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.
Flinders, in the decrepit little Cumberland, put into Port Louis,
Mauritius, on December 16, 1803. He was not permitted to sail out again
till July 1810; and then he was a broken man, smitten with diseases, the
painful product of exposure, shipwreck, confinement in a tropical
climate, anxiety, and bitter years of heart-sickness and weary
disappointment; yet a brave man still, with some hope nobly burning in
the true hero's heart of him; but with less vitality than hope, so that
he could do no more than write his big book of travel, and then lie down
to die.
Many loose statements have been written about the use which the French
made of Flinders' charts while he was held in captivity. It has been too
often taken for granted that the evidence of plagiarism is beyond
dispute. Not only popular writers, but historians with claims to be
considered scientific, are substantially in agreement on this point. Two
examples will indicate what is meant. Messrs. Becke and Jeffery, in their
Naval Pioneers of Australia (page 216), assert that "among other
indignities he suffered, he found that the charts taken from him by
Decaen had been appropriated to Baudin's exploring expedition." Again, to
take a work appealing to a different section of readers, the Cambridge
Modern History also charges the French with "the use of his papers to
appropriate for their ships the credit of his discoveries."* (* Volume 9
page 739 (Professor Egerton). Two more examples may be cited. Thus,
Laurie, Story of Australasia (1896) page 86. "He found that his journals
and charts had been stolen by the French governor of the Mauritius and
transferred to Paris, where the fullest advantage was taken of them by M.
Peron." Again, Jose, Australasia (1901) page 21: "His maps were taken to
France to be published there with French names as the work of French
explorers.")
The charge is, it will be observed, that not only did the French governor
of Mauritius imprison the English navigator despite his passport,
detaining him years after the other members of the Cumberland's company
had been liberated, but that Flinders' charts and papers were improperly
used in the preparation of the history of Baudin's expedition. Indeed,
the accusation is equivalent to one of garrotting: that General Decaen
seized and bound his victim, robbed him, and enabled Freycinet and Peron
to use his work as their own.
So widely has this view been diffused, that probably few will be prepared
for the assurance that there is no evidence to support it. On the
contrary, as will be shown, neither Peron nor Freycinet ever saw any
chart or journal taken from Flinders. Use was made, it is believed, of
one British chart which may possibly have been his--that embodying a
drawing of Port Phillip--but reasons will be given for the opinion that
this, whether it was Flinders' chart or Murray's, was seen by the French
before Baudin's ships left Sydney, and was certainly not copied at
Mauritius.
Before proving these statements, it will be convenient to make the reader
acquainted with the Captain-General or Military-Governor of Mauritius,
Charles Decaen. He was a rough, dogged, somewhat brutal type of soldier,
who had attained to eminence during the revolutionary wars. Born at Caen
in Normandy in 1769, he served during his youth for three years in the
artillery, and then entered a lawyer's office in his native town; but
during the wars of the Revolution, when France was pressed by enemies on
all sides, he threw aside quills and parchments, and, in his twenty-third
year, entered upon his strenuous fighting career. Thenceforth, until
after the signing of the Treaty of Luneville in 1801, he was almost
constantly engaged in military operations. He had risen from the ranks,
and won commendation for stubborn valour from such commanders as Desaix,
Kleber, Hoche, Westermann, and Moreau. He participated in the cruel war
of La Vendee, won fresh laurels during the campaign of the Rhine (1796),
and fought with a furious lust for battle under the noble Moreau at
Hohenlinden. By that time (1800) he had become a general of division, and
on the eve of the battle, when he brought up his force and made his
appearance at a council of war, Moreau greeted him with the flattering
remark, "Ah! here is Decaen; the battle will be ours to-morrow." He was
recognised as a strong-willed general, not brilliant, but very
determined, and as also a thoroughly capable and honest administrator.
Napoleon, in 1803, selected him for Indian service, and stationed him at
the Isle of France (Mauritius), in the hope that if all went well a heavy
blow might some day be struck at British power in India. Decaen was not a
courtier, nor a scholar, nor a man of sentiment, but a plain, coarse,
downright soldier; a true Norman, and a thorough son of the Revolution.
He was not the kind of man to be interested in navigation, discovery, or
the expansion of human knowledge; and appeals made to him on these
grounds on behalf of Flinders were futile. Yet we must do justice to the
admirable side of Decaen's character, by observing that he bore a
reputation for generosity among his fellow-soldiers; and he was a very
efficient and economical governor, maintaining a reputation for probity
that did not distinguish too many of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic
generals. Flinders, just in his opinion even of an enemy, wrote to Sir
Joseph Banks that Decaen bore among the people of the island "the
character of having a good heart, though too hasty and violent." It is
pleasant to find him writing thus of the man who had wronged him, at a
time when he had good reason for feeling bitter; and we certainly need
not think worse of Decaen than did the man who suffered most from the
general's callous insensibility.
Now, the clear facts with regard to the taking from Flinders of his
charts, papers, log-books, and journals are these. On December 17, the
day after his arrival at the island, it was signified to him that the
governor intended to detain him. All his charts and journals relating to
the voyage, and the letters and official packets which he was carrying to
England from Sydney, were put in a trunk, which was sealed by Flinders at
the desire of the French officers who were sent by Decaen to arrest him.
He signed a paper certifying that all the "charts, journals, and papers
of the voyage" had been thus placed in the trunk.* (* Flinders, Voyage 2
361.) On the following day (Sunday, December 18) he was informed that the
governor wished to have extracts made from his journals, showing the
causes which had compelled him to quit the Investigator, for which ship
and for no other, according to Decaen's contention, the passport had been
granted. He also wished to elicit from the journals evidence of the
reasons which had induced Flinders to stop at Mauritius, instead of
sailing for the Cape of Good Hope. The officers explained that General
Decaen considered it to be necessary to have these extracts for
transmission to the French Government, "to justify himself for granting
that assistance to the Cumberland which had been ordered for the
Investigator." So far he had not, as a fact, granted any assistance to
the Cumberland; for the imprisonment of her commander and crew can hardly
be called "assistance." But as Flinders was convinced that an examination
of his latest log-book would manifest his bona fides, and assure both the
governor and the French Government that he was no spy, as Decaen accused
him of being, he broke the seal of the trunk, and took out "the third
volume of my rough log-book, which contained the whole of what they
desired to know, and pointing out the parts in question to the secretary,
told him to make such extracts as should be thought requisite."* (*
Flinders, Voyage 2 364.) All the other papers and books were at once
returned to the trunk, and sealed as before.
The third log-book was the only document pertaining to Flinders'
discoveries which Decaen ever had in his possession. It was never
returned. The rightful owner never saw it again. It has never since been
produced. Flinders applied for it repeatedly. On the very day before he
was liberated, he made a final demand for it. Mr. Hope, the British
commissary for the exchange of prisoners, made a formal official
application for it in 1810, but met with "a positive refusal both of the
book and of permission to take a copy of it."* (* Hope's report to the
Admiralty, October 25, 1810 (Historical Records of New South Wales 7
435).) In 1811, after Flinders reached England, the Admiralty, at his
instance, requested the French Government to insist upon its restoration.
At the end of his book, published 1814, Flinders earnestly protested
against Decaen's continued detention of it. But it was not restored.
This book contained Flinders' "Journal of transactions and observations
on board the Investigator, the Porpoise, the Hope cutter, and Cumberland
schooner," for the preceding six months.* (* Flinders, Voyage 2 378 and
463.) There was therefore nothing in it which could have been of any use
in relation to the so-called Terre Napoleon. The log-book embodying
Flinders' observations on those coasts pertained to a period before the
six months just mentioned, and was never seen by Decaen, nor did he see
any of Flinders' charts whatever.
Towards the end of December the whole of the remaining books and papers
of Flinders, even including his family letters, were, in his presence,
collected from the ship by M. Bonnefoy, an interpreter, and Colonel
Monistrol, Decaen's secretary--who "acted throughout with much
politeness, apologising for what they were obliged by their orders to
execute"--and sealed up in another trunk.* (* Ibid 2 367.) Later in the
same month (December 26), Flinders, wishing to occupy his time in
confinement by proceeding with his work, wrote to the governor,
requesting that he might have his printed volumes, and two or three
charts and manuscript books, for the purpose of finishing his chart of
the Gulf of Carpentaria, adding in explanation that some of his papers
were lost in the wreck of the Porpoise, and he wished to finish the work
from memory, with the aid of the remaining materials, before the details
faded from his recollection. Decaen acceded to his request, and Flinders
took out two log-books, such charts as were necessary, all his private
letters, and his journals of bearings and astronomical observations. He
also took out his naval signal-book, which he destroyed, lest it should
be seen by any French officer. He gave a receipt for the documents, and
the remainder were once more locked up in the trunk, which was again
sealed by Flinders.* (* Voyage 2 378.) The papers so obtained were the
"greatest part"* (* Flinders, letter to Governor King, August 1804, and
letter to Banks, July 12. Historical Records of New South Wales 4 411 and
396.) of his books and charts, and the possession of them, enabling
Flinders to devote his energies to the work he loved, relieved the
depression which imprisonment and illness cast upon his active brain and
body.
In February of the following year Flinders made another application for
more books and papers, consisting of the greater part of his "original
fair charts,"* (* Voyage 2 384.) for the purpose of making an abridgment
of his discoveries upon a single sheet. The governor was by this time
very angry with his captive; the more so, probably, as he was conscious
of the inadequacy of the reasons for detaining him. But the demeanour of
the English captain did not please him either. Flinders, maintaining the
dignity of his uniform, had not assumed a humble mien, and had even
refused an invitation to dine with the general unless he could attend,
not as a prisoner, but as an officer free and unsuspect. If Decaen really
believed him to be a spy, why did he invite him? The governor, however,
was not now in a mood to oblige his prisoner, and in response to his
application for more papers, curtly replied that he would attend to the
request when freed from more pressing business. Flinders in March urged
Colonel Monistrol to intercede; complained in May that the manuscripts
were still withheld; and, being unable to make any impression on the
obdurate Decaen, completed his map with the aid of another journal kept
by Mr. Akin, the master of the Investigator, who was a fellow-prisoner
until May 1805.
These remaining documents were not restored till August 1807, when
Flinders was invited to go to Port Louis from the house in the country
where part of his imprisonment was spent, and take possession of the
trunk. He found that rats had eaten their way into it, and had made great
havoc among his papers, totally destroying some. But the seals were
unbroken, and Flinders gave a receipt for the contents, acknowledging
that the most important documents had happily escaped the rats.* (*
Voyage 2 462.) He was an observant man, and if he had had any suspicion
that the charts had been tampered with, would have promptly said so.
There is not, however, the faintest reason for believing that the trunk
had been opened between December 1803, when Flinders was permitted to
take out the "greatest part" of his important papers, and August 1807,
when the remainder were restored to him. The only missing documents were
the few which the rats had eaten, the third log-book, which Decaen
refused to give up, and two packets of official despatches which the
Cumberland was carrying from Sydney to England, and which Colonel
Monistrol informed him had been "long ago disposed of." The Colonel
"supposed that something in them had contributed to my imprisonment."
They had been "disposed of" by being sent to Paris for the perusal of
Napoleon's Government.
Why, however, did Decaen refuse permission to Flinders to have the last
of his papers till the year 1807? Why had he willingly permitted him to
take some of them in December 1803, but declined to let him have any more
till nearly four years later? A comparison of dates is instructive on
this point. As has already been said, the first volume of Peron's Voyage
de Decouvertes aux Terres Australes, and the first edition of the atlas
containing two of Freycinet's charts, were published in 1807. Making all
allowances for the obstinate character of Decaen, it is most significant
that the remainder of Flinders' charts and papers were kept from him
until the very time when Freycinet was ready to publish the first and
hurried edition of his atlas. It is impossible to resist the conclusion
that the governor was acting under influences exerted from Paris, private
if not official, in refusing the navigator access to the material which
it was believed was essential to the completion of the charts that would
demonstrate his discoveries, until the French officer could hurry out a
makeshift atlas and fictitious claims could be based upon it.
This conduct was reprehensible enough, but, it must be insisted, there is
no ground whatever for the too frequently made assertion that Flinders'
charts were surreptitiously copied or actually stolen--for the loose
manner in which the affair has been related in some books renders
doubtful which of the two accusations the authors desired to make.* (*
Blair, Cyclopaedia of Australasia page 131, actually says that Baudin,
"having taken copies of Flinders' charts, sailed for France, where he
published a book and received great applause from the French nation, who
called him the greatest discoverer of the present century."
Spirit-writing one has heard of, but not even the Psychical Research
Society has recorded the case of a dead man copying hydrographical
charts. A similar disregard of the fact that Baudin died before the
return of his ships occurs in J.E. Tenison Woods' History of Exploration
in Australia (1865) volume 1 page 174, where we are informed that
Flinders was detained in Mauritius, because "at that time the Emperor
Napoleon was obliging Admiral Baudin [sic] to usurp the glory of his
discoveries"; a case of post-mortem promotion.) Not only is there no
evidence to support any such charge, but Flinders himself never accused
Decaen of making an improper use of the papers in the trunk, nor did he
ever allege that the two charts contained in the French atlas of 1807, or
those in Freycinet's folio atlas of 1812--which he probably saw before
his death in July 1814--were founded upon or owed anything to his
drawings. He simply set forth the facts with his habitual exactness and
fairness; and where Flinders was just, there is surely no warrant for
others to perpetuate an accusation which originated in a period of
intense national hatred and jealousy, and bears its birth-mark upon it.
A critical examination of Freycinet's charts is alone sufficient to
shatter the opinion that he utilised the drawings of the English
navigator. Had he even seen them, his own work would have been more
accurate than it was, and his large chart of New Holland would have been
more complete. It has already been shown that the French chart of the
so-called Terre Napoleon coasts was in large measure defective, many
capes, islands, and bays being represented that have no existence in
fact, and a large portion of the outline being crudely and erroneously
drawn. Not only so, but if Freycinet had had copies of Flinders' charts
before him, use would certainly have been made of them to give greater
completeness to the eastern and north-western shores. Flinders, in his
last voyage in the Investigator, had made important discoveries on the
Queensland coast and in the Gulf of Carpentaria. He had discovered, for
instance, Port Bowen and Port Curtis, which had been missed by Cook, had
given greater definiteness to the islands near the southern end of the
Great Barrier Reef, and had made a dangerous acquaintance with the Reef
itself, discovering one narrow alley through it which is marked on modern
maps as Flinders' Passage. In the Gulf of Carpentaria he had also done
some entirely original work. He had shown, for example, that Cape Van
Diemen, represented as a projection from the mainland on all previous
maps, was really part of an island, which he named Mornington Isle.
Freycinet's charts reveal not the faintest trace of the fresh discoveries
which Flinders had achieved around east and north-east Australia, nor do
they in any particular indicate that their manifold serious imperfections
had been corrected by reference to Flinders' superb charts. In short, the
French work, though beautifully engraved and printed, was, in a
geographical sense, for the most part too poor to justify the suspicion
that Freycinet received aid from the drawings of the persevering captain
of the Investigator.
The circumstances attending the imprisonment of Flinders, and the
precipitate haste with which Freycinet's work was pushed forward,
undoubtedly furnished prima facie justification for the suspicion,
indignantly voiced by contemporary English writers, and which has been
hardened into a direct accusation since, that an act of plagiarism was
committed, dishonest in itself, and doubly guilty from the circumstances
in which it was performed. The Quarterly reviewer of 1817* pointed out
that the few charts in Freycinet's atlas "ARE VERY LIKE THOSE OF CAPTAIN
FLINDERS, ONLY MUCH INFERIOR IN POINT OF EXECUTION." (* Volume 17 pages
229 to 230; the italics are the reviewer's. The plagiarism legend--for
such it is--originated with this Quarterly article. The earliest
biographer of Flinders, in the Naval Chronicle 32 page 177, wrote very
strongly of General Decaen, considering that he was "worthy of his
Corsican master," and that his name "will be consigned to infamy as long
as mankind shall consider it honourable to promote science and civilised
to practise hospitality," but alleged no improper use of the charts. C.A.
Walckenaer, who wrote the excellent life of Flinders in the Biographie
Universelle, published in 1856, said that the French Government was
"inexcusable d'avoir retenu Flinders en captivite," but denied that his
charts were improperly used, and promised that when he came to write the
life of Peron in a succeeding volume, he would by an analysis of the
evidence refute the story. But Walckenaer died in 1852, before his
Flinders article was published, and the author of the article on Peron
did not carry out his predecessor's undertaking. It is to be presumed
that Walckenaer would have exhibited the facts set out above. Alfred de
Lacaze, in his article on Flinders in the Nouvelle Biographie Generale 17
932, wrote that the excuses given for the imprisonment of Flinders formed
"pauvres pretextes"; but declared that the seals put on Flinders' papers
in Mauritius were "loyalement respecte pendant les six ans que dura la
captivite du navigateur anglais." That was true. It is a pleasure to
acknowledge that all the references to Flinders which the author has seen
in French works unanimously and strongly condemn the treatment of him,
and do ample justice to his splendid qualities.) They are very like in
one respect, namely, in the representation of Spencer's and St. Vincent's
Gulfs and Kangaroo Island. In other particulars, at all events as far as
relates to the Terre Napoleon coasts, the French charts are quite unlike
those of Flinders. But contemporaries--knowing that Flinders' charts had
been taken from him by Decaen, and that he had been held in captivity
until the French could finish their work, and then, comparing his charts
with Freycinet's, finding that parts of the coasts discovered by the
English captain were well represented on the French charts, while other
parts of the outline of Terra Australis were badly done or
inadequate--not unnaturally drew the inference that the well-drawn
sections were based upon drawings improperly acquired. If the chain of
evidence was not complete, the violent racial animosities then prevalent
moulded the missing links in the fervent heat of imagination.
But it is quite easy to account for the superior cartography of the two
gulfs and Kangaroo Island. Le Geographe visited this region twice. In
April 1802, after meeting Flinders in Encounter Bay, Baudin sailed west,
and endeavoured to penetrate the two gulfs. But his corvette drew too
much water to permit him to go far, and he determined to give up the
attempt, and to devote "une seconde campagne" to "la reconnaissance
complete de ces deux grands enfoncements."* (* Voyage de Decouvertes 3
11.) In Sydney, Governor King permitted him to purchase a small locally
constructed vessel of light draught--called the Casuarina, because she
was built of she-oak--with which to explore rivers and shallow waters.
The command of this boat was entrusted to Lieutenant Louis de Freycinet,
the future cartographer and part historian of the expedition; and the
charts of the two gulfs and Kangaroo Island were made by, or under the
superintendence of, that officer. Freycinet was not with Le Geographe on
her first cruise in these waters, and was not responsible for the
original drawings upon which his charts of the Terre Napoleon coasts
eastward of Cape Jervis were founded. But the fact that he surveyed the
gulfs and Kangaroo Island on the second visit, in 1803, is quite
sufficient to account for the improved cartography of this region in the
French atlas. Whatever we may think of the part played by Freycinet in
relation to Flinders and the history of the expedition, his professional
ability was of a high character. All the charting work done by him, when
he had not to depend upon the rough drawings of inferior men, was very
good. His interest in scientific navigation was deep, and when, in 1817,
he was given the command of a fresh French expedition, consisting of the
Uranie and the Physicienne, the large folio atlas produced by him
indicated that he had studied the technicalities of his profession to
excellent purpose.
The superiority of the work done by Baudin's expedition in the vicinity
of the two gulfs, then, was not due to any fraudulent use of Flinders'
material, but simply to the fact that there was a competent officer in
charge of it at that time; and there is nothing on the charts for which
Freycinet was personally responsible to justify the belief that his work
claiming to be original was not genuinely his own. When, in 1824, he
published a second edition of the Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres
Australes,* (* In octavo volumes; the first edition was in quarto.) he
repudiated with quiet dignity the suggestion that the work of the English
navigator had been plagiarised.* (* "C'est assez," he wrote, "repousser
des accusations odieuses et envenimees, fondees sur des idees
chimeriques, avec absence de toute espece de preuve. Le temps, qui calme
les passions humaines et permet toujours a la verite de reprendre ses
droits, fera justice d'accusations concues avec legerete et soutenues
avec inconvenance. Peron et Flinders sont morts; l'un et l'autre ont des
titres certains a notre estime, a notre admiration; ils vivront, ainsi
que leurs travaux, dans la memoire des hommes, et les nuages que je
cherche a dissiper auront disparu sans retour" (volume 1 Preface page
11). One cannot but be touched by that appeal; but at the same time it is
to be observed that in the very preface in which he made it, Freycinet
did far less than justice to the work of Flinders.) Except for the Port
Phillip part of the work, we might fairly say that history has commonly
done him and his confreres a serious injustice.
But we have seen that, although Port Phillip was included in the French
charts, and inside soundings were actually shown, neither the port nor
the entrance was seen by the expedition. How was that information
obtained?
Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste lay in Sydney harbour from June 20 to
November 18, 1802, their afflicted crews receiving medical treatment, and
their officers enjoying the hospitality of Governor King. Flinders and
Lieutenant John Murray, who discovered Port Phillip, were both there
during part of the same time. It was then that the French learnt of the
existence of the great harbour of which Baudin was ignorant when he met
Flinders in Encounter Bay; and it is highly probable that by some means
they obtained a copy of the chart which they saw.
Grounds for stating that that is a probability will be advanced a little
later. But let us first see how the drawing of Port Phillip that does
appear on the Terre Napoleon charts got there.
It was taken, as Freycinet acknowledged,* (* Voyage de Decouvertes 3
430.) "from a manuscript chart prepared on the English ship Armiston, in
1804. In 1806 the French frigate La Piedmontoise captured the British
ship Fame. Amongst the papers found on board was this manuscript chart.
It so happened that one of the officers of La Piedmontoise was Lieutenant
Charles Baudin des Ardennes, who had been a junior officer on Le
Naturaliste from 1800 to 1804. (He was no relative of Captain Baudin. The
family of Baudin des Ardennes was very well known in France; and this
officer became a distinguished French admiral.) He took possession of the
manuscript, and handed it over to Freycinet, who made use of it in
preparing his charts.
Probably it was a very rough chart; but even so, if Freycinet had had
anything like a drawing of Port Phillip made on Le Geographe, he would
have turned out a better piece of work. Not only is the outline very
defective, but the "lay" of the Nepean peninsula is so grossly wrong that
this alone would suffice to show that Freycinet did not merely correct
his chart with the aid of that captured from the Fame, but that the whole
drawing of Port Phillip was fitted in, like a patch. However ill a
navigator may draw, he always knows whether a coast along which he is
sailing runs west or north-west. A mariner's apprentice would know that.
But on the Terre Napoleon charts, the peninsula lies due east and west,
whereas in reality, as the reader will see by reference to any good map,
it has a decidedly north-westerly inclination. The patch was not well put
on. The consequence of this bad cobbling was to give a box-like,
rectangular appearance to the bay, utterly unlike the reality. The east
and west sides were carried about as far as Mornington and St. Leonards
respectively, in two nearly straight and parallel lines; Swan Bay and
Swan Island were missed altogether; and the graceful curve of the coast
round by Sorrento and Dromana--a curve most grateful to the eye on a day
when sea and sky are blue, and the silver sands and white cliffs shine in
the clear light--was tortured into a sharp bend. It was a very rough bit
of work.
The fact that an expedition sent out for discovery purposes, and which
named a considerable extent of the coast-line traversed after the Emperor
who had enabled it to be despatched, had to depend upon a manuscript
accidentally obtained from a captured British merchant ship for a chart
of the principal port in the territory so flauntingly denominated, hardly
calls for comment. But even when we are in possession of this
information, we are still left in some doubt as to whether the French had
not some sort of a drawing of Port Phillip before they left Sydney.
Otherwise the course pursued by their commodore after quitting that port
is quite unaccountable. The following reasons induce that belief.
When Baudin bade an affectionate and grateful farewell to Governor King
at Sydney on November 18, he sailed direct to King Island, which is
situated in Bass Strait, on the 40th parallel of south latitude, about
midway between the south-east of Cape Otway and the north-west corner of
Tasmania. Le Geographe was accompanied by Le Naturaliste and the little
Casuarina. A camp was established on the island, which was fully charted.
Baudin had missed it on his former voyage, though he had sailed within a
few miles of it. It will be remembered that when Flinders conversed with
him in Encounter Bay, and "inquired concerning a large island said to lie
in the western entrance of Bass Strait," Baudin said he had not seen it,
"and seemed to doubt much of its existence."* (*Flinders, Voyage 1 188.)
But Flinders found it easily enough, and spent a little time there before
entering Port Phillip. It was doubtless this inquiry of Flinders that
induced Baudin to mark down on his chart a purely fictitious island far
westward of the actual one, and to inscribe against it the words, "it is
believed that an island exists in this latitude."* (* "On croit qu'il
existe une ile par cette latitude." See the chart, a little west of Cape
Bridgewater (Cap Duquesne).)
As Baudin afterwards found the real island, it is curious that the
imaginary one should have been kept upon his chart; but there is a reason
for that also. While the French lay at King Island, most of the work done
up to date--geographical, zoological, and other--was collected and sent
back to France on Le Naturaliste; Le Geographe and the Casuarina
remaining to finish the exploratory voyage. Le Naturaliste sailed for
Europe on December 16, and entered the port of Havre on June 6, 1803. Had
Baudin lived to return to France, and to supervise the completion of the
charts, it is most probable that he would have erased the island which
was merely supposed, as he had since charted the real one; but Freycinet,
not having been present at the meeting with Flinders, and knowing nothing
of the reason which induced Baudin to set it down, left it there--a
quaint little fragment of corroboration of the truth of Flinders'
narrative of the Encounter Bay incident.
Now, when at the end of December Le Geographe and the Casuarina sailed
from King Island--the naturalists having in the interval profitably
enjoyed themselves in collecting plants, insects, and marine
specimens--they made direct for Kangaroo Island, four hundred miles away,
to resume the work which had been commenced in the gulfs in the previous
April and May. The whole of the movements of the ships up to this time
are to be read in the printed logs appended to volume 3 of the Voyage de
Decouvertes. Baudin made no call at Port Phillip, nor did one of his
three vessels visit the harbour either before or after reaching King
Island. But by this time Baudin knew all about the port, and it is surely
difficult to suppose that he would have sailed straight past it in
December unless at length he had it marked on his rough charts. His
officers knew about it too, though none of them had seen it; for Captain
Hamelin of Le Naturaliste reported when he reached Paris, that, as he
left King Island, he met and spoke to "an English goelette on her way to
Port Philips [sic], south-east coast."* (* Moniteur, 27 Thermidor.) It
was the Cumberland, Lieutenant Charles Robbins, bound on a mission to be
explained later.
It seems reasonable to assume that when Le Naturaliste sailed for France
on December 16, and the two other ships for Kangaroo Island later in the
same month, Baudin was quite satisfied that he had in his possession as
complete a representation of the whole of the Terre Napoleon coasts
westward to the gulfs, as would justify him in resuming the work from
that situation. Clearly, then, he obtained a Port Phillip drawing of some
kind before he left Sydney.
From what source could Baudin have obtained such a chart, however rough
and partial?
Up to the time when he lay at Port Jackson, only two ships had ever
entered Port Phillip. These were the Lady Nelson, under Murray's command,
in February 1802--the harbour having been discovered in the previous
month--and the Investigator, under Flinders, in April and May. No other
keels had, from the moment of the discovery until Baudin's vessels
finally left these coasts, breasted the broad expanse of waters at the
head of which the great city of Melbourne now stands. The next ship to
pass the heads was the Cumberland, which, early in 1803, entered with
Surveyor Grimes on board, to make the first complete survey of the port.
But by that time Baudin was far away. From one or other of the two
available sources, therefore, Baudin must have obtained a drawing,
assuming that he did obtain one in Sydney; and if he did not, his sailing
past the port, when he had an opportunity of entering it in December, was
surely as extraordinary a piece of wilful negligence as is to be found in
the annals of exploration.
It is possible that Baudin or one of his officers saw some drawing made
on the Lady Nelson. If they saw one made by Murray himself, it is not
likely to have been a very good one. Murray was not a skilled
cartographer. Governor King, who liked him, and wished to secure
promotion for him, had to confess in writing to the Duke of Portland,
that he did not "possess the qualities of an astronomer and surveyor,"
which was putting the matter in a very friendly fashion. If a chart or
crude drawing by Murray had been obtained, Freycinet might still be glad
to get the Fame chart which he used.
Both in his book and his correspondence Flinders mentions having shown
charts to Baudin; and though the French commodore did not reciprocate by
showing any of his work to Flinders, we may fairly regard that as due to
reluctance to challenge comparisons. Flinders was without a rival in his
generation for the beauty, completeness, and accuracy of his
hydrographical work, and Captain Baudin's excuses probably sprang from
pride. The reason he gave was that his charts were to be finished in
Paris. But there was nothing to prevent his showing the preliminary
drawings to Flinders, and as a fact he had shown them to King. If
Flinders had had a sight of them he would have detected at a glance the
absence of any indication of Port Phillip. But we learn from the Moniteur
of 27 Thermidor, Revolutionary Year 11 (August 15, 1803), which published
a progress report of the expedition, that the charts sent home by Baudin
were very rough. Part of the coast was described as being "figuree assez
grossierement et sans details."
Flinders, it should be explained, did not publish the chart which he made
when he entered Port Phillip with the Investigator, because by the time
when he was preparing his work for publication, a copy of the complete
survey chart made by Grimes had been supplied to him by the Admiralty. He
used Grimes's drawing in preference to his own--acknowledging the
authorship, of course--because when he found Port Phillip he was not in a
position to examine it thoroughly. His supplies, after his long voyage,
had become depleted, and he could not delay.
It is most likely that the French learnt of the existence of Port Phillip
from Flinders, though not at all likely that they were able to obtain a
copy of his drawing. If Baudin got one at all, it must have been
Murray's.
Freycinet did not acknowledge on any of his charts the source whence he
obtained his Port Phillip drawing. Obviously, it would have been honest
to do so. All he did was to insert two lines at the bottom of the page in
that part of volume 3 dealing with navigation details, where very few
readers would observe the reference.
There remains the question: Why did General Decaen keep Flinders' third
log-book when restoring to him all his other papers? The reason suggested
by Flinders himself is probably the right one: that the governor retained
it in order that he might be better able to justify himself to Napoleon
in case he was blamed for disregarding the passport. He "did not choose
to have his accusations disproved by the production either of the
original or of an authenticated copy." It is difficult to see what other
motive Decaen can have had. The sheer cantankerous desire to annoy and
injure a man who had angered him can hardly have been so strong within
him as even to cause a disregard of the common proprietary rights of his
prisoner. The book could have been of no use to Decaen for any other
purpose. Its contents had no bearing on the Terre Napoleon coasts, as
they related to a period subsequent to Flinders' voyage there. Doubtless
the book showed why the Cumberland called at Mauritius, but the reason
for that was palpable. The idea that a leaky twenty-nine ton schooner,
with her pumps out of gear, could have put into Port Louis with any
aggressive intent against the great French nation, which had a powerful
squadron under Admiral Linois in the Indian Ocean, was too absurd for
consideration. But Decaen was plainly hunting for reasons for detaining
Flinders, and it is possible that he found a shred of justification in
the despatches which the Cumberland was carrying from Governor King to
the British Government; though the protracted character of the
imprisonment, after every other member of the ship's company had been set
free, cannot have been due to that motive.
It is most probable that representations made to Decaen by Peron, before
Le Geographe sailed, had an effect upon the mind of the governor which
induced him to regard any ship flying the British flag as an enemy to
French policy. Peron, from what he had seen of the growth of Port
Jackson, and from the prompt audacity and pugnacious assertiveness of an
incident which occurred at King Island--to be described in the ninth
chapter--had conceived an inflated idea of the enormity of British
pretensions in the southern hemisphere. He was convinced that, using the
Sydney settlement as a base of operations, the British intended to
dominate the whole Pacific Ocean, even to the degree of menacing the
Spanish colonies of South America. On 20th Frimaire, Revolutionary Year
12 (December 11, 1803), four days before Le Geographe sailed from the
island, Peron set his views on paper in a report to Decaen, stating that
his interviews with officers, magistrates, clergymen, and other classes
of people in Sydney, had convinced him that his anticipations were well
founded. He pointed out that already the English were extending their
operations to the Sandwich, Friendly, Society, Navigator, and other
islands of the South Pacific; that at Norfolk Island they had a colony of
between fifteen hundred and sixteen hundred people, and found its timber
to be of great value for shipbuilding; and that gradually the British
Government, by extending their military posts and trading stations across
the ocean, would sooner or later establish themselves within striking
distance of Chili and Peru.* (* Peron's report to General Decaen is given
in M. Henri Prentout's valuable treatise, L'Ile de France sous Decaen,
1803 to 1810; essai sur la politique coloniale du premier empire, Paris
1901 page 380. M. Prentout's book is extremely fair, and, based as it is
mainly upon the voluminous papers of General Decaen, preserved in his
native town of Caen, is authoritative.) Peron pointed to the political
insecurity of the Spanish-American colonies, and predicted that the
outbreak of revolution in them, possibly with the connivance of the
English, would further the deep designs of that absorbent and dominating
nation.* (* A French author of later date, Prevost-Paradol (La France
Nouvelle, published in 1868), predicted that some day "a new Monroe
doctrine would forbid old Europe, in the name of the United States of
Australia, to put foot upon an isle of the Pacific.")
Decaen was pondering over Peron's inflammatory memorandum when the lame
little Cumberland staggered into Port Louis. Here, a victim ready to
hand, was one of the instruments of the extension of British dominion,
the foremost explorer in the service of the British Crown. True, Flinders
had a passport from the French Government, but it was made out, not for
the Cumberland but for the Investigator. To take advantage of such a
point, when the Investigator had had to be abandoned as unseaworthy, was
manifestly to seize the flimsiest pretext for imprisoning the man whom
the winds and waves had brought within his power.* (* "C'etait une
chicane," says M. Henri Prentout, page 382.) But Decaen was in the temper
for regarding the English navigator as a spy, and he imprisoned him first
and looked for evidence to justify himself afterwards. He had just read
Peron's report; and "it was not unnatural," says a learned French
historian somewhat naively, "that the Captain-General should attribute to
the English savant the intention of playing at Port Louis the role that
our naturalist had played at Port Jackson."* (* Ibid.) The imputation is
unjust to Peron, who had not "spied" in Port Jackson, because the English
there had manifested no disposition to conceal. Nothing that he reported
was what the Government had wished him not to see; they had helped him to
see all that he desired; and his preposterous political inferences,
though devoid of foundation, hardly amounted to a positive breach of
hospitality. Besides, had Decaen feared that the release of Flinders
would be dangerous because he might report the weak state of the defences
of the island, the same would have applied to the liberation of the
junior officers and men of the Cumberland. They, however, were permitted
to return to England after a brief period of detention.
Decaen also alleged that Flinders was personally rude to him in
presenting himself before him "le chapeau sur la tete." Flinders was
undoubtedly smarting under a sense of wrong at the time, but discourtesy
was by no means a feature of his character; and to imprison a man for six
and a half years for not taking his hat off would have been queer conduct
from a son of the Revolution!
But Decaen's reasons for his treatment of his captive were not consistent
with themselves. He gave quite another set in a report to his Government,
alleging that the detention of Flinders was justified as a measure of
reprisals on account of the action of the English at Pondicherry and the
Cape; and, entirely in the manner of a man looking for a shred of
justification for doing the unjustifiable, he alleged that vigorous
aggressive action on his part was necessary, because it was evident to
him that the English meant to absorb the whole commerce of the Indian
Ocean, the Pacific, and the China Sea, basing his statements on the
report of Peron, of which he sent a copy to Paris. Not only did he
represent that the British intended to annihilate French power in India,
and supplant Spanish authority in South America, but he regarded their
repeated visits to Timor, their action in regard to Java in 1798, and
their establishment at Penang, off the Malay Peninsula, as clear evidence
that the "greedy and devouring jaws" of the English lion were ready to
swallow the Dutch East Indies likewise. How these nefarious designs
afforded a reason for imprisoning Matthew Flinders is not apparent; but
Decaen was pleading for the despatch of troops to enable him to make an
effective attack upon the English in India,* (* Prentout, page 383.) and
he seemed to suppose that the holding up of the explorer would give
satisfaction in Paris, and further the accomplishment of his plans.
In October 1810, only three months after the liberation of Flinders, the
Isle of France was closely blockaded by a British squadron under
Vice-Admiral Bertie. In December, General Decaen agreed to capitulate,
and Major-General Abercromby took possession of the island, which has
ever since been a British dependency. It is unfortunate that the British
officers did not at this time remember that Decaen had kept Flinders'
third log-book. He had written to Vice-Admiral Bertie from the Cape of
Good Hope, in July 1810, requesting that "if any occurrences should put
General Decaen within his power," he would demand the volume from him.
But the request was overlooked, "in the tumult of events," when the
capitulation took place.* (* Flinders, letter to the Admiralty, in
Historical Records of New South Wales 7 529.) It is, however, significant
of the honour in which naval men held the intrepid navigator, that after
the capitulation the British officers refused to dine with Decaen, on
account of his treatment of Flinders.* (* Souvenirs d'un vieux colon,
quoted by Prentout, page 660.) It was not the first time that gentlemen
wearing the naval uniform of England had refused to eat at his table.
On January 6, 1811, a French schooner was captured bearing despatches
from France. Amongst them was a despatch informing Decaen that Napoleon
had superseded him in the governorship.* (* Naval Chronicle volume 25
337.) Before he could obey the summons to France, the British had
captured the island and sent him home. It is scarcely likely that the
Emperor's order of recall was due to disapproval of Decaen's conduct in
continuing Flinders' imprisonment after the French Government had ordered
his release, although there is in existence a decree signed by Napoleon,
dated March 11, 1806, "authorising the Minister of Marine to restore his
ship to Captain Flinders of the English schooner Cumberland."* (* The
document is in the Archives Nationales, Paris (AP. 4 pl. 1260, n. 47).
The author is indebted for this fact to Dr. Charles Schmidt, the
archivist at the Archives Nationales, through the courtesy of Mr. F.M.
Bladen, of the Public Library, Sydney. Dr. Schmidt has also supplied the
information that this is "the only document concerning Captain Flinders
in our possession." "Concerning the voyages of Peron and Freycinet, I
have found nothing in the Archives," he adds.) As Flinders was not
released till July 1810, Decaen certainly did disregard the Emperor's
command for three years--from July 1807, when the decree was received by
him, though it is to be remembered that he restored the trunk of papers
in the very next month (August). But Napoleon had signified to Decaen's
aide-de-camp, Barois--who was sent to France in 1804 with special
instructions to mention the Flinders affair to the Emperor--that he
approved of what the general had done;* (* Prentout, page 393. "Napoleon
parut approuver les raisons que Barois invoquait pour justifier la
conduite de Decaen.") and Napoleon was scarcely likely to be gravely
concerned about the calamities of an English sea captain at that
particular time. It is true that between 1804 and the release, Sir Joseph
Banks and other influential men in the world of learning had been active
in urging the liberation of the navigator. The venerable Bougainville was
one of these. It is also true that Napoleon prided himself on his
interest in scientific work. But Decaen had been a good servant, placed
in a difficult situation, where there was much responsibility and little
glory to be won; and even if the Emperor had felt annoyed at the
disregard of orders, the matter did not affect his major lines of policy,
and Decaen was safe in reckoning that the Imperial displeasure would not
be severely displayed. But why he risked giving offence to Napoleon at
all by the disregard of orders, there is, it would seem, nothing in
Decaen's papers to show. M. Prentout, who has studied them carefully, is
driven back on the suggestion that the prolongation of the captivity was
due to "entetement"--stubbornness. But it cost the administration four
hundred and fifty francs per month to maintain Flinders,* (* Prentout,
page 382.) and it seems improbable, when the finances of the island were
difficult to adjust and severe economies were enforced, that Decaen, an
economical man, would have kept up this expense year after year,
disregarding alike the protests of the prisoner, the demands of Lord
Wellesley and Admiral Pellew, and later, the direct orders of the French
Government, unless some influence were at work and some practical
interest furnished a motive. The obstinacy of Decaen is not a sufficient
reason. We know, however, that it suited Freycinet very well to have
Flinders detained till he could get his own charts ready, and that his
atlas was precipitately published in the first instance. The connection
between these occurrences and Decaen's cruel perversity must, in the
absence of clear proof, be bridged by inference, if at all.
Napoleon was, however, a soldier after all--much else as well, but a
soldier first and foremost; and so was Decaen. When the general returned
to France, his Imperial master had urgent need for stern, stubborn,
fighting men of his type. He submitted to a court-martial* (* "Un conseil
d'enquete." Biographie Universelle 10 248.) in reference to the surrender
of Mauritius, but was exonerated. The discretion that he had exercised in
not obeying the decree for the liberation of Flinders was evidently not
made the ground of serious complaint against him, for in 1813 we find him
commanding the army of Catalonia, participating gallantly in the campaign
of the Pyrenees, and distinguishing himself at Barcelona under Marshal
Suchet. For this service he was made a Comte of the Empire. When Napoleon
was banished to Elba the Comte Decaen donned the white cockade, and took
service under Louis XVIII, but on the return of his old master he, like
Ney and some other of the tough warriors of the First Empire, forswore
his fidelity to the Bourbons. He was one of the generals left to guard
the southern frontiers of France while Napoleon played his last stake for
dominion in the terrific war game that ended with the cataclysm of
Waterloo. That event terminated Decaen's military course. For a while he
was imprisoned, but his life was not taken, as was that of the gallant
Ney; and in a few months he was liberated at the instance of the Duchesse
d'Angouleme. Thenceforth he lived a colourless, quiet, penurious life in
the vicinity of his native Caen, regretting not at all, one fancies, the
ruin of the useful career of the enterprising English navigator. His
poverty was honourable, for he had handled large funds during the
Consulate and Empire; and there is probably as much sincerity as pathos
in what he said to Soult and Gouvion-Saint-Cyr in his declining days,
that nothing remained to him after thirty years of honourable service and
the occupancy of high offices, except the satisfaction of having at all
times done his duty. He died in 1832. His official papers fill no fewer
than one hundred and forty-nine volumes and are preserved in the library
of the ancient Norman city whose name he bore as his own.