave Canton early in the
year. Linois, with five vessels, including his flagship, the Marengo, 74
guns, sailed for the Straits of Malacca to intercept them. On February
14, near Polo Aor, to the north-east of Singapore, the French sighted the
convoy, sixteen Company ships, fourteen merchantmen and a brig, all laden
with tea, silks, and other rich merchandise.
The East India Company's vessels carried guns, but they were not equipped
for facing heavily armed men-of-war. Their crews were not trained
fighting men; they were deeply laden, and their decks were heavily
cumbered. Moreover, they were not protected by a naval squadron; and had
Rear-Admiral Linois been a commander of daring, initiative, and resource,
the greater part, or the whole, of this enormous mass of floating
treasure might have fallen like a ripe peach into his hands.
But he had to contend with an English sailor of astounding and quite
picturesque assurance in Nathaniel Dance, the commodore of the fleet.
Dance fully expected, when he left Canton, that he would meet French
raiders, though he was astonished when he saw five sail under the
tricolour bearing up towards him. But he had thought out what he intended
to do if attacked; and, partly by courage, partly by a superb piece of
"bluff," he succeeded completely.
Before sailing, the Company ships had been freshly painted. Their gun
embrasures showed up more fearsome to the eye of imagination than they
were in reality. Dance also carried blue ensigns, which were hoisted on
four of his craft when the French made their appearance. He resorted to
this device with the deliberate purpose of making the strongest vessels
of his convoy look like British men-of-war. In fact, he commanded a fleet
of opulent merchantmen, the best of which, by the mere use of brushes and
pots of paint, and by the hoisting of a few yards of official bunting,
were made to resemble fighting ships. But, wonder of wonders! this
scarecrow strategy struck terror into the heart of a real Rear-Admiral,
and, as a French historian somewhat lugubriously, but quite candidly,
acknowledges: "Les ruses de Dance reussirent; les flammes bleues, les
canons de bois, les batteries peintes, produisirent leur effet."
No sooner did the French squadron appear, than Dance drew up his convoy
in two lines, with the fifteen smaller vessels under the lee of the
sixteen larger ones, which presented their painted broadsides to the foe.
It was a manoeuvre which threatened a determination to fight, and Linois
was disposed to be cautious. He was puzzled by the number of ships,
having been informed by an American captain at Batavia that only
seventeen were to leave Canton. The larger fleet, and the blue ensigns
fluttering from four masts, imbued him with a spirit of reluctance which
he dignified with the name of prudence. As a naval historian puts it,
"The warlike appearance of the sixteen ships, the regularity of their
manoeuvres, and the boldness of their advance, led the French Admiral to
deliberate whether a part of them were not cruisers."* (* James, Naval
History 3 247. There is a contemporary account of the incident in the
Gentleman's Magazine (1804) volume 74 pages 963 and 967.) Linois did not
like to attack, as darkness was approaching, but argued that if the bold
face put upon the matter by the British were merely a stratagem, they
would attempt to fly in the night; in which case he would not hesitate to
chase them. But Dance did nothing of the kind. He had taken his enemy's
measure; or, to quote the French historian again, "il comprit l'etat
moral de son adversaire." He maintained his formation during the night,
keeping blue lights burning on the four ships which sported the blue
ensign, to enforce the illusion that they were the naval escort of the
convoy, and were eager for battle. In the morning Linois was quite
satisfied that he really had to contend with a fleet pugnaciously
inclined, which, if he tried to hurt them, would probably hurt him more.
Cheers broke from the British decks as the Marengo bore up. Dance then
manoeuvred as if his intention were to shut in the French squadron
between two lines, and rake them on both flanks. This clever movement so
scared the Rear-Admiral that he determined to run. A shot was fired from
his flagship, which killed one man and wounded another on the Royal
George; whereupon the British sailors fired their guns in return, and
kept up a furious, but quite harmless, cannonade for forty minutes. Not a
single French ship was hit; but under cover of the thick smoke which "the
engagement" occasioned, Linois and his squadron sailed away, and left the
cheering Britons in the peace which they so certainly required, but had
so audaciously pretended that they did not in the least degree desire.
Dance became temporarily a national hero. The Englishman enjoys a joke,
and at a period of extreme tension the impudent exploit of the commodore
provoked a roar of delighted and derisive laughter throughout the British
Isles. He was feted by the City of London, knighted by King George,
presented with a sword of honour, and endowed by the Company with a
handsome fortune.
On the other hand, Napoleon was furious. Linois "has made the French flag
the laughing stock of the universe," he wrote to his Minister of Marine,
Decres.* (* Correspondance de Napoleon I (1858 to 1870) volume 9 document
8024.) Again he said, "The conduct of Linois is miserable"; and in a
third letter, summing up in a crisp sentence the cause of so many French
failures on the blue water, he said: "All the maritime expeditions that
have been despatched since I have been at the head of the Government have
failed because our admirals see double, and have found, I do not know
where, that one can make war without running any risks;" "it is honour
that I wish them to conserve, rather than a few wooden vessels and some
men." It was while still smarting under this same indignity, and urging
his Minister to hurry the sending of ships with supplies for the support
of the Isle of France, that Napoleon made one of his most famous retorts.
Decres, with the obsequiousness of a courtier, had written that if the
Emperor insisted on ordering certain ships to be despatched, "I should
recognise the will of God, and should send them." "I will excuse you from
comparing me to God," wrote Napoleon; and, prodding the dilatory Minister
again to make haste, he wrote, "You can surely, to meet the needs of our
colonies, send from several ports vessels laden with flour. There is no
need to be God for that!"* (* Correspondance, volume 17 document 13,960.)
Now, if instead of the timid Linois, the French squadron in the Indian
Ocean had been commanded by an Admiral endowed with the qualities of
dash, daring, and enterprise, the consequences to the weak little British
settlement at Sydney would have been disastrous. After Trafalgar, British
interests in the South and the East were more amply safeguarded. But
before that great event, Linois had magnificent opportunities for doing
mischief. Port Jackson would have been a rich prize. Stores, which the
Isle of France badly needed, could have been obtained there plentifully.
Ships from China frequently made it a port of call, preferring to take
the route through the recently discovered Bass Straits than to run the
hazard of capture by crossing the Indian Ocean. It was just a lucky
accident that the enemy's admiral was a nervous gentleman who was afraid
to take risks. General Decaen, a fine soldier, openly cursed his nautical
colleague; but nothing could strike a spirit of vigorous initiative into
the breast of Linois. He was always afraid that if he struck he would be
struck at--in which view he was undoubtedly right.
Did Napoleon himself realise that there was so rich a prize in Port
Jackson? Not until it was too late. In 1810, when he was fitting out
another expedition for aggressive service in the Indian Ocean, he
probably remembered what he had read in Peron's account of the Voyage de
Decouvertes aux Terres Australes about the British colony there, and
directed that the new squadron should "take the English colony of Port
Jackson, which is to the south of the Isle of France, and where
considerable resources will be found" ("faire prendre la colonie anglaise
de Jackson"--sic),* (* Correspondance, volume 20 document 16,544.) But
the task was well-nigh hopeless then, and the squadron never sailed.
Probably it would not have reached the Indian Ocean if it had left
Europe, for the Cape, which was in Dutch hands when Linois had his great
chance, was recaptured by the British in January 1806. In 1810 Admirals
Pellew and Bertie were in command of strong British forces, and Lord
Minto, the Governor-General of India, was determined to root the French
out of the Isle of France, and clear India of danger from that source.
They succeeded, and Mauritius has been British ever since.
We must now leave the sphere of conflict in which the destinies of the
world were being shaped, and enter upon another phase of this history.
The reader will:
"slip across the summer of the world,
Then, after a long tumble about the Cape
And frequent interchange of foul and fair,"
--will accompany for a while an illustrious British explorer in his task
of filling up the map of the globe.
CHAPTER 1. FLINDERS AND THE INVESTIGATOR.
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" (Peron, 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.* (*
Peron, 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 Peron, 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.