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.
French interest in southern exploration did not commence nor did it cease
with the expedition of 1800 to 1804. We fall into a radical error if we
regard that as an isolated endeavour. It was, in truth, a link in a
chain: one of a series of efforts made by the French to solve what was,
during the eighteenth century, a problem with which the scientific
intellect of Europe was much concerned.
The tardy and piecemeal fashion in which definiteness was given to
southern latitudes on the map of the world makes a curious chapter in the
history of geographical research. After the ships of Magellan and Drake
had circumnavigated the globe, and a very large part of America had been
mapped, there still lay, south of the tracks of those adventurers who
rounded the Horn and breasted the Pacific, a region that remained
unknown--a Terra Australis, Great Southern Continent, or Terra Incognita
as it was vaguely and variously termed. Map-makers, having no certain
data concerning this vast uncharted area, commonly sprawled across the
extremity of the southern hemisphere a purely fanciful outline of
imaginary land. Terra Australis was the playground of the cartographers
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They seemed to abhor blank
spaces. Some of the most beautiful of the old maps make the oceans busy
with spouting whales, sportive dolphins, and galleons with bellying
sails; but what to do with the great staring expanse of vacancy at the
bottom their authors did not know. So they drew a crooked line across the
map to represent land, and stuck upon it the label Terra Australis, or
one of the other designations just mentioned. The configuration of the
territory on different maps did not agree, and not one of them signified
a coast with anything like the form of the real Great Southern Continent.
To the period of fancy succeeded that of patchwork. Came the Dutch, often
blown out of their true course from the Cape of Good Hope to the Spice
Islands, and stumbling upon the shores of Western Australia. To some such
accident we probably owe the piece of improved cartography shown upon
Emmerie Mollineux's map, which Hakluyt inserted in some copies of the
second edition of his Principal Navigations, and which Shakespeare is
supposed to have had in mind when, in a merry scene in Twelfth Night, he
made Maria say of Malvolio (3 2 85): "He does smile his face into more
lines than is in the new map with the AUGMENTATION OF THE INDIES."* (*
See Mr. Charles Coote's paper in Transactions of New Shakespeare Society,
1877 to 1879. He read the phrase "augmentation of the Indies," as
referring to this and some other additions to the map of the world, now
for the first time shown. In those days, of course, "the Indies" meant
pretty well everything out of Europe, including America. It is curious
that Flinders called the aboriginals whom he saw in Port Phillip
"Indians." Probably all coloured peoples were "Indians" to seamen even so
late as his day. There is a fine copy of the map referred to in volume 1
of the 1903 edition of Hakluyt, edited by Professor Walter Raleigh.) This
map marks an improvement, in the sense that an approach to the truth,
probably founded on actual observation, is an improvement on a large,
comprehensive piece of guess work. Emmerie Mollineux expunged the
imaginary region, and substituted a small tongue of land, shaped like a
thimble. It was doubtless copied from some Dutch chart; and though we
must not look for precision of outline at so early a date, it is
sufficient to show that some navigator had seen, hereabouts, a real piece
of Australia, and had made a note of what it looked like. It is not much,
but, rightly regarded, it is like the first gleam of light on the dark
sky where the dawn is to paint its radiance.
English Dampier (1686 to 1688, and 1699 to 1701) and Dutch Tasman (1642
to 1644) made the most substantial contributions to the world's knowledge
of the true form of Australia to be credited to any individual navigators
before the coming of Cook, the greatest of all.
It is very strange that so long a period as a century and a half should
have been allowed to lapse between Tasman's very remarkable voyage and
Flinders' completion of the outline of Australia, and that three-quarters
of a century should have separated the explorations of Dampier and Cook.
Here, crooned over by her great gum forests, baring her broad breast of
plains to the sun and moon, lay a land holding within her immense
solitudes unimaginable wealth; genial in climate, rich in soil, abounding
in mineral treasures, fit to be a home for happy, industrious millions.
Yet, while avarice and enterprise schemed and fought for the west and the
east, this treasury of the south remained unsolicited. It is not for us
to regret that Australia was left for a race that knew how to woo her
with affection and to conquer her with their science and their will, yet
we can but wonder that fortune should have been so tardy and so reticent
in disclosing a fifth division of the globe.
While this piecing together of the outline of the continent was
proceeding, speculation was naturally rife among men of science as to
what countries southern latitudes contained, and what their capabilities
were. It was essentially a scientific problem awaiting solution; and it
is not surprising that the French, quick-brained, inquisitive, eager in
pursuit of ideas, should have been active in this field.
Their intellectual concern with South Sea discovery may be said to date
from the publication of the Petites Lettres of Pierre Louis Moreau de
Maupertuis. He was, like some of whom Browning has written, a "person of
some importance in his day," and his writings on physics are still
mentioned with respect in works devoted to the history of science. But he
is perhaps chiefly remembered as the savant whom Frederick the Great
attracted to his court during a period of aloofness from the
scintillating Voltaire, and who consequently became a writhing target for
the jealous ridicule of that waspish wit. Poor Maupertuis, unhappy in his
exit from life, would appear to have been restless after it, for his
ghost is averred to have stalked in the hall of the Academy of Berlin,
and to have been seen by a brother professor there, the remarkable
phenomenon being solemnly recorded in the Transactions of that learned
body.* (* See Sir Walter Scott's Demonology and Witchcraft, Letter 1.)
But of far more practical importance than the appearance of his perturbed
shade, was the effect of his Petites Lettres, which suggested twelve
projects for the advancement of knowledge, one of which was the promotion
of discovery in the southern hemisphere.
Shortly after its publication, Maupertuis' proposition was discussed by a
society of accomplished students meeting at Dijon, the ancient capital of
Burgundy. A member of the Society to whom much deference was paid, was
Charles de Brosses, lawyer, scholar, and President of the Parlement of
the Province.* (* The local parliaments were abolished in the reign of
Louis XV, reinstated by Louis XVI, and finally swept away in the stormy
demolition of ancient institutions to make ground for the constitution of
1791.) De Brosses was an industrious student and writer, the translator
of Sallust into French, and author of several valuable historical and
philological works, including a number of learned papers which may be
read--or not--in the stout calf-bound quartos enshrining the records of
the Academy of Inscriptions.* (* His papers in that regiment of tomes
range over a period of fifty years, from 1746 to 1796. They deal chiefly
with Roman history, and especially with points suggested by the author's
profound study of Sallust. Gibbon pays De Brosses the compliment of
quoting two of his works, and commends his "SINGULAR diligence," with
emphasis on the adjective. (See Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, Bury's edition 4 37 and 7 168.) He was also Voltaire's landlord
at Tournay, and had a quarrel with him about a matter of firewood; but De
Brosses was a lawyer, whilst Voltaire was only a philosopher and a poet,
so that of course the result was "qu'il enrage d'avoir enfin a payer."*
(* Lanson's Voltaire page 139.)
The discussion at Dijon was more fruitful in results than such colloquies
usually are. De Brosses was especially struck with the utility of
exploration in southern seas, and considered that the French nation
should take the lead in such an endeavour. He spoke for a full hour in
support of this particular suggestion of Maupertuis, and when he had
finished his fellow-members assured him that what he had advanced was so
novel and interesting that he would do well to expand his ideas into an
essay, to be read at the next meeting. De Brosses did more: for he wrote
two solid quarto volumes, published at Paris in 1756--"avec approbation
et privilege du Roy," as the title page says--in which he related all
that he could learn about previous voyages to the south, and pointed out,
with generous amplitude, in limpid, fluent French, the desirableness of
pursuing further discoveries there. Incidentally he coined a useful word:
to Monsieur le President Charles de Brosses we owe the name
"Australasia."* (* De Brosses, Histoire des Navigations aux Terres
Australes 1 426 and 2 367. Max Muller, in his Lectures on the Origin of
Religion page 59, stated that De Brosses coined three valuable words,
"fetishism," "Polynesia," and "Australia." He certainly did not originate
the word Australia, which does not occur anywhere in his book. Quiros, in
1606, named one of the islands of the New Hebrides group Austrialia del
Espiritu Santo, though he seems to have done so in compliment to Philip
III, who ruled Austria as well as Spain. See Markham, Voyages of Quiros
volume 1 page 30 Hakluyt Society. "Australasia" was De Brosses' new name
for a broad division of the globe. He derived it from the Latin australis
= southern + Asia.)
A work written over one hundred and fifty years ago, recommending a
project long since completed, can hardly be expected to be full of living
interest. Yet this book of De Brosses, apart from the research which it
evinced, was infused with a large, humane spirit that lifted it high
above the level of a prospectus. The author had a sense of patriotism
that looked beyond the aggrandisement that might accrue from extensive
acquisitions, to the ideal of spreading French civilisation as a
beneficent force. He wished his country to share in a great work of
discovery that would redound to its glory as well as to its influence.
Glory, he wrote, in a fine piece of French prose, is the dominant passion
of kings; but their common and inveterate error is to search for it in
war--that is to say, in the reciprocal misfortunes of their subjects and
their neighbours. But there never is any true glory for them unless the
happiness of nations is the object of their enterprises. In the task
which he recommended, the grandeur of the object was joined to utility.
To augment the lands known to civilised mankind by a new world, and to
enrich the old world with the natural products of the new--this would be
the effect of the fresh discoveries that he anticipated. What comparison
could there be between such a project and the conquest--it might be the
unjust conquest--of some ravaged piece of territory, of two or three
fortresses battered by cannon and acquired by the massacre, the ruin, the
desolation, and the regrets of the vanquished people; bought, too, at a
price a hundred times greater than would suffice for the entire voyage of
discovery proposed. He pointed out that the task could only be taken in
hand by a government; it was too large for individuals. But the result
was certain. In truth, to succeed in the complete discovery of the Terres
Australes, it was not necessary to have any other end in view than
success: it was simply necessary to employ proper means and sufficient
forces.
De Brosses discussed the probably most advantageous situation for
settlement in the South Seas, though in doing so he was hampered by
insufficient knowledge. Relying upon the reports of Tasman, he considered
New Zealand and "la terre de Diemen"--that is, Tasmania--too distant and
too little known for an experiment; whilst the narratives of Dampier did
not make those parts of New Holland that he had visited--the west and
north of Australia--appear attractive. On the whole, he favoured the
island to the east of Papua-New Guinea--known as New Britain (now New
Pomerania), and the Austrialia del Espiritu Santo of the Spanish
navigator Quiros as very suitable. It is interesting to note that the
present French settlements in the New Hebrides embrace the latter island,
whilst their possessions in the New Caledonia group are quite close; so
that ultimately they have planted themselves on the very spot which a
century and a half ago the savant of Dijon considered best fitted for
them. De Brosses admitted that the establishment of such settlements as
he recommended would not be the work of a day. Great enterprises require
great efforts. It is for individuals to measure years, he loftily said;
nations calculate by centuries. Powerful peoples must take extended views
of things; and kings, as their chiefs, animated by the desire of glory
and the love of country and of humanity, ought to consider themselves as
personalities persisting always, and working for eternity.* (* The
passages summarised are to be found in De Brosses, 1: 4, 8, 11, 19; and
2: 368, 380, 383.)
The elevated tone of De Brosses' book was calculated to make a telling
appeal to the French nation, with their love of eclat and their ready
receptivity. It was made, too, in the age of Voltaire, when the great man
was living at Lausanne; and when, too, another of equally enduring fame,
Edward Gibbon, was, in the same neighbourhood, polishing those balanced
periods in which he has related the degeneracy of the successors of the
Caesars. It was an age of intellectual ferment. Rousseau was writing his
Contrat Social (1760), the Encyclopedie was leavening Gallic thought.
There was a particular proneness to accept fresh ideas; a new sense of
national consciousness was awakening.
The effect of the President's work was almost immediate. De Brosses
published it in 1756; and in 1766 Louis de Bougainville sailed from
France in command of La Boudeuse and L'Etoile on a voyage around the
world.* (* See the Voyage du Monde par la frigate du Roi La Boudeuse et
la flute L'Etoile en 1766, 1767, 1768, 1769, by Louis de Bougainville,
Paris, 1771.) A eulogy pronounced on De Brosses before the Academy of
Inscriptions by Dupuy* (* Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions 42 177.)
hardly put the case too strongly when it was said that before he died he
had the satisfaction to see in Europe men animated by his spirit, who had
gone forth, braving the risks of a long voyage, to make discoveries;
though the prophecy that centuries to come would doubtless count to his
glory the achievements of navigators has not been verified. The world is
perhaps too little inclined to accord to him who promulgates an idea the
praise readily bestowed upon those who realise it.
Bougainville discovered the Navigator Islands, re-discovered the Solomon
group, and was only just forestalled by the Englishman, Wallis, in the
discovery of Tahiti. He produced a book of travel which may be read with
scarcely less interest than the wonderful work of his contemporary, Cook.
The voyage of Nicholas Marion-Dufresne (1771) differed from the other
French expeditions of the series in that one of the ships belonged to the
commander, and part of the cost was sustained by him. He was fired by a
passion for exploration, which led him to propose that he should take out
his vessel, Le Mascurin, in company with a ship of the navy, and that a
grant should be made to him from the public funds. The French Government
acquiesced, and gave him Le Marquis de Castries. He did some exploring in
southern Tasmania, but his career was cut short in New Zealand, where, in
the Bay of Islands, he was killed and eaten by Maories in 1772.* (*
Rochon, Nouveau Voyage a la Mar du Sud, Paris 1783.) One of the objects
of the voyage was to take back to Tahiti a native woman, Aontouron, who
had been brought to Paris by Bougainville to be shown at the court of
Louis XV; but she died of smallpox en route.
Again, in 1785, the expedition commanded by the ill-fated La Perouse
sailed from France on a discovery voyage.* (* See the Voyage de la
Perouse, redige par M. L.A. Milet-Mureau, volume 1 Paris 1797.) The
appearance of his two ships, La Boussole and l'Astrolabe, in Port Jackson
only a fortnight after Governor Phillip had landed in Botany Bay to
establish the first British settlement in Australia, was an event not
less surprising to the governor than to La Perouse, who had left France
before colonisation was intended by the English Government, though he
heard of it in the course of the voyage. The French navigator remained in
the harbour from February 23 to March 10 (1788), on excellent terms with
Phillip; and then, sailing away to pursue his discoveries, "vanished
trackless into blue immensity, and only some mournful mysterious shadow
of him hovered long in all heads and hearts." His remark to Captain King,
"Mr. Cook has done so much that he has left me nothing to do but admire
his work," indicated the generous candour of his disposition. His fate
after he sailed from Sydney remained a mystery for forty years, Flinders,
on his voyage inside the Barrier Reef in 1802, kept a lookout for
wreckage that might afford a key to the problem. He wrote: "The French
navigator La Perouse, whose unfortunate situation, if in existence, was
always present to my mind, had been wrecked, as it was thought, somewhere
in the neighbourhood of New Caledonia; and if so the remnants of his
ships were likely to be brought upon this coast by the trade winds, and
might indicate the situation of the reef or island which had proved so
fatal to him. With such an indication, I was led to believe in the
possibility of finding the place; and though the hope of restoring La
Perouse or any of his companions to their country and friends could not,
after so many years, be rationally entertained, yet to gain some
knowledge of their fate would do away with the pain of suspense, and it
might not be too late to retrieve some documents of their discoveries.*
(* Flinders, Voyage 2 48.) The vigilance of Flinders to this end
indicates the fascination which the mysterious fate of the French mariner
had for seamen, until doubts were finally set at rest in 1827, when one
of the East India Company's ships, under Captain Dillon, found at
Manicolo, in the New Hebrides, traces of the wreckage of the vessels of
La Perouse. Native tradition enabled the history of the end of the
expedition to be ascertained. The French ships, on a dark and stormy
night, were both driven on the reef, and soon pounded to match-wood. A
few of the sailors got ashore, but most were drowned; and the bulk of the
remainder were lost in an unsuccessful attempt to make for civilised
regions from the coral isolation of Manicolo. A monument to the memory of
the gallant La Perouse, on the coast a few miles from Sydney, now fronts
the Pacific whose winds wafted him to his doom, and beneath whose waters
he found his grave.
The next link in the chain was furnished by the expedition commanded by
Bruni Dentrecasteaux, who, while the hurricane of the Revolution was
raging, was despatched (1791) to search for La Perouse. He made important
discoveries on his own account,* (* Voyage de Dentrecasteaux, redige par
M. de Rossel, Paris 1808; Labillardiere, Relation du Voyage a la
Recherche de la Perouse, Paris 1800.) both on the mainland of Australia
and in Tasmania; and though he found no trace of his predecessor, his own
name is honourably remembered among the eminent navigators who did
original work in Australasia. It was Dentrecasteaux's hydrographer,
Beautemps Beaupre, whose charting of part of the southern coast of
Australia was so highly praised by Flinders.
The expeditions thus enumerated were all despatched before the era of
Napoleon, and appreciation of their objects cannot therefore be
complicated by doubts as to his Machiavellian designs. Bougainville's
voyage, and that of Marion-Dufresne, were promoted under Louis XV, that
of La Perouse under Louis XVI, and Dentrecasteaux's under the
Revolutionary Assembly. Each was an expedition of discovery.
Next came the expedition commanded by Nicolas Baudin, with which we are
mainly concerned, and which was despatched under the Consulate. It will
presently be demonstrated that it did not differ in purpose from its
predecessors, and that there is nothing to show that in authorising it
Bonaparte had any other object than that professed. But before pursuing
that subject, let it be made clear that French exploring expeditions to
the South Seas were continued after the final overthrow of the Empire.
In 1817, while Napoleon was mewed up in St. Helena, and a Bourbon once
more occupied the throne of France as Louis XVIII, the ships Uranie and
Physicienne were sent out under the command of Captain Louis de
Freycinet, the cartographer of Baudin's expedition.* (* Voyage autour du
Monde, entrepris par ordre du Roi, par Louis de Freycinet, Paris 1827.)
They visited some of the scenes of former French exploits, and Freycinet
took advantage of his position on the west coast to pull down and
appropriate for the French Academy of Inscriptions the oldest memorial of
European presence in Australia. That is to say, he took the plate put up
by the Dutchman Vlaming in 1697, in place of that erected in 1616 by Dirk
Haticks on the island bearing the name of "Dirk Hartog," to commemorate
his visit in the ship Eendraght of Amsterdam.* (* Ibid 1 449.) Freycinet
had desired to take the plate when he was an officer on Le Naturaliste in
July 1801, but Captain Hamelin, the commander, would not permit it to be
disturbed. On the contrary, he set up a new post with the plate affixed
to it, and expressed the opinion that to remove an interesting memorial
that for over a century had been spared by nature and by man, would be to
commit a kind of sacrilege.* (* "Il eut pense commettre un sacrilege en
gardant a son bord cette plaque respectee pendant pres de deux siecles
par la nature et par les hommes qui pouvoient avant nous l'avoir
observee." Peron, Voyage de Decouvertes 1 195.) Freycinet was not so
scrupulous.
Again, in 1824, the Baron de Bougainville, a son of the older navigator,
and who as a junior officer had sailed with Baudin, took out the ships
Thetis and Esperance on a voyage to the South Seas, for purely
geographical purposes;* (* Journal de la Navigation autour du monde de la
fregate La Thetis et de la corvette L'Esperance, pendant les annees
1824-1826; publie par ordre du Roi. Par M. le Baron de Bougainville.) and
still later, in 1826 to 1828, during the reign of Charles X, Dumont
d'Urville, in the Astrolabe, did valuable exploratory work, especially in
the Western Pacific.* (* Voyage de la corvette L'Astrolabe, execute par
ordre du Roi, pendant les annees 1826-1829, sous le commandement de M. J.
Dumont D'Urville, Paris 1830.)
The whole of these expeditions, with the partial exception of that of
Marion-Dufresne, were conducted in ships of the French navy, commanded by
French officers, supported by French funds, and their official records
were published at the expense of the French Government. A certain unity
of purpose characterised them; and that purpose was as purely and truly
directed to extend man's knowledge of the habitable earth as was that of
any expedition that ever sailed under any flag.
To attempt, therefore, to isolate Baudin's expedition from the series to
which it rightly belongs, simply because it was undertaken while
Bonaparte was at the head of the State, is to convey a false idea of it.
If there were any evidence to show that it differed from the others in
its aims, it would be quite proper to make it stand alone. But there is
not.
Nor must it be supposed that this particular enterprise originated with
the First Consul. It was not a scheme generated in his teeming brain,
like the strategy of a campaign, or a masterstroke of diplomacy. It was
placed before him for approval in the shape of a proposition from the
Institute of France, a scientific body, concerned not with political
machinations, but with the advancement of knowledge. The Institute
considered that there was useful work to be done by a new expedition of
discovery, and believed it to be its duty to submit a plan to the
Government. We are so informed by Peron, and there is the best of reasons
for believing him.* (* "L'honneur national et le progres des sciences
parmi nous se reunissoient donc pour reclamer une expedition de
decouvertes aux Terres Australes, et l'Institut de France crut devoir la
proposer au gouvernement." Peron, Voyage de Decouvertes 1 4.) The history
of the voyage was published after Napoleon had become Emperor, under his
sanction, at the Imperial Press. If his had been the originating mind, it
is quite certain that credit for the idea would not have been claimed for
others. On the contrary, we should probably have had an adulatory
paragraph from Peron's pen about the beneficence of the Imperial will as
exercised in the cause of science.
Quite apart from Peron's statement, however, there are three official
declarations to the like effect. First there is the announcement in the
Moniteur* (* 23rd Floreal, Revolutionary Year 8; "L'Institut national a
demande au premier consul, et a obtenu.) that it was the Institute which
requested Bonaparte to sanction the expedition. Secondly, when
Vice-Admiral Rosily reported to the Minister of Marine on Freycinet's
charts in 1813,* (* Moniteur, January 15, 1813.) he commenced by
observing that the expedition "had for its object the completion of the
knowledge of the coasts of New Holland which were not hitherto entirely
known." Thirdly, Henri de Freycinet, writing in 1808,* (* Ibid July 2,
1808.) said that it was the high interest stimulated by the voyages of La
Perouse and Dentrecasteaux that made the Institute eagerly desirous of a
new enterprise devoted to the reconnaissance of Australia. The last two
statements were, it will be observed, published by Napoleon's official
organ when the Empire was at its height.
There is no positive evidence as to what members of the Institute were
chiefly instrumental in formulating the proposal for Napoleon's
consideration. We do not know whether leading members explained their
scheme to him orally, or laid before him a written statement. If there
was a plan in manuscript, the text of it has never been published.* (*
"Probably it was suppressed or destroyed," says Dr. Holland Rose (Life of
Napoleon 1 379). But why should it have been? There is no reason to
suppose that it contained anything which it was to anybody's interest to
destroy or suppress. Indeed, it is by no means clear that there was such
a document. It is quite likely that the scheme of the Institute was
explained verbally to the First Consul. Why manufacture mysteries?) There
is only one document relating to the expedition in the collected
correspondence of Napoleon;* (* Edition of 1861.) and that concerned an
incident to which reference will be made in the next chapter. The reason
for the absence of letters concerning the matter among Napoleon's papers
is presumably that he left the carrying out of the project to the
Institute; for he was not wont to restrain his directing hand in affairs
in which he was personally concerned.
But there were two leading members of the Institute who had already
concerned themselves with Australasian discovery, and who may safely be
assumed to have taken the initiative in this matter. They were
Bougainville the explorer, who had commanded the expedition of 1766 to
1771, and Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu, who had been Minister of
Marine in 1790, and had written a book on the Decouvertes des Francais
dans le sud-est de la Nouvelle Guinee (Paris, 1790), in which he
maintained the prior claims of the French navigators Bougainville and
Surville to discoveries to which later English explorers had in ignorance
given fresh names. Fleurieu had also intended to write the history of the
voyages of La Perouse, but was prevented by pressure of official and
other occupations, and handed the work over to Milet-Mureau.* (* Voyage
de la Perouse, Preface 1 page 3.) He stood high in the esteem of
Napoleon, was a counsellor of State during the Consulate, became
intendant-general of the Emperor's household, governor of the palace of
Versailles, senator, and comte. Both Fleurieu and Bougainville had
abundant opportunities for explaining the utility of a fresh voyage of
exploration to Napoleon.
It was, too, quite natural that these men should desire to promote a new
French voyage of discovery. None knew better what might be hoped to be
achieved. We are fairly safe in assuming that they moved the Institute to
submit a proposition to the First Consul; and it is not improbable that
they personally interviewed him on the subject.
Bonaparte, at any rate, received the proposal "with interest," and we
learn from Peron* (* Voyage de Decouvertes 1 4.) that he definitely
authorised the expedition at the very time when his army of reserve was
about to move from Geneva to cross the Alps in that astonishing campaign
which conduced, by swift, toilsome, and surprising manoeuvres, to the
crushing victory of Marengo. The plan of the Institute was therefore
ratified in May 1800. The Austrians at that time were holding French arms
severely in check in Savoy and northern Italy. Suchet, Massena, Oudinot,
and Soult were, with fluctuating fortunes but always with stubborn
valour, clinging desperately to their positions or yielding ground to
superior strength, awaiting with confidence the hour when the supreme
master would strike the shattering blow that, while relieving the
pressure on them, would completely change the aspect of the war. It was
while pondering his masterstroke, and deliberating on the choice of the
path across the Alps that was to lead to it, that Bonaparte gave his
approval; while elaborating a scheme to overwhelm the armies of Austria
in an abyss of carnage, that he expressed the wish that, as the
expedition would come in contact with ignorant savages, care should be
taken to make it appear that the French met them as "friends and
benefactors."
It may here be parenthetically remarked that it does not make us think
more favourably of Freycinet that when, in 1824, he issued a new edition
of the Voyage de Decouvertes, he omitted all Peron's references to
Napoleon's interest in the expedition, and his direction that when
savages were met the French should appear among them "comme des amis et
des bienfaiteurs."* (* Peron, 1 10.) While Peron tells us that this
laudable wish was personally expressed by the First Consul, Freycinet* (*
1 74, in the 1824 edition.) altered the phrase to "le gouvernement
voulut," etc. He had absolutely no justification for doing so. The reader
of the second edition of the book had a right to expect that he was in
possession of the original text, save for the correction of incidental
errors. But in 1824 Napoleon was dead, a Bourbon reigned in France, and
Freycinet was the servant of the monarchy to which he owed the command of
the expedition of 1817. The suppression of Napoleon's name and the record
of his actions from Peron's text, was a puerile piece of servility.
There is nothing surprising in Bonaparte's cordial approval of the
enterprise. One has only to study the volumes in which M. Frederic Masson
has collected the papers and memoranda relating to Napoleon's youth and
early manhood to realise how intensely keen was his interest in geography
and travel. In one of those interesting works is a document occupying
eight printed pages, in which Napoleon had summarised a geographical
textbook, with a view to the more perfect mastery of its contents.* (*
See Masson's Napoleon Inconnu; Papiers Inedits; Paris 1895 volume 2 page
44. The text-book was that of Lacroix.) It is curious to note how little
the young scholar was able to ascertain about Australasia from the volume
from which he learnt the elements of that science for which, with his
genius for strategy and tactics, he must have had an instinctive taste.
"La Nouvelle Guinee, la Carpentarie, la Nouvelle Hollande," etc., figure
in his notes as the countries forming the principal part of the southern
hemisphere now grouped under the denomination of Australasia; "la
Carpentarie" thus signalised as a separated land being simply the
northern region of Australia proper, the farthest limit of which is Cape
York.* (* Mallet's Description de l'Univers (Frankfort 1686) mentions
"Carpenterie" as being near the "Terre des Papous," and as discovered by
the Dutch captain, Carpenter.)
It is not a little interesting, that when, in April 1800, twenty
sculptors were commissioned to execute as many busts of great men to
adorn the Galerie des Consuls, the only Englishmen among the honoured
score were Marlborough and Dampier.* (* Aulard, Paris sous le Consulat 1
267.) It is curious to find the adventurous ex-buccaneer in such noble
company as that of Cicero, Cato, Caesar, Demosthenes, Frederick the
Great, and George Washington, but the fact that he was among the selected
heroes may be taken as another evidence of Bonaparte's interest in the
men who helped to find out what the world was like. Perhaps if somebody
had seen him reading Dampier's Voyages, as he read Cook's on the way to
Egypt, that fact would have been instanced as another proof, not of his
fondness for extremely fascinating literature, but of the nourishment of
a secret passion to seize the coasts which Dampier explored.
Napoleon had been a good and a diligent student. The fascinating but
hateful characteristics of his later career, when he was the Emperor with
a heart petrified and corroded by ambition, the conqueror ever greedy of
fresh conquest, the scourge of nations and the tyrant of kings, too often
make one overlook the liberal instincts of his earlier years. His passion
for knowledge was profound, and he was the pronounced friend of every
genuine man of science, of every movement having for its object the
acquisition and diffusion of fresh enlightenment. It is an English
writer* (* Merz, History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century 1
152 to 154.) who says of him that he was, "amongst the great heroes and
statesmen of his age, the first and foremost if not the only one, who
seemed thoroughly to realise the part which science was destined to play
in the immediate future"; and the same author adds that "some of the
glory of Laplace and Cuvier falls upon Napoleon." He took pleasure in the
company and conversation of men of science; and never more so than during
the period of the Consulate. Thibaudeau's memoirs show him dining one
night with Laplace, Monge, and Berthollet; and the English translator of
that delightful book* (* Dr. Fortescue, page 273. Compare also Lord
Rosebery, Napoleon, the Last Phase page 234: "In the first period of his
Consulate he was an almost ideal ruler. He was firm, sagacious,
far-seeing, energetic, just.") emphasises the contrast between the "just
and noble sanity of the First Consul of 1802 and the delirium of the
Emperor of 1812." The failure to keep that difference in mind--to
recognise that the Bonaparte of the early Consulate was capable of
exalted ideals for the general well-being that were foreign to the
Napoleon of ten years later--is fruitful of mistakes in interpreting his
activities. On April 8 he attended a seance of the Institute, and was
there instrumental in reconciling several persons who had become
estranged through events which occurred during the Revolution.* (*
Aulard, Paris sous le Consulat, 1 252.) He was therefore on good terms
with this learned body, and was himself a member of that division of it
which was devoted to the physical and mathematical sciences.* (*
Thibaudeau (English edition) page 112.)
It was quite natural, then, that when the national representatives of
scientific thought in France approached him with a proposition that was
calculated to make his era illustrious by a grand voyage of exploration
which should complete man's knowledge of the great continents, the First
Consul gave a ready consent.
The task of preparing instructions for the voyage was entrusted to a
Committee of the Institute, consisting of Fleurieu, Bougainville,
Laplace, Lacepede, Cuvier, Jussieu, Lelievre, Langles, and Camus; whilst
Degerando wrote a special memorandum upon the methods to be followed in
the observation of savage peoples--the latter probably in consequence of
the First Consul's particular direction on this subject. It was an
admirably chosen body for formulating a programme of scientific research.
A great astronomer, two eminent biologists, a famous botanist, a
practical navigator, a geographer, all men of distinction among European
savants, and two of them, Laplace and Cuvier, among the greatest men of
science of modern times, were scholars who knew what might be expected to
be gained for knowledge, and where and how the most fruitful results
might be obtained.
In their instructions, the committee directed attention to the south
coast of Tasmania--by that time known to be an island, since the
discoveries of Bass and Flinders, and their circumnavigation, had been
the subject of much comment in Europe--as offering a good field for
geographical research. They indicated the advisableness of exploring the
eastern coast of the island, of traversing Bass Strait with a view to a
more complete examination than appeared to the Institute to have been
made up to that time, and of pursuing the southern coasts of Australia as
far as the western point of Dentrecasteaux's investigations, especially
with the object of searching that part of the land "where there is
supposed to be a strait communicating with the Gulf of Carpentaria, and
which, consequently, would divide New Holland into two large and almost
equal islands." So much accomplished, the expedition was to pay
particular attention to the coasts westward of the Swan River, since the
old navigators who had determined their contour had necessarily had to
work with imperfect instruments. The vessels were then to make a fuller
exploration of the western and northern shores than had hitherto been
achieved, to attack the south-west of Papua (New Guinea), and to
investigate the Gulf of Carpentaria. No instructions seem to have been
given relative to a further examination of the eastern coasts of the
continent. Cook's work there was evidently thought to be sufficient,
though Flinders found several
fresh and important harbours. The programme, as Peron pointed out,
involved the exploration in detail of several thousands of miles of
coasts hitherto quite unknown or imperfectly known, and its proper
performance was calculated to accomplish highly important work in
perfecting a knowledge of the geography of the southern hemisphere.
The French Government fitted out the expedition in a lavish and elaborate
fashion.* (* "Les savans ont vu avec le plus grand interet les soins que
le gouvernement a pris pour rendre ce voyage utile a l'histoire naturelle
et a la connaissance des moeurs des sauvages." Moniteur, 22nd Fructidor.)
Funds were not stinted, and the commander was given unlimited credit to
obtain anything that he required at any port of call. The best scientific
instruments were procured, and the stores of the great naval depot of
Havre were thrown open for the equipment of the ships with every
necessity and comfort for a long voyage. Luxuries were not spared; "in a
word," says Peron, "the Government had ordered that nothing whatever
should be omitted that could assure the preservation of health, promote
the work of the staff, and guarantee the independence of the expedition."
Two vessels lying in the port of Havre were selected. The principal one,
which was named Le Geographe, was a corvette of 30 guns, 450 tons,
drawing fifteen or sixteen feet of water, a fast sailer, but, in Peron's
opinion, not so good a boat for the purpose as her consort. Flinders
described her as a "heavy-looking ship." The second vessel, named Le
Naturaliste, was a strong, lumbering store-ship, very slow, but solid.
She was a "grosse gabare," as one French writer described her.* (* Dr.
Holland Rose (Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era page 139) heightens the
effect of his argument by stating that Bonaparte "sent out men-of-war to
survey the south coast of Australia for a settlement." It may be true
that, strictly speaking, the ships were "men-of-war," inasmuch as they
were ships of the navy. But the reader would hardly derive the
impression, from the words quoted, that they were vessels utterly
unwarlike in equipment, manning, and command. As will presently be seen,
they were very soon loaded up with scientific specimens. Nor is there any
warrant for the statement that the expedition was instructed to "survey
the south coast of Australia for a settlement." There was nothing about
settlement in the instructions, which were not, as the passage would lead
the reader to infer, confined to the south coast.)
The staff was selected with great care, special examinations being
prescribed for the younger naval officers. A large company of artists,
men of science, and gardeners accompanied the expedition for the
collection of specimens, the making of charts and drawings, and the
systematic observation of phenomena. There were two astronomers, two
hydrographers, three botanists, five zoologists, two mineralogists, five
artists, and five gardeners. Probably no exploring expedition to the
South Seas before this time had set out with such a large equipment of
selected, talented men for scientific and artistic work. The whole
staff--nautical, scientific, and artistic--on the two ships consisted of
sixty-one persons, of whom only twenty-nine returned to France after
sharing the fatigues and distress of the whole voyage. Seven died, twenty
had to be put ashore on account of serious illness, and five left the
expedition for other causes.
The great German traveller and savant, Alexander von Humboldt, was in
Paris while preparations were being made for the despatch of the
expedition; and, being at that time desirous of pursuing scientific
investigations in distant regions, he obtained permission to embark, with
the instruments he had collected, in one of Baudin's vessels. He
confessed, however, that he had "but little confidence in the personal
character of Captain Baudin," chiefly on account of the dissatisfaction
he had given to the Court of Vienna in regard to a previous voyage.* (*
Humboldt's Personal Narrative of Travels, translated by H.M. Williams,
London 1814 volume 1 pages 6 to 8.) Humboldt's testimony is interesting,
inasmuch as, if it be reliable--and, as he was in close touch with
leading French men of science, there is no reason to disbelieve him--the
original intention was to make the voyage more extensive in scope, and
different in the route followed, than was afterwards determined. "The
first plan," he wrote, "was great, bold, and worthy of being executed by
a more enlightened commander. The purpose of the expedition was to visit
the Spanish possessions of South America, from the mouth of the River
Plata to the kingdom of Quito and the isthmus of Panama. After traversing
the archipelago of the great ocean, and exploring the coasts of New
Holland from Van Diemen's Land to that of Nuyts, both vessels were to
stop at Madagascar, and return by the Cape of Good Hope." Concerning the
reasons why he was not ultimately taken, Humboldt was not accurately
informed. "The war which broke out in Germany and Italy," he wrote,
"determined the French Government to withdraw the funds granted for their
voyage of discovery, and adjourn it to an indefinite period." Such was
not the case. The funds were not withdrawn; the expedition was not
adjourned. But Humboldt was a German, and the Institute very naturally
desired that French savants should do the work which was to be sustained
by French funds. There would probably be the less inclination to employ
Humboldt, as he reserved to himself "the liberty of leaving Captain
Baudin whenever I thought proper." He believed himself to be "cruelly
deceived in my hopes, seeing the plans which I had been forming during
many years of my life overthrown in a single day." But in view of his
confessed dislike of the commander, it does not seem that, on this ground
alone, it would have been good policy to enrol him as a member of the
staff, when there were French men of science eager for appointment.
The chief naturalist and future historian of the expedition, Francois
Peron, was twenty-five years of age when he was commissioned to join Le
Geographe. Born at Cerilly (Allier) in 1775, he was left fatherless at an
early age; but he was a bright, promising scholar, and the cure of his
native place took him into his house with the object of educating him for
the priesthood. But "seduced by the principles of liberty which served as
pretext for the Revolution, inflamed by patriotism, his spirit exalted by
his reading of ancient history," as a biographer, Deleuze, wrote, he left
the peaceful home of the village priest, and shouldered a musket under
the tricolour. He fought in the army of the Rhine, and in an engagement
against the Prussians at Kaiserslautern, was wounded and taken prisoner.
Always a student, he spent the little money that he had on the purchase
of books, which he devoted all his time to reading. He was exchanged in
1794, and returned to France.
His short soldiering career had cost him his right eye; but this
deprivation really determined the vocation for which his genius
especially fitted him. The Minister of the Interior gave him admission to
the school of medicine at Paris, where, in addition to pursuing the
prescribed course, he applied himself with enthusiasm to the study of
biology* (* The word "biology" was not used till Lamarck employed it in
1801 to cover all the sciences concerned with living matter; but we are
so accustomed to it nowadays, that it is the most convenient word to use
to describe the group of studies to which Peron applied himself.) and
comparative anatomy at the Museum. He was industrious, keen, methodical,
and, above all, possessed of that valuable quality of imagination which,
discreetly harnessed to the use of the scientific intellect, enables a
student to see through his facts, and to read their vital meaning. The
expedition to the South Seas had already been fitted out, and Baudin's
ships were lying at Havre awaiting sailing orders from the Minister of
Marine, when Peron sought employment as an additional biologist. The
staff was by that time complete; but Peron addressed himself to Jussieu,
pressing his request with such ardour, and explaining his well-considered
plans with such clearness, that the eminent botanist was unable to listen
to him "sans etonnement et sans emotion."
Peron was very anxious to travel, not only for the sake of the scientific
work which he might do, but also to find relief for his feelings,
depressed by the disappointment of a love affair. Mademoiselle was
unkind--because the lover was poor, his biographer says; but we must not
forget that he was also one-eyed. Many ladies prefer a man with two.
Jussieu conferred with Lacepede the biologist, and the two agreed that it
would be advantageous to permit this enthusiastic young student to make
the voyage. Peron was encouraged to write a paper to be read before the
Institute, expounding his views. He did so, taking as his principal theme
the desirableness of having with the expedition a naturalist especially
charged with researches in anthropology. The Institute was convinced; the
Minister of Marine was moved; Peron was appointed. He consulted with
Cuvier, Lacepede, and Degerando as to a programme of work, procured the
necessary apparatus, went to Cerilly to embrace his sisters and receive
his mother's benediction, and joined Le Geographe just before she
sailed.* (* The facts concerning Peron's early career are taken from
Deleuze's memoir, 1811, and that of Maurice Girard, 1857.)
The command of the expedition was entrusted to Captain Nicolas Baudin. He
was fifty years of age when he received this commission, on the
nomination of the Institute. In his youth he had been engaged in the
French mercantile marine. In later years he had commanded two
expeditions, despatched under the Austrian flag, for botanical purposes.
From the last of these he returned in 1797, when, his country being at
war with Austria, he presented the complete collection of animals and
plants obtained to the French nation.* (* The Moniteur, 25th Prairial
(June 13), 1797.) This timely act won him the friendship of Jussieu, and
it was largely through his influence that "Citoyen" Baudin was chosen to
command the expedition to the Terres Australes.* (* The Moniteur, 23rd
Floreal (May 13), 1800.) He had had no training in the Navy, though if,
as some suppose, the expedition had a secret aggressive mission, we may
reasonably conjecture that it would have been placed under the command of
a naval officer with some amount of fighting experience.
That Baudin did not become popular with the staff under his command is
apparent from the studious omission of his name from the volumes of Peron
and Freycinet, and from their resentful references to "notre chef." They
wrote not a single commendatory word about him throughout the book, and
they expressed no syllable of regret when he died in the course of the
voyage.
Sometimes we may judge of a man's reputation among his contemporaries by
an anecdote, even when we doubt its truth; for men do not usually tell
stories that disparage the capacity of those whom they respect. An
amusing if venomous story about Baudin was told by the author of a
narrative of one of the botanical voyages.* (* See the Naval Chronicle
volume 14 page 103. The writer referred to was Bory de Saint-Vincent, who
wrote the Voyage dans les quatre principales iles des mers d'Afrique,
Paris 1804.) He related, on the alleged authority of an officer, that,
being in want of a magnetic needle to replace one belonging to a compass
which had been injured, he applied to the commodore, who had several in a
drawer in his cabin. Baudin found one, but as it was somewhat rusty, the
officer feared that the magnetic properties of the steel would be
impaired. Baudin expressed his regret, and said: "Everything has been
furnished by the Government in the most niggardly fashion; if they had
followed my advice we should have been provided with silver needles
instead of steel ones!"
Whether or not we believe that a naval commander could be so ignorant of
magnetism, it is certain that Baudin did not enforce the laws of health
on his ships. Sufficient has been said in the first chapter to show so
much. The Consular Government gave unlimited scope for the proper
provisioning of the vessels, and yet we find officers and men in a
wretched condition, the water insufficient, and the food supplies in
utter decay, before the expedition reached Port Jackson. It must be
added, however--even out of its proper place, lest an unduly harsh
impression of Baudin's character should be conveyed--that he seems to
have made an excellent impression upon the English in Sydney. Governor
King treated him as a friend; and the letter of farewell that he wrote on
his departure was such a delicate specimen of grace and courtesy, that
one would feel that only a gentleman could have written it, were there
not too many instances to show that elegant manners and language towards
strangers are not incompatible with the rough and inconsiderate treatment
of subordinates.