Baudin was on his ship, which was anchored a little way off the shore, when the "hurrahs" of the assertive seventeen directed his attention to Robbins' solemn proceedings. In a private letter to King he described what had happened as a "childish ceremony," which had been made more ridiculous "from the manner in which the flag was placed, the head being downwards, and the attitude not very majestic. Having occasion to go on shore that day, I saw for myself what I am telling you. I thought at first it might have been a flag which had been used to strain water and then hung out to dry; but seeing an armed man walking about, I was informed of the ceremony which had taken place that morning."* (* Baudin to King, Historical Records 5 829.) He asserted that Petit, one of his artists, had made an amusing caricature of the ceremony, but that he, Baudin, had torn it up, and directed that it was not to be repeated.

The tone of Baudin's letters betrayed more annoyance than his language actually expressed; but assuming that his professions were true, it must be admitted that he had reason to feel offended. He had left Sydney on excellent terms with the governor, who had not only wished well to his undertaking, but had assisted in its prosecution by enabling the Casuarina to be purchased. He now found himself pursued by a youthful and exuberant officer, presented with a letter which suggested intentions that he had explicitly disavowed, and the British flag was virtually flapped in his face in a somewhat unmannerly fashion. King's letter to him explained the rumour which had led to the despatch of the Cumberland, and contained the following passage: "You will easily imagine that if any information of that kind had reached me before your departure, I should have requested an explanation; but as I knew nothing of it, and at present totally disbelieving anything of the kind ever being thought of, I consider it but proper to give you this information."

Baudin wrote two letters in reply, one officially, and the second, by far the more interesting document, a personal and friendly epistle. In the official answer he said: "The story you have heard, of which I suspect Mr. Kemp, captain in the New South Wales corps, to be the author, is without foundation, nor do I believe that the officers and naturalists who are on board can have given cause for it by their conversation. But in any case you may rest well assured that if the French Government had ordered me to remain some days either in the north or south of Van Diemen's Land, discovered by Abel Tasman, I would have stopped there without keeping my intention secret from you." Baudin's additional statement that, prior to the flag incident, he had taken care to place in four prominent parts of the island "proofs sufficient to show the priority of our visit," must, however, have brought a smile to King's lips, and certainly makes one wonder what Baudin meant by "priority"; since King Island had previously been visited by Flinders, had been fully charted, and was the frequent resort of sealers. As a matter of fact, the Snow-Harrington, which had succoured Boullanger and his boat crew of abandoned Frenchmen in the previous March, had, after that fortunate meeting, stayed at the island ten weeks, when there were killed the enormous number of six hundred sea-elephants and four thousand three hundred seals.* (* Backhouse Walker, Early Tasmania page 21.) Besides, Baudin assured King that "I intend" that the island "shall continue to bear your name," forgetful that it would not have had a name already if his own visit had been "prior" to others.

The second, unofficial, letter which Baudin wrote to the governor repeated his positive assurances that the suspicions concerning his objects were without foundation, but on account of the personal regard which he entertained for King, he determined to tell him frankly his opinion regarding the forming of European settlements and the dispossessing of native peoples. The view expressed by him bears the impress of the "ideas of '89," ideas which laid stress on the rights of man and human equality, and professed for the backward races a special fraternal tenderness. "To my way of thinking," said the commodore, "I have never been able to conceive that there was any justice or equity on the part of Europeans, in seizing, in the name of their governments, a land for the first time, when it is inhabited by men who have not always deserved the title of savages, or cannibals, which has been given to them, while they were but children of nature, and just as little savages as are actually your Scotch Highlanders* (* Had Baudin been reading about the Sage of Lichfield? "Well, sir, God made Scotland." "Certainly," replied Dr. Johnson, "but we must always remember that he made it for Scotchmen; and comparisons are odious, Mr. Strahan, but God made Hell." Caledonian Societies, of which there are many in various parts of the world, will observe with gratitude Baudin's concession that Highlanders did not eat their fellowmen.) or our peasants of Brittany, who, if they do not eat their fellowmen, are nevertheless just as objectionable. From this it appears to me that it would be infinitely more glorious for your nation, as for mine, to mould for society the inhabitants of the respective countries over whom they have rights, instead of wishing to dispossess those who are so far removed by immediately seizing the soil which they own and which has given them birth. These remarks are no doubt impolitic, but at least reasonable from the facts; and had this principle been generally adopted you would not have been obliged to form a colony by means of men branded by the law, and who have become criminals through the fault of the Government which has neglected and abandoned them to themselves. It follows, therefore, that not only have you to reproach yourselves with an injustice in seizing their lands, but also in transporting on a soil where the crimes and the diseases of Europeans were unknown, all that could retard the progress of civilisation, but which has served as a pretext to your Government. I have no knowledge of the claims which the French Government may have upon Van Diemen's Land, nor of its designs; but I think that its title will not be any better grounded than yours."

After this taste of Baudin's reflections, it is really a pity that we possess so little from his pen. Had he lived to be the historian of the expedition, his work would have been very different in character from that of Peron; though it is hardly likely that an elaboration of the views expressed in the personal letter to King would have been favoured with the imprint "de l'Imprimerie Imperiale." Peron's anthropological studies among Australian aboriginals led him to conclusions totally at variance with the nebulous "state of nature" theories of the time, which pictured the civilised being as a degenerate from man unspoiled by law, government, and convention. The tests and measurements of blacks which he made, and compared with those of French and English people, showed him that even physically the native was an inferior animal; his observations of ways of life in the wild Bush taught him that organised society, with all its restraints, was preferable to the supposed freedom of savagery; and he deduced the philosophical conclusion that the "state of nature" was in truth a state of subjection to pitiless forces, only endurable by beings who felt not the bondage because they knew of no more ennobled condition.* (* A more distinguished man was cured of his early Rousseauism by an acquaintance with peoples far higher in the scale of advancement than Australian aboriginals. "Up to sixteen years of age," said Napoleon in a scrap of conversation recorded by Roederer, "I would have fought for Rousseau against all the friends of Voltaire. Now it is the contrary. I have been especially disgusted with Rousseau since I have seen the East. Savage man is a dog.") Baudin carried away from his visits to the abodes of untutored races no truer notion than came from his own unsubstantiated sentiments, nourished by no contact with facts, but imbibed uncritically from the rhetorical rhapsodists of Rousseau's school. Crabbe summed them up in half a dozen lines:

"Tis the savage state Is only good, and ours sophisticate! See! the free creatures in their woods and plains, Where without laws each happy monarch reigns, King of himself—while we a number dread, By slaves commanded and by dunces led."

Peron spoke of savage peoples, not with less sympathy but with a sympathy grounded on knowledge; and he wasted no words about the "injustice" of occupying lands which the aboriginal only used in the sense that lands are "used" by rabbits and dingoes. Peron's appreciation of well-observed facts gave him some political insight in the philosophical sense, and he comprehended the development of which the country was capable. Could Baudin's shade visit to-day the shores that he traversed more than a century ago, he would surely acknowledge that orchards of ripening fruit, miles of golden grain, millions of white fleeces, the cattle of a thousand hills, great cities throbbing with immense energies, and a commerce of ever augmenting vastness, ministering to the happiness of free and prosperous populations, are, in the large ledger of humanity, an abundant compensation for the disappearance of the few companies of naked savages whom, when civilisation once invaded their ancestral haunts, neither the agencies of government nor philanthropy could save from the processes of decay.

The account given by Peron of the flag-raising incident was quite accurate, but he presented his readers with a wholly untrue version of Governor King's letter to Baudin. With the document before us, we must doubt whether Peron ever saw it. The passage printed by him in quotation marks bears hardly a resemblance to the courteous terms of the actual letter, which did not contain any such threat as that "all these countries form an integral part of the British Empire," and "it will be my duty to oppose by every means in my power the execution of the design you are supposed to have in view." It seems probable that Peron heard the letter read, or its contents summarised, but, in writing, mixed up the substance of it with blustering language which may have been used by Acting-Lieutenant Robbins.* (* Backhouse Walker also held this view. Early Tasmania page 18.) At all events, King used no word of menace, while conveying plainly that the establishment of a French settlement would require "explanation."

There is no good reason for disbelieving Baudin's disclaimer. It was plain and candid; and there was nothing in his actions while he was in Australian waters which belied his words. The baseless character of the gossip promulgated by Lieutenant-Colonel Paterson, and the alleged exhibition of the map indicating the exact spot where the French intended to settle in Frederick Henry Bay, were disposed of by the fact that Baudin's ships went nowhere near that place after leaving Sydney. If any French officer did show Paterson a chart, he must have been amusing himself by playing on the suspicions of the Englishman, who was probably "fishing" for information. Baudin's conduct, and that of his officers, never suggested that search for a site for settlement was part of the mission of the expedition; and, in the face of the commodore's emphatic denials, positive evidence, or a strong chain of facts to the contrary, would have to be forthcoming before such a story could be entertained. Suspicions were natural enough in face of the strained feelings, the wars, the plots and counter-plots of diplomacy, Napoleon's menaced invasion of England, and all the other factors that made for racial animosity at the beginning of the nineteenth century; but viewing the circumstances in the perspective made by the lapse of a hundred years, cool judgment must dismiss the jealous alarms of 1802 as being unfounded.

Yet a patriotic Frenchman, as Peron was, could not witness this remarkable growth of a new offshoot of British power in the South Seas without regret and misgiving. "Doubtless," he commented on Robbins' action, "that ceremony will appear silly to people who know little about English polity; but for the statesman such formalities assume a much more serious and important character. By these public and repeated declarations England seems every day to fortify her pretensions, to establish her rights, in a positive manner, and to devise pretexts to repulse, even by force of arms, all other peoples who may wish to form settlements in these distant countries." We shall not honour Peron the less because he expressed an opinion so natural to a man solicitous for his country's prestige.

It has been stated by one or two writers that the action of Robbins put an end to the cordial relations which had previously existed between him and the French. But that is an error. They had cause to be offended, but the young man was treated with indulgence. Peron records that both Grimes and Robbins visited the tents of the French after the flag incident, and shared their frugal dinner; and Baudin informed King that, the Cumberland having lost an anchor, his forge was at work for a whole day supplying the wants of the British schooner—a service akin to heaping coals of fire on the head of the zealous acting-lieutenant. At the same time, other members of the French expedition experienced very kind treatment from British fishermen. Faure, one of the scientific staff, was sent in a small boat to complete a chart of the island. A violent storm compelled him to go ashore on the western end, where he and his sailors were for three days most hospitably entertained by sealers, who, on their departure, forced upon them some of their finest furs as presents. "How is it," comments Peron, "that such touching hospitality, of which voyages offer so many examples, is nearly always exercised by men whose poverty and roughness of character seem to impose such an obligation least upon them. It seems that misfortune, rather than philosophy and brilliant education, develops in mankind that noble and disinterested virtue which induces us to minister to the woes of others."

Le Naturaliste sailed for Europe from King Island on December 8, carrying with her all the plants and natural history specimens collected up to date, as well as the charts. The collections were, as King wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, "immense."* (* Historical Records 4 844.) Le Geographe and the Casuarina left on December 27, and sailed direct for Kangaroo Island, to resume in that neighbourhood the charting which Baudin had abandoned in the previous year. They did not, as the logs show, make any attempt to examine Port Phillip. Robbins and his seventeen guardians of British rights on the Cumberland remained for some time longer making a thorough examination; after which they sailed for Port Phillip, and Grimes made the first complete survey of that great sheet of water.

It is only necessary to add that King reported to the Admiralty his approval of Robbins' action, and that to "make the French commander acquainted with my intention of settling Van Diemen's Land was all I sought by this voyage." But it is obvious from a letter which he wrote to Banks, after Baudin's death, and after his soul had been moved to righteous wrath by the iniquitous treatment of Flinders—whom he so warmly admired and so loyally aided—that suspicion, once implanted in King's mind, was not eradicated by explicit disavowals. Had Baudin lived another year, he said, "I think it very possible that the commodore would most likely have visited the colony for the purpose of annihilating the settlement." But surely here, if ever, the lines were applicable:

"In the night imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear!"

Baudin, after his remarkable exploits in 1800 to 1804, was the last man whom Napoleon would have chosen to try to annihilate a British settlement anywhere. Rather, in such an unlikely event, would his own crew have been in danger of annihilation from his methods.

CHAPTER 10. RETURN OF THE EXPEDITION.

Le Geographe sails for Kangaroo Island. Exploration of the two gulfs in the Casuarina by Freycinet. Baudin's erratic behaviour. Port Lincoln. Peron among the giants. A painful excursion. Second visit to Timor. Abandonment of north coast exploration. Baudin resolves to return home. Voyage to Mauritius. Death of Baudin. Treatment of him by Peron and Freycinet. Return of Le Geographe. Depression of the staff and crew.

Le Geographe sighted Kangaroo Island on January 2, and anchored on the 6th in Nepean Bay on the eastern side. The Casuarina joined her consort on the following day.

Freycinet, who was in command of the smaller vessel, was instructed to make a complete survey of the two gulfs named by the French after Bonaparte and Josephine, and by Flinders, their discoverer, after Lord Spencer and Lord St. Vincent, who were First Lords of the Admiralty when his own expedition was authorised and when it sailed from England.

The Casuarina was provisioned for twenty-six days for this task, and Freycinet took with him Boullanger, one of the hydrographers, who prepared the charts under his supervision. No part of the French work was better done than was the charting of the two gulfs and Kangaroo Island, and, as previously indicated, its quality very naturally aroused the suspicion that the improvement owed something to the charts of Flinders. It has been shown, however, that this was not the case. Of Boullanger's training and qualifications nothing can be said, except that it may be presumed that the Committee of the Institute of France which selected him, comprising two such experts as Bougainville and Fleurieu, must have been satisfied of his attainments. Much of his work was certainly done under severe trials and difficulties, but it is chiefly significant that the improvement in the charting synchronises with the presence in command of Freycinet; and allusion may again be made to the beautiful work done by this officer when he commanded the Uranie and the Physicienne a few years later, as showing his deep interest and practical skill in employment of this class.

There can be no doubt that the work would have been better done throughout had Captain Baudin been a more sympathetic commander. To what extent the deficiencies of the French charts of the remainder of the Terre Napoleon coasts are attributable to his failure to appreciate the requirements of his scientific staff, can be conjectured; but the peremptory manner in which he allotted so many days and no more for the survey of the gulfs, and then sailed off leaving the Casuarina to shift for herself, reveals an extraordinary temper in a commander on such service, as well as a fatuous disregard of the many hindrances that made rigid time conditions difficult to observe.

Flinders had occupied forty days in his exploration of the two gulfs—from February 21 to April 1, 1802. Freycinet occupied only twenty-one days in traversing precisely the same extent of coast-line—from January 11 to February 1, 1803. Flinders had settled the question as to whether there was a passage through the continent to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and Freycinet and Baudin were by this time aware that no important discovery of this character was to be expected. But the navigation was perilous, the risks were unknown, and Freycinet should have been able to pursue his task unhampered by the fear that if circumstances compelled him to over-stay his time for a day or two, he would be abandoned in a small vessel without provisions for more than his narrowly prescribed period. "But the character of our chief was known." "Quite sure of being pitilessly abandoned in case of delay," Freycinet made haste to return to Nepean Bay at the end of the month. But when he reached the anchorage he found that Baudin had already sailed away. "The abandonment of our companions in the midst of these vast gulfs, where so many perils might be encountered, had been a subject of consternation on board Le Geographe," Peron records. It really was unaccountable behaviour; even worse than that of the abandonment of Boullanger and his boat's crew on the east coast of Tasmania in the previous March. A commander who treated those among his subordinates who were sustaining the most dangerous and exacting part of the work with so little consideration, can hardly have maintained their confidence, or deserved it.

The Casuarina, making all sail for Nepean Bay westward, sighted the leading ship in Investigator Strait. But Baudin did not wait even then. He kept Le Geographe on her course, under a full head of sail, without permitting the Casuarina to come up and report, or inquiring after the success of her work. The two ships soon lost sight of each other. Next day Baudin, evidently realising the enormity of his folly, veered round, and returned to Nepean Bay. But as the Casuarina had kept on westward during the night, in a frantic endeavour to catch her leader, the two vessels crossed far apart and out of vision. They did not meet again for fourteen days, when both lay at anchor in King George's Sound.

It is not wonderful that Freycinet confessed that he was "astonished" at Baudin's manoeuvres. They were scarcely those of a rational being, to say nothing of a commander responsible for the safety of two ships and the lives of their people. The company on the smaller vessel endured severe privations. They were reduced to a ration of three ounces of biscuit per man per day, and to a mere drink of water; and the ship herself sustained such severe damage from heavy seas that, said Freycinet, had he been delayed a few hours in reaching King George's Sound, he would have been compelled to run her ashore to prevent her from foundering. "Judge of the horror of my position," he wrote, and he certainly did not exaggerate when he used that term; for the coast along which he ran for safety is one of the most hopelessly barren in the whole world, offering to a stranded mariner neither sustenance, shelter, nor means of deliverance.

The only feature of much interest pertaining to the geographical work of the expedition in the region of the gulfs, is the high opinion formed by Peron of Port Lincoln—called Port Champagny on the Terre Napoleon charts. The port has not played a large part in the subsequent development of Australia, but Flinders, who discovered it and named it after the chief town of his native county, and the French of Baudin's expedition, who were the second people to enter it, thought very highly of its beauty and value. Peron spoke of it as a "magnificent port," in which all the navies of Europe could float, and concluded two pages of description with the words: "Worthy rival of Port Jackson, Port Lincoln is, in all respects, one of the finest in the world; and of all those which we have discovered [yet they had not discovered a single port of any kind!], whether to the south, the west, or the north of New Holland, it appears to be, I repeat, the best adapted to receive a European colony." After many years of settlement, Port Lincoln boasts of fewer than a thousand inhabitants; for though the glowing language of admiration concerning its beauty and convenience written by Flinders and Peron were fully justified, a back country too arid to support a large population has prevented it from attaining to great importance among the harbours of Australia. To the student of the history of exploration, however, Port Lincoln is interesting even beyond the measure of its beauty; for there, in 1841, Sir John Franklin, then governor of Tasmania, erected at his own cost a monument to the honour of Flinders, his old commander, from whom he imbibed that passion for exploration which was in due time to place his own name imperishably amongst the glorious company of great English seamen.

Peron himself experienced the cross-grained temper of the commander during the visit of the ships to Sharks Bay. This was the scene of Dampier's descent upon the Western Australian coast in 1699, in the rickety little Roebuck. It was here that his men dined off sharks' flesh, and "took care that no waste should be made of it, but thought it, as things stood, good entertainment."* The bay received from Dampier, on account of the feast, the name it has ever since borne. (* Dampier's men were unprejudiced in matters of gastronomy, but their taste in fish was not to their discredit. Shark's flesh, especially when young, is, there is reason to believe, excellent eating. During some weeks in a recent summer, when what we may term "orthodox" fish was scarce, a fashionable Australian sea-side hotel was regularly supplied with young shark—"gummy"—by a fisherman, for whose veracity the author can vouch. Neither proprietor, chef, nor guests knew what it was, and all were well fed and happy.)

Some of the French sailors who had been ashore returned in a wild state of alarm on account of giants whom they professed to have seen—men of extraordinary strength and stature, they reported, with long black beards, armed with enormous spears and shields, who ran at a furious pace, brandishing their weapons and giving utterance to fearful yells. "However extravagant these assertions might appear," said the incredulous naturalist, "it was necessary to collect precise information on the subject." The scientific Ulysses regarded the reputed Cyclops with a calculating scepticism. Had Polyphemus been at hand, Peron would have politely requested him to permit himself to be weighed and measured, and would have written an admirable monograph on his solitary optic.

There were, he considered, some reasons for thinking that a race of men of heroic proportions inhabited this western part of the continent. The Dutch captain, Vlaming, in 1697, had reported finding gigantic human footprints upon the banks of the Swan River, near where the city of Perth now stands; and two of Baudin's officers, whose names were not Munchausen and Sindbad but Heirisson and Moreau, declared that they also had observed the same phenomena at the same place. Peron set down these stories to the exaggerative distortion of lovers of the marvellous, "of whom we counted some amongst us." But when the sailors came scampering back to the ship with the tale that they had actually seen the giants and been pursued by them, the naturalist began to think that there was probably some ground for the belief. At all events, he determined to go and see for himself.

He requested Baudin to send a few armed men ashore with him, but was rudely refused. Not to be thwarted in continuing his researches in so favourable a place, Peron determined to make use of a couple of days during which a furnace was to be erected for extracting salt from the sea by evaporation—the ship's supply having been depleted—to run the risk of an excursion on his own account; whereupon Petit, one of the artists, and Guichenot, one of the gardeners, resolved to accompany him.

The adventurous three were soon favoured with a visit from a troop of aboriginals, who, though by no means giants, were certainly formidable foes. There were forty of them, all armed with spears. Peron and his companions, to defend themselves, had only a musket and a pair of pistols. The savages, terrible fellows, advanced with "clameurs terribles et menacantes." Retreat for the Frenchmen was impossible. A show of courage was the best policy; and the three, one of whom, Petit, had been "plein de terreur" when the blacks first made their appearance, put on a bold front and marched forward "avec assurance a leur rencontre." This bold tactical manoeuvre met with its deserved reward. The savages were visibly disconcerted. One of them made signs of invitation to a parley, but Peron considered it to be hazardous for one of the three to isolate himself from his companions. The trio continued to advance, resolved to sell their lives dearly if die they must. Such unexpected audacity threw the blacks into a state of uncertainty, and, after deliberating for a few moments, they turned their backs and went away, though slowly, and without the appearance of fear or disorder. Peron, Petit, and Guichenot, "to give the aboriginals a higher idea of our confidence and our courage," did not halt in their advance, but marched in the track of the retreating forty, who climbed to the height of a steep cliff and there continued to yell and gesticulate as though desiring to have conference with one of the white men. "After having responded for some time with similar cries and gestures"—Ulysses defying Polyphemus will recur to the mind—Peron and his companions concluded this signal display of coolness and daring by quietly walking back and proceeding on their journey inland. They were not pursued nor further molested.

Cool vision detracted from the gigantic stature of the Sharks Bay blacks as effectually as a cool demeanour disposed of the danger from them. The tallest man among them Peron declared to be no more than five feet four or five inches in height, and most of the forty were small sized, thin-limbed, and of feeble appearance. It is easy to perceive in this incident, where a disposition to exaggerate looking through the lens of fear, magnified a group of slight and slender savages into terrific giants, how many a legend has come to birth. The original sons of Anak would probably have been severely shortened of their inches had a Peron been available to bring illusion promptly to the test of measurement, and perhaps a scientific Jack the Giant Killer could have done deadly execution with a foot-rule.* (* It may be noted that Peron's researches regarding the physical proportions and capacities of savage races aroused much interest in France. The Moniteur of April 25 and June 23, 1808, published two long articles on "the physical force of savage people," founded upon Peron's writings and his records of comparative dynamometric data.)

The three adventurers suffered far more severely from the heat of the sun and the fatigues of working among thick bush and sand than from the natives of the country. They made a fine collection of specimens, and, congratulating themselves on their success, endeavoured to make their way back to the boat. But they soon realised that they were "bushed"—a term familiar enough to those who are acquainted with the story of Australian inland exploration. The country was covered with thick scrub, through which they endeavoured to make their way. The afternoon sun poured down a pitiless flood of heat, the white, glaring sand burnt their feet, the air in the Bush was stifling. It was as though they were walking through furnaces; and there were no spreading trees to relieve the ordeal by a touch of shade. They at length regained the shore, and trudged along the soft, hot sand; when Peron, exhausted after a walk of three hours, was compelled to throw aside the greater part of the collection which he had made at the expense of so much painful labour. Shortly afterwards Guichenot fell to the ground exhausted by hunger, thirst, and fatigue, and begged his companions to leave him there to die while they endeavoured to save themselves. Peron remembered a passage he had read in Cook's voyages about the reviving effect of a plunge in sea-water; and he and Petit tried it by wading in up to their necks. They assisted Guichenot to do the same, and revived him sufficiently to enable him to continue the weary march. The sun set; a breeze sprang up; and soon the three travellers saw with joy the smoke of a fire which had been lighted as a guide to them. They staggered on, and at last all three fell fainting in sight of their companions, who hurried forward to relieve them.

There is nothing incredible in Peron's narrative of the sufferings of himself and his companions on this excursion. It is not surprising to one with a knowledge of the local conditions. The exertions they had made should have earned them commendation, or at least compassion, from the commandant. But Baudin's view was censorious. Three times during the evening a gun had been fired from the ship as a signal to the boat to return. The officer in charge of the shore party considered that it would be unjustifiable to leave until the three travellers returned, and trusted that this explanation would be accepted as excusing the delay. A sea fog now prevented the boat from returning forthwith; but the sailors had neither food nor water to give to the parched and famished unfortunates. When at last they did reach the ship, they had been for forty hours without sup or sip; they were prostrate from sheer weakness; and Peron himself was reduced to the extremity that his leathern tongue refused to articulate. The commandant was the only man aboard who had no pity to spare for their misery. Baudin actually fined the officer in charge of the boat ten francs for every gun fired, because he had not obeyed the return signal, and for not "abandoning all three." "Those were the very words of our chief," wrote Peron; "and yet I had, to save his life at Timor, given to his physician part of the small stock of excellent quinine that I had brought for my own use."

This heartless conduct, taken in conjunction with Baudin's abandonment of Boullanger on the Tasmanian coast, and his strange behaviour to the Casuarina after the exploration of the gulfs, leaves one in no doubt as to his singular deficiency in the qualities essential to the commander of an expedition of discovery. It was his invariable practice, we also read, to provision boats engaged on any special service for the bare time that he meant them to be absent; so many ounces of food and so many pints of water per man per day, and no more, leaving no margin for accidents, allowing of no excuse for unavoidable delay. A sensible person would not provide for a picnic on such principles.

The exploration of the west and north-west coasts was continued till the end of April, when Baudin decided to go once more to Timor. His intention was, after refreshing his men and taking in supplies at the Dutch settlement, to spend some time in the Gulf of Carpentaria and along the southern shores of New Guinea. On May 6, Kupang harbour was entered for the second time. There it was learnt that Flinders had called at the port in the Investigator in April, after having concluded his exploration of the northern gulf. He had been compelled to relinquish his work owing to the rotten condition of his ship's timbers, and had sailed back to Port Jackson. As he had reached the Gulf of Carpentaria by sailing up the eastern side of the continent, and returned through Torres Strait down the western coast, and through Bass Strait on the south, Flinders was the first sailor to accomplish the circumnavigation of Australia, as he had also been the first to circumnavigate Tasmania.* (* Tasman, in 1642, sailed from Batavia, in Java, thence to Mauritius, Tasmania, New Zealand, the Friendly Islands, northern New Guinea, and back to Batavia. This was a wide circumnavigation of the whole of New Holland; but he did not sight Australia, and as, of course, he did not go near Bass Strait, he did not circumnavigate the continent proper.)

Le Geographe and the Casuarina remained at Kupang till June 3—twenty-eight days—enjoying the hospitality of the Dutch. Peron made several excursions for collecting purposes, and once shot an alligator nine feet long, which he skinned. He had the hide and head carried down to the port by Malays on long bamboo poles, this method of conveyance being necessitated by the superstitious refusal of the natives to touch even the skin of the dreaded beast. But the labour was to a large extent wasted, for putrefaction advanced, while the skin was in transit, to such an extent that all but the head had to be thrown into the sea.

Baudin's plan, after leaving Kupang, was to continue the exploration of the coasts of Western Australia. But very light breezes, alternating with calms, prevented substantial progress, and after spending the greater part of the month ineffectually in traversing only a few leagues, it was concluded (June 28) that to continue the work in detail from west to east at that season of the year would merely lead to a futile waste of time. Here again the logic of facts was required to convince Baudin, who had previously rejected sound advice that was offered to him, to the effect that contrary winds would thwart his designs. The winds blow at certain seasons with steady consistency in these regions, and an experienced navigator, knowing what he has to expect, makes his plans accordingly. When Flinders was driven reluctantly to abandon finishing the exploration of the north coast through the dangerous condition of the Investigator, he made his way back to Port Jackson by the western route, because, although it was considerably longer, he thereby secured favourable winds; and he reached port in safety. If we may judge from his habitual perversity, Baudin, under similar circumstances, would have taken the shorter route, regardless of normal conditions, and would have lost his ship.

Changing his route after much waste of time, Baudin took his vessels towards the south-west of New Guinea, with the intention of making investigations there. But again the sailing was for the most part slow, especially as the Casuarina made very poor progress; and when within a few leagues from False Cape—called Cape Walshe on the French charts—circumstances compelled the commander to review his position and prospects in a serious light. Once more the supply of water was running short. The ships carried from Kupang sufficient for ninety-five days. Apart from the necessities of the crew, some had to be spared for the plants and animals—kangaroos, emus, etc.—which were being carried to Europe. Thirty-four days had been dawdled away without achieving any substantial results. For the ultimate return to Mauritius sufficient water to last forty days must be conserved. Consequently Baudin argued that he could not by any possibility afford to remain in these waters longer than three more weeks; and as in that time not much could be done, he determined to return home at once. His decision gave pleasure to his unhappy people; but surely it was that of a man whose heart was not in his work. No attempt was made to send parties ashore to search for fresh water. When Flinders ran short, and did not come across a convenient spring or stream, he dug and found water, as at Port Lincoln; and a very experienced traveller has observed that "in nearly all parts of Australia it is usually found a few feet beneath the surface of the ground."* (* Ward, Rambles of an Australian Naturalist page 109.)

But there were other reasons which conduced to create in Baudin that depression which is inimical to the protracted pursuit of an allotted task. Sickness once more laid its hand upon the crews. The commander himself was in bad health. The demands upon the resources of the doctors were so numerous that their medicines became exhausted, and they were unable to attend satisfactorily to the necessities of a constantly increasing number of ailing men. Bernier, the astronomer, died before the order to return was given. He was a young man of great promise—"savant et laborieux," as Peron wrote of him—whose original work before he reached full manhood had attracted the notice of Lalande. Selected by the Institute to fill a scientific post with the expedition, he did excellent work, and his death cut short a career that gave indications of being brilliant and useful. Cape Bernier, on the east coast of Tasmania—opposite the southern end of Maria Island—preserves his name.

On July 7 the order was given to turn, and sail for Mauritius. Le Geographe put into Port Louis on August 7, and the Casuarina, after a very rough voyage, reached the harbour five days later.

Baudin, whose illness had continued throughout the voyage, died while his ships lay at Mauritius, on September 16. His death had been expected for some time before it occurred, and if there was little surprise at the event, it is pathetic to observe that there was as little regret. Not a word of sympathy appeared in the studiously frigid terms in which the decease of the commander was chronicled in the official history of the voyage. Not a syllable was used expressing appreciation of any qualities which he may have possessed, either as an officer or a man. After curtly mentioning his illness, Peron recorded the death and burial in two sentences sterile of emotion. He showed more regret when he had to throw away the skin of the alligator which he shot at Timor, than when mentioning the death of one who had been his chief for three years. "Finally the last moment arrived; and on September 16, 1803, at about mid-day, M. Baudin ceased to exist. On the 17th he was buried with the honours due to the rank he had occupied in the navy; all the officers and savants of the expedition assisted at the funeral, which was also attended by the principal authorities of the colony." That is all. Had it been Peron's manner to record the deaths of the companions of his voyage with such barren brevity, there would be nothing in the passage to excite comment. But when a sailor fell overboard we were told what an excellent and laborious man he was, and how much he was regretted; the death of Bernier called forth an appropriate sentence of eulogy; when Depuch, the mineralogist died, we were properly informed that he was as much esteemed for his modesty and the goodness of his heart as for the extent and variety of his knowledge. The contrast between these instances and the summary plainness of the statement when Baudin's end was mentioned, cannot escape notice; any more than we can mistake the meaning of the consistent suppression of his name throughout the text of the volumes.

Attention has to be directed to this display of animosity because, in bare justice to Baudin, we have to remember that the only story of the expedition which we have is that written by Peron and Freycinet, who were plainly at enmity with him. If the facts were as related by them, Baudin was not only an absurdly obstinate and ungenial captain, but we are left with grave doubts as to his competency as a navigator on service of this description. Yet even facts, when detailed by those who hate a man, take a different colouring from the same facts set down by the man himself, with his reasons for what he did. We have no material for forming an opinion from Baudin's point of view. If his manuscript journals are capable of throwing fresh light on the events concerned, their publication, if they remain in existence, would be welcome. All that at present we can set against the hard, unsympathetic view of the man as we see him in the pages written by Peron and revised by Freycinet, is his conduct and correspondence in relation to Governor King at Port Jackson; and there he appears as a gentleman of agreeable manners, graceful expression, and ready tact. We do not form a lower opinion of him in consequence of the letter which he wrote in reply to the one delivered by Acting-Lieutenant Robbins. because there he expressed views imbibed as almost a part of the atmosphere of the Revolution amidst which he had been reared. If we had only the Baudin-King correspondence, we should think him not unworthy to be the successor of La Perouse and Bougainville. If we had only the Voyage de Decouvertes, we should think him barely fit to command a canal barge. It may not have been the happiness of many navigators to enjoy the affection of those under them to such an eminent degree as did Cook and Flinders; but there are fortunately latitudes of difference between love and hate. Respect is often felt to be due when deeper sentiments are not stimulated. The cold chronicle that the honours appropriate to his rank were paid to Baudin at his funeral seems very harsh; and one feels that Freycinet, at any rate, whom Baudin had promoted to the command of the Casuarina, and furnished with a chance of distinguishing himself, might have sunk his grievances sufficiently to add a word in praise of at least some virtue which we may hope that the dead captain possessed.

Baudin wrote a letter from King Island to Jussieu which indicated that the experience had been an unhappy one for him.* (* The letter was printed in the Moniteur, 22nd Fructidor, Revolutionary Year 11 (September 9, 1803). Baudin's death was recorded in the Moniteur on 13th Germinal, Revolutionary Year 12 (April 3, 1804).) "I have never made so painful a voyage," he said. "More than once my health has been impaired, but if I can terminate the expedition conformably to the intentions of the Government and to the satisfaction of the French nation, there will remain little to desire, and my sufferings will soon be forgotten." To a very large extent Baudin must be held responsible for the misfortunes and failures attending his command, but it is an act of justice to clear him from aspersions that have been made upon him for things that occurred after his death. He had nothing whatever to do with the imprisonment of Flinders, for which he has been blamed by writers who have not looked into the literature of the subject sufficiently to be aware that he was dead at the time; nor was he in any way connected with the issue of the Terre Napoleon maps, with which his name has also been associated.

General Decaen, Napoleon's newly appointed governor, arrived at the island eight days after Le Geographe, and at once began to administer affairs upon new lines of policy. A little later the French admiral, Linois, with a fleet of frigates, entered port. On the death of Baudin, Linois directed that the Casuarina should be dismantled, and appointed Captain Milius to the command of Le Geographe, with instructions to take her home as soon as her sick crew recovered and she had been revictualled. Peron, as has already been explained, had some conversation with Decaen, imparting to him the conclusion he had formulated relative to the secret intentions of the British for the augmentation of their possessions in the Pacific and Indian Oceans; but there is no record that Decaen saw Baudin, who was probably too ill to attend to affairs in the period between the general's arrival and his own death. It is hardly likely that Baudin, who, from his intimacy with King, knew more about British policy than the naturalist did, would have supported Peron's excited fancies.

Le Geographe sailed from Mauritius on December 15, and reached Europe without the occurrence of any further incidents calling for comment. She entered the port of Lorient on March 24, 1804. Captain Milius decided not to make for Havre, whence the expedition had sailed in 1800, in consequence of what had happened to Le Naturaliste on her return to Europe in the previous year. War was declared by the British Government against France in May, and every captain in King George's navy was alert and eager to get in a blow upon the enemy. The frigate Minerva, Captain Charles Buller, sighted Le Naturaliste in the Channel, stopped her, and insisted, despite her passport, on taking her into Portsmouth. She was detained there from May 27 till June 6, when the Admiralty, being informed of what had occurred, ordered her immediate release. She left Portsmouth and arrived at Havre on the same day, June 6, 1803.

Perhaps nothing can convey more effectually the utter weariness and depression of officers, staff, and crew, than the language in which Freycinet chronicled the return. It might be supposed, he wrote, that the end of the voyage would be heralded with joy. But they were themselves surprised to find that they were but slightly touched with pleasure at seeing again the shores of their own country after so long an absence. "It might be said that the very sight of our ship, recalling too strongly the sufferings of which we had been the victims, poisoned all our affections. It was not until we were far away from the coast that our souls could expand to sentiments of happiness which had been so long strangers to us."

This, surely, was not the language of men who believed that they had accomplished things for which the world would hold them in honour. It was not the language of triumphant discoverers, whose good fortune it had been to reveal unknown coasts, and to finish that complete map of the continents which had been so long a-making. Would it, one wonders, have made Freycinet a little happier had he known that at this very time the English navigator who had made the discoveries for which Baudin's expedition was sent out, was held in the clutch of General Decaen in Mauritius, and that the way was clear to hurry on the publication of forestalling maps and records whilst Flinders was, as it were, battened under hatches?

CHAPTER 11. RESULTS.

Establishment of the First Empire. Reluctance of the French Government to publish a record of the expedition. Report of the Institute. The official history of the voyage authorised. Peron's scientific work. His discovery of Pyrosoma atlanticum. Other scientific memoirs. His views on the modification of species. Geographical results. Freycinet's charts.

Startling changes in the political complexion of France had occurred during the absence of the expedition. Citizen Bonaparte, who in May 1800 had concurred in the representations of the Institute that discovery in southern regions would redound to the glory of the nation, had since given rein to the conception that the glory of France meant, properly interpreted, his own.* (* It was so from the beginning of his career as Consul, according to M. Paul Brosses' interpretation of his character. "Il est deja et sera de plus en plus convaincu que travailler a sa grandeur, c'est travailler a la grandeur du pays." Consulat et Empire, 1907 page 27.) He meant to found a dynasty, and woe to those whom he regarded as standing in his way. One of the first pieces of news that those who landed from Le Geographe at Lorient on the 25th March would hear, was that just four days before, the Duc d'Enghien, son of the Duc de Bourbon, had been shot after an official examination so formal as to be no better than a mockery, for his grave had actually been dug before the inquiry commenced. When Peron and his companions reached Paris, they would hear and read of debates among the representatives of the Republic, mostly favourable to the establishment of a new hereditary Imperial dignity; and they would be in good time to take an interest in the plebiscite which, by a majority of nearly fourteen hundred to one, approved the new constitution and enacted that "Napoleon Bonaparte, now First Consul of the Republic, is Emperor of the French." They were, in short, back soon enough to witness the process—it may well have suggested to the naturalist a comparison with phenomena very familiar to him—by which the Consular-chrysalis Bonaparte became the Emperor-moth Napoleon.

It was, of course, a very busy year for those responsible to their illustrious master for the administration of departments. With a great naval war on hand, with plots frequently being formed or feared, with the wheels and levers of diplomacy to watch and manipulate, with immense changes in the machinery of Government going forward, and with the obligation of satisfying the exacting demands of a chief who was often in a rage, and always tremendously energetic, the ministers of France were not likely to have much enthusiasm to spare for maps and charts, large collections of dead birds, insects, beasts, fishes, butterflies, and plants, specimens of rocks and quantities of shells.

It is likely enough that absorption in more insistent affairs rather than a hostile feeling explains the reluctance of the French Government to authorise the publication of an official history of the voyage when such a project was first submitted. Freycinet and his colleagues learnt "with astonishment" that the authorities were unfavourable. "It was," he wrote, "as if the miseries that we had endured, and to which a great number of our companions had fallen victims, could be regarded as forming a legitimate ground of reproach against us." It is more reasonable to suppose that pressure of other business prevented Napoleon's ministers from devoting much consideration to the subject. Men who have endured hazards and hardships, and who return home after a long absence expecting to be welcomed with acclaim, are disposed to feel snubbed and sore when they find people not inclined to pay much attention to them. Remembering the banquets and the plaudits that marked the despatch of the expedition, those of its members who expected a demonstration may well have been chilled by the small amount of notice they received. But the public as well as the official mood was conceivably due rather to intense concentration upon national affairs, during a period of amazing transition, than to the prejudice which Freycinet's ruffled pride suggested. "It would be difficult to explain," he wrote, "how, during the voyage, there could have been formed concerning the expedition an opinion so unfavourable, that even before our return the decision was arrived at not to give any publicity to our works. The reception that we met with on arriving in France showed the effects of such an unjust and painful prejudice."* (* Preface to the 1824 edition of the Voyage de Decouvertes.)

When Le Naturaliste arrived at Havre in the previous year, the Moniteur* (* 14th Messidor, Revolutionary Year 10. (July 3, 1803).) gave an account of the very large collection of specimens that she brought, and spoke cordially of the work; and in the following month* (* 27th Thermidor, Revolutionary Year 11. (August 15).) Napoleon's organ published a long sketch of the course of the voyage up to the King Island stage, from particulars contained in despatches and supplied by Hamelin. The earlier arrival of Le Naturaliste had the effect, also, of taking the edge off public interest. This may be counted as one of the causes of the rather frigid reception accorded to Le Geographe.

The only fact that lends any colour to Freycinet's supposition of prejudice, is that the Moniteur article of 27th Thermidor suggested a certain unsatisfactoriness about the charts sent home by Baudin. His communications clearly led the Government to believe that he had made important discoveries on the south coast of Australia, but unfortunately the rough drawings accompanying his descriptions did not enable official experts to form an accurate opinion. He mentioned the two large gulfs, but furnished no chart of them.* (* "Cette decouverte [i.e. of the gulfs] du Capitaine Baudin est tres interessante en ce qu'elle completera la reconnaissance de la cote sud de la Nouvelle Hollande qui est due entierement a la France. On ne peut pas encore juger du degre d'exactitude avec laquelle elle a ete faite, parce que le citoyen Baudin n'a envoye qu'une partie de la carte qu'il en a dressee, et que cette carte meme n'est qu'une premiere esquisse. Il y a jointe une carte qui marque seulement sa route, avec les sondes le long de toute cette cote, et il promet d'envoyer l'autre partie de la cote par la premiere occasion qu'il trouvera." Moniteur, 27th Thermidor, Revolutionary Year 11.) The reason for that was, of course, that at the time when Le Naturaliste left for France Baudin had not penetrated the gulfs, and could have had no representation of them to submit. The article also alluded to another chart of part of the coast in the neighbourhood of Cape Leeuwin, as not conveying much information.* (* It was "figuree assez grossierement et sans details.") These statements are useful as enabling us to understand why Baudin was so shy about showing his charts to Flinders. If they gave little satisfaction to the writer of the Moniteur article, we can imagine what a critic who had been over the ground himself would have thought about them.

These considerations scarcely afford reason for inferring that the Government had formed a prejudice against the work of the expedition before making a complete examination of its records, though it is very probable that dissatisfaction was expressed about the charts. Hamelin, also, would be fairly certain to intimate privately what he knew to be the case, that Flinders had been beforehand with the most important of the discoveries. Indeed, the Moniteur article expressly mentioned that when Baudin met Flinders, the latter had "pursued the coast from Cape Leeuwin to the place of meeting." The information that the English captain had accomplished so much, despite the fact that he had left England months after Baudin sailed from France, was not calculated to give pleasure to Ministers. It was to this feeling that Sir Joseph Banks referred when, in writing to Flinders, he said that he had heard that the French Government were not too well pleased with Baudin's work.* (* Girard, writing in 1857, stated that rumours about Baudin's conduct, circulated before the arrival of Le Geographe, induced the public to believe that the expedition had been abortive, without useful results, and that it was to the interest of the Government to forget all about it. F. Peron, page 46. But Girard cites no authority for the statement, and as he was not born in 1804, he is not himself an authoritative witness. He merely repeated Freycinet's assertions.)

The distinguished men of science who stood at the head of the Institute of France were best qualified to judge of the value of the work done; and they at least spoke decisively in its praise. The collections brought home by Le Naturaliste had included one hundred and eighty cases of minerals and animals, four cases of dried plants, three large casks of specimens of timber, two boxes of seeds, and sixty tubs of living plants.* (* Moniteur, 14th Messidor, Revolutionary Year 11 (July 3, 1803).) On June 9, 1806, a Committee of the Institute, consisting of Cuvier, Laplace, Bougainville, Fleurieu, and Lacepede, furnished a report based upon an examination of the scientific specimens and the manuscript of the first volume of the Voyage de Decouvertes, which, in the meantime, had been written by Peron. They referred in terms of warm eulogy to the industry which had collected more than one hundred thousand specimens; to the new species discovered, estimated by the professors at the Musee at two thousand five hundred; and to the care and skill displayed by Peron in describing and classifying, a piece of work appealing with especial force to the co-ordinating intelligence of Cuvier. They directed attention to the observations made by the naturalist upon the British colony at Port Jackson; and their language on this subject may be deemed generous in view of the fact that England and France were then at war. "M. Peron," reported the savants, "has applied himself particularly to studying the details of that vast system of colonisation which is being developed at once upon a great continent, upon innumerable islands, and upon the wide ocean. His work in that respect should be of the greatest interest for the philosopher and the statesman. Never, perhaps, did a subject more interesting and more curious offer itself to the meditation of either, than the colony of Botany Bay, so long misunderstood in Europe."* (* The colony was not at Botany Bay, though the mistake was common enough even in England. But the champion error on that subject was that of Dumas, who, in Les Trois Mousquetaires, chapter 52—the period, as "every schoolboy knows," of Cardinal Richelieu—represents Milady as reflecting bitterly on her fate, and fearing that D'Artagnan would transport her "to some loathsome Botany Bay," a century and a quarter before Captain Cook discovered it! Dumas, however, was a law unto himself in such matters.) Never, perhaps, was there a more shining example of the powerful influence of laws and institutions upon the character of individuals and peoples. To transform the most redoubtable highwaymen, the most abandoned thieves of England, into honest and peaceable citizens; to make laborious husbandmen of them; to effect the same revolution in the characters of the vilest women; to force them, by infallible methods, to become honest wives and excellent mothers of families; to take the young and preserve them, by the most assiduous care, from the contagion of their reprobate parents, and so to prepare a generation more virtuous than that which it succeeds: such is the touching spectacle that these new English colonies present."

The passage may be compared with Peron's own observations on the same subject, given in Chapter 9. A more erroneous view of the effects of convict colonisation could hardly have been conveyed; but the paragraph may have been written to catch the eye of Napoleon, who was a strong believer in transportation as a remedial punishment for serious crime, and had spoken in favour of it in the Council of State during the discussions on the Civil Code.* (* See Thibaudeau, Memoires sur le Consulat, English edition, translated by G.K. Fortescue, LL.D., London 1908 page 180. Transportation, said Napoleon, "is in accord with public opinion, and is prescribed by humane considerations. The need for it is so obvious that we should provide for it at once in the Civil Code. We have now in our prisons six thousand persons who are doing nothing, who cost a great deal of money, and who are always escaping. There are thirty to forty highwaymen in the south who are ready to surrender to justice on condition that they are transported. Certainly we ought to settle the question now, while we have it in our minds. Transportation is imprisonment, certainly, but in a cell more than thirty feet square." The highwaymen mentioned by Bonaparte must have been remarkable persons. It was so like highwaymen to wish to be arrested! Perhaps there were also birds in the south who were willing to be caught on condition that salt was put on their tails.)

In addition to these representations, Peron was accorded an interview with the Minister of Marine, Decres, when, supported by Fleurieu and other members of the Institute, he explained what the expedition had done, and exhibited specimens of his collections and of Lesueur's drawings. Champagny, the Minister of the Interior, was also induced to listen to the eloquent pleading of the naturalist. As a result, the Government resolved to publish; and in 1807 appeared the first volume of the text, together with a thin folio atlas containing a number of beautiful drawings and two charts. The books were issued under the superscription, "par ordre de S.M. L'Empereur et Roi." On Sunday, January 12, 1808—"apres la messe"—Peron, who was accompanied by Lesueur, one of the artists, had the honour of being admitted to the presence of the Emperor, and presented him with a copy of the work.* (* Moniteur, January 13, 1808.) The naturalist became somewhat of a favourite with the Empress Josephine, who on several occasions sent a carriage to his lodgings to take him to Malmaison; and she treated him "as a good mother would have treated a dear son."* (* Girard, F. Peron page 50.) He gave to her a pair of black swans from Australia, and the Empress generously discharged debts which he had incurred in acquiring part of his collection.

Peron died of a throat disease on December 14, 1810, just seventeen days after the liberated Flinders reached England. He was buried at Cerilly, where a monument, designed by Lesueur, marks his grave. At the time of his death he had not quite finished writing the second volume of the Voyage de Decouvertes. The conclusion of the work was therefore entrusted to Louis de Freycinet, who had already been commissioned to produce the atlas of charts.

Of Peron's personal character, and of the value of his scientific work, nothing but high praise can be written. He was but a young man when he died. Had he lived, we cannot doubt that he would have filled an important place among French men of science, for his diligence was coupled with insight, and his love of research was as deep as his aptitude for it was keen. A pleasant picture of the man was penned by Kerandren, who had been one of the surgeons on the expedition to Australia. "Peron," he said* (* Moniteur, January 24, 1811. The Moniteur of June 7, 1812, also contained a eulogy on Peron delivered before the Societe Medicale d'emulation de Paris, by A.J.B. Louis.), "carried upon his face the expression of kindliness and sensibility. The fervour of his mind, the vivacity of his character, were tempered by the extreme goodness of his heart. He made himself useful to most of those who were the companions of his voyage. There was joined to his confidence in his own ability, a great modesty. He was so natural—I would even say so candid—that it was impossible to resist the charm of his manners and his conversation."

Apart from his authorship of the first and part of the second volume of the Voyage de Decouvertes, Peron wrote a number of short "memoires sur divers sujets," suggested to his mind by observations made during the voyage. One of the most valuable of these, from a scientific point of view, was an essay upon the causes of phosphorescence in the sea, frequently observed in tropical and subtropical regions, but occasionally in European waters.*

(* Crabbe described it admirably in The Borough (9 103):

"And now your view upon the ocean turn, And there the splendour of the waves discern; Cast but a stone, or strike them with an oar, And you shall flames within the deep explore; Or scoop the stream phosphoric as you stand, And the cold flames shall flash along your hand; When, lost in wonder, you shall walk and gaze On weeds that sparkle and on waves that blaze.)

Although Peron was not the first naturalist to explain that this aspect of floating fire given to the waves was due to the presence of multitudes of living organisms, he was the first naturalist to describe their structure and functional processes.* (* Phipson on Phosphorescence (1862) page 113, mentions that as early as 1749 and 1750, Vianetti and Grixellini, two Venetians, discovered in the waters of the Adriatic quantities of luminous animalculae; and the true cause of the phenomena must have occurred to many of those who witnessed it, though groundless and absurd theories were current. Of the creature discovered and described by Peron, Phipson says that it is "one of the most curious of animals. It belongs to the tribe of Tunicata. Each individual resembles a minute cylinder of glowing phosphorus. Sometimes they are seen adhering together in such prodigious numbers that the ocean appears as if covered with an enormous mass of shining phosphorus or molten lava." Professor Moseley investigated the Pyrosoma while with the Challenger expedition. He wrote: "A giant Pyrosoma was caught by us in the deep-sea trawl. It was like a great sac, with its walls of jelly about an inch in thickness. It was four feet long and ten inches in diameter. When a Pyrosoma is stimulated by having its surface touched, the phosphorescent light breaks out just at the spot stimulated, and then spreads over the surface of the colony to the surrounding animals. I wrote my name with my finger on the surface of the giant Pyrosoma as it lay on deck, and my name came out in a few seconds in letters of fire." The author owes this last reference to an excellent paper on "Phosphorescence in Plants and Animals," by Miss Freda Bage, M.Sc., printed in the Victorian Naturalist, 21 page 100 November 1904.) His treatise on the Pyrosoma atlanticum is an extremely interesting example of his scientific work. The creature is weighed and measured; its appearance is described; then it is carefully taken to pieces and its structure and internal organisation are minutely detailed; next there is an account of its functions, and an explanation of how the phosphorescent appearance is produced; and finally its mode of life, nutrition, and system of generation are dealt with. Peron collects a number of specimens, places them in a vessel filled with sea-water, and observes how, at rhythmic intervals, the creature alternately contracts and dilates in a fashion analogous to the art of breathing among more highly organised animals; and he notices that the phosphorescence appears and disappears with these movements, being most fully displayed when the creature's body is most contracted, and disappearing during the moments of most complete expansion. Here we have careful examination and observation, study of the organism in its native habitat, anatomical dissection, and experiment—a piece of biological work exceedingly well done. Cuvier would have read the piece with satisfaction in his pupil.

Other Memoires by Peron, on the temperature of the sea on the surface and at measured depths; on the zoology of the Austral regions; on dysentery in hot countries and the medicinal use of the betel-nut; on sea animals, such as seals; and on the art of maintaining live animals in zoological collections, were valuable; and the subjects on which he wrote are mentioned as indicating the range of his scientific interests. One of his pieces of work which, naturally, aroused much interest in Europe, was an extremely curious investigation relative to the physiological peculiarities of females of the Bushman tribes in South Africa, where Peron made an inland journey for the purpose.* (* There is a technical note on this delicate subject in Girard's F. Peron, Naturaliste, Voyageur aux Terres Australes (Paris, 1857); a book which also gives a good summary of Peron's scientific work.)

When he died, Peron had not had time to apply himself adequately to the enormous mass of material that he had collected. His fertile and curious mind, we cannot doubt, would have enriched the scientific literature of France with many other monographs. The deaths at sea of Bernier and Deleuze also deprived the records of the expedition of contributions which they would have made on their special lines of research. Collections of specimens and piles of memoranda, uninformed by the intelligence of those to whom their meaning is most apparent, are a barren result.

Peron's biological work was done in accordance with the spirit and principles of Cuvier, who stood at the head of European savants in his own field. "Trained for four years in Cuvier's school," wrote the naturalist, "I had for guide not only his method and his principles, but manuscript instructions that he had had the goodness to write for me on my departure from Europe." Cuvier insisted on the importance of structure and function; "to name well you must know well." The part played by the creature in its own share of the world, its nervous organisation, its life as involved in its form, were essentials upon which he laid stress in his teaching; and he imparted to those who came under his influence a breadth of view, a feeling for the unity of nature, that is quite modern, and has governed all the greatest of his successors. "Not only is each being an organism, the whole universe is one, but many million times more complicated; and that which the anatomist does for a single animal—for the microcosm—the naturalist is to do for the macrocosm, for the universal animal, for the play of this immense aggregation of partial organisms." Detailed research, coupled with an outlook on the whole realm of nature—that was the essential principle of Cuvier's science; and it is because we can recognise in Peron a man who had profitably sat at the feet of the great master, that his death before he had applied his zeal to the material collected with so much labour is the more deeply to be regretted.

The few paragraphs in which Peron expressed his views regarding the modification of species may be quoted. It has to be remembered that they were written in the early years of the nineteenth century, when ideas on this subject were in a state of uncertainty rather than of transition, and more than half a century before Darwin gave an entirely new direction to thought by publishing his great hypothesis. Cuvier at this time believed in the fixity of species—constancy in the type with modification in the form of individuals; but his opinions underwent some amount of change in the latter part of his career. The point argued with such gravity, and the conclusion which Peron stresses with the impressiveness of italics, are not such as a naturalist nowadays would think it worth while to elaborate, namely, that organisms having a general structural similarity are modified by climate and environment. It would not require a voyage to another hemisphere to convince a schoolboy of that truth nowadays. But the paragraphs have a certain historical value, for they put what was evidently an important idea to an accomplished naturalist a century ago. They present us, in that aspect, with an interesting bit of pre-Darwinian generalisation.

"Before natural history had acquired a strict and appropriate language of its own," wrote Peron,* (* Voyage de Decouvertes, 1824 edition 3 243.) "when its methods were defective and incomplete, travellers and naturalists confused under one name, in imitation of each other, so to speak, animals which were essentially different. There is no class of the animal kingdom which, in the actual state of things, does not include several orbicular species; that is to say, several species which are in some degree common to all parts of the globe, however they may be modified by geographical and climatic conditions. Other species, although confined to certain latitudes, are, however, usually regarded as common to all climates, and to all seas comprised within these latitudes. The existence of these last animals is regarded as being independent of latitude. To confine ourselves to marine species, one sees it constantly repeated in books of the most estimable character, that the great whale (Balaena mysticetus, Linn.) is found equally amidst the frozen waters of Spitzbergen and in the Antarctic seas; that the sharks and seals of various kinds are found in equally innumerable tribes in seas the farthest apart in the two hemispheres; that the turtle and the tortoise inhabit indifferently the Atlantic, the Indian, and the great equinoctial oceans.

"Were one to consult only reason and analogy, such assertions would appear to be doubtful, as a matter of experience they are found to be absolutely false. Let any one glance at the evidence upon which these pretended identities rest; one will then see that they exist only in the names, and that there is not a single WELL-KNOWN animal belonging to the northern hemisphere, which is not specifically different from all other animals EQUALLY WELL KNOWN in the opposite hemisphere. I have taken the trouble to make that difficult comparison in the case of the cetacea, the seals, etc.; I have examined many histories of voyages; I have gathered together all the descriptions of animals; and I have recognised important differences between the most similar of these supposedly identical species.

"Nobody, I dare say, has collected more animals than I have done in the southern hemisphere. I have observed and described them in their own habitat. I have brought several thousands of kinds to Europe; they are deposited in the Natural History Museum at Paris. Let any one compare these numerous animals with those of our hemisphere, and the problem will soon be resolved, not only in regard to the more perfectly organised species, but even as to those which are simpler in structure, and which, in that regard, it would appear, should show less variety in nature...In all that multitude of animals from the southern hemisphere, one will observe that there is not one which can be precisely matched in northern seas; and one will be forced to conclude from such a reflective examination—such an elaborate and prolonged comparison—as I have been forced to do myself, THAT THERE IS NOT A SINGLE SPECIES OF WELL-KNOWN ANIMALS WHICH, TRULY COSMOPOLITE, IS INDISTINGUISHABLY COMMON TO ALL PARTS OF THE GLOBE.

"More than that—and it is in this respect above all that the inexhaustible variety of nature shines forth—however imperfect each of these animals may be, each has received its own distinct features. It is to certain localities that they are fixed; it is there that they are found to be most numerous, largest in size and most beautiful; and to the extent that they are found most distant from the appropriate place, the individuals degenerate and the species becomes gradually extinguished."

On the geographical side the series of causes described in preceding pages prevented the achievement of that measure of success which the French Government and the Institute had a right to expect. While Baudin dallied, Flinders snatched the crown of accomplishment by his own diligent and intelligent application to the work entrusted to him in the proper field of activity. The French filled in the map of eastern Tasmania, and contributed details to the knowledge of the north-west coast of Australia; but what they did constitutes a poor set-off against what they failed to do. The chief feature of interest, in an estimation of the work done, is the publication of the first map of Australia which represented the whole outline of the continent—saving defects—with any approach to completeness. The Carte Generale of 1807 showed the world for the first time what the form of Australia really was, with its south coasts fairly delimited, and the island of Tasmania set in its proper position in relation to them. But the circumstances in which this result was effected were not such as secured any honour to the expedition, and must, when the facts became known, have been deeply deplored by instructed French people. Flinders was working at his own complete map of Australia in his miserable prison at Mauritius while his splendidly won credit was being filched from him; and it was merely the misfortune that placed him in the power of General Decaen that debarred him from issuing what should have been the first finished outline of the vast island which he had been the earliest to circumnavigate. Historically the Carte Generale is interesting, but no honour attaches to it.

Yet full praise must be given to Louis de Freycinet for the charts issued by him. He drew them largely from material prepared by others, and much of that material, as we have seen, was rough and poor. As a piece of artistic workmanship, the folio of charts issued by Freycinet in 1812 was a fine performance, and fairly earned for him the command of the expedition entrusted to him by the Government of Louis XVIII. Before the volume was published by the order of Napoleon, it was submitted by the Minister of Marine to Vice-Admiral Rosily, Director-General du Depot de la Marine. That officer's report* (* Printed in the Moniteur, January 15, 1813.) gave an account of the work which Freycinet had done not only in the drawing but in regard to the actual engraving of the charts. "M. Freycinet," said the Vice-Admiral, "who has done the principal part of this work, was more capable than any one else known to us of accomplishing such a result. It is to him that we owe the preparation of this fine atlas. He has neglected no means of giving to it the last degree of perfection. He has himself made the drawings of the charts and plans, and then he has reproduced them upon the copper-plates, and has engraved the scales of latitude and longitude by a new method perfected by himself, and which assures the exactitude of his work. The beauty of the engravings, and the execution of the work in general, leave nothing to be desired, and testify to the care that he has devoted to make the collection of charts one of the most useful of works in promoting the progress of hydrography."

The praise thus officially bestowed upon Freycinet's work will be felt to be deserved by any one who studies the atlas of 1812; but admiration of the workmanship will not commit the careful student to an equally cordial opinion concerning the completeness and accuracy of the charts as representations of the coasts traversed by the expedition. The south coast—the most important part, since here the field was entirely fresh—was very faulty in outline, and in other parts where Baudin's vessels had opportunities for doing complete work, important features were missed. And at the back of it all there looms the shadow of Matthew Flinders, the merit of whose own work shines out all the brighter for the contrast.* (* A remarkable example of the way to avoid difficult questions by ignoring them is afforded by Girard's book on Peron, which, throughout its 278 pages, contains no reference whatever to Flinders. It devotes forty pages to the voyage, but absolutely suppresses all reference to the Encounter Bay incident, the imprisonment of Flinders, and other questions concerning him. Yet Girard's book was "couronne par la Societe d'emulation de d'Allier." There should have been some "rosemary, that's for remembrance," in the crown.)

CHAPTER 12. CONCLUSIONS AND CONSEQUENCES.

Further consideration of Napoleon's purposes. What Australia owes to British sea power. Influence of the Napoleonic wars. Fresh points relative to Napoleon's designs. Absence of evidence. Consequences of suspicions of French intentions. Promotion of settlement in Tasmania. Tardy occupation of Port Phillip. The Swan River Settlement. The Westernport scheme. Lord John Russell's claim of "the Whole" of Australia for the British. The designs of Napoleon III. Australia the nursling of sea power.

The question of paramount interest connected with the events considered in the foregoing pages is whether or not the expedition of 1800 to 1804 had a political purpose. It is hoped that the examination to which the facts have been subjected has been sufficient to show that it had not. It was promoted by an academic organisation of learned men for scientific objects; it was not an isolated effort, but one of a series made by the French, which had their counterpart in several expeditions despatched by the British, for the collection of data and the solution of problems of importance to science; its equipment and personnel showed it to be what it professed to be; and the work it did, open to serious criticism as it is in several aspects, indicated that purposes within the scope of the Institute of France, and not those with which diplomacy and politics were concerned, were kept in view throughout. So much, it is claimed, has been demonstrated. But the whole case is not exhausted in what has been written; and in this final chapter will be briefly set forth a sequence of reasons which go to show that Bonaparte in 1800 had no thought of founding a new fatherland for the French in Australasia, or of establishing upon the great southern continent a rival settlement to that of the British at Port Jackson.

It may legitimately be suggested that though all the French expeditions enumerated in a previous chapter, including Baudin's, were promoted for purposes of discovery, the rulers of France were not without hope that profit would spring from them in the shape of rich territories or fields for French exploitation. It is, indeed, extremely likely that such was the case. Governments, being political organisations, are swayed chiefly by political considerations, or at any rate are largely affected by them. When Prince Henry the Navigator fitted out the caravels that crept timidly down the west coast of Africa, penetrating farther and farther into the unknown, until a new ocean and new realms at length opened upon the view he was inspired by the ideal of spreading the Christian religion and of gaining knowledge about the shape of the world for its own sake; but he was none the less desirous of securing augmented wealth and dominion for Portugal.* (* See Beazley, Henry the Navigator pages 139 to 141; and E.J. Payne, in Cambridge Modern History 1 10 to 15.) It was not solely for faith and science that he:

"Heaven inspired, To love of useful glory roused mankind And in unbounded commerce mixed the world."

Isabella of Castile did not finance Columbus purely for the glory of discovery. Luis de Santangel and Alonso de Quintanilla, who prevailed upon her to befriend the daring Genoese, not only used the argument that the voyage would present an opportunity of "spreading her holy religion," but also that it would "replenish her treasury chests."* (* Justin Winsor, Christopher Columbus page 178.) It is as natural for the statesman to hope for political advantage as for the man of science to look for scientific rewards, the geographer for geographical results, the merchant for extended scope for commerce, from any enterprise of the kind in which the State concerns itself. It would have been a perfectly proper aspiration on the part of French statesmen to seek for opportunities of development in a region as yet scarcely touched by European energy. But there is no more reason for attributing this motive to Bonaparte in 1800, than to the Ministers of Louis XV and Louis XVI, or to the Government of France during the Revolution: and that is the point.

It is to misinterpret the character of the Napoleon Bonaparte who ruled the Republic in the early period of the Consulate, to suppose him incapable of wishing to promote research for its own sake. He desired the glory of his era to depend upon other achievements than those of war. "My intention certainly is," he said to Thibaudeau, "to multiply the works of peace. It may be that in the future I shall be better known by them than by my victories." The Memoires of the shrewd observer to whom the words were uttered, give us perhaps a more intimate acquaintance with the Consular Bonaparte than does any other single book; and it is impossible to study them without deriving the impression that he was at this time far more than a great soldier. He was, faults notwithstanding, a very noble and high-minded man. It was easy for the savants of the Institute to show him what a fine field for enterprise there was in the South Seas; and though there is not a shred of evidence to indicate that, in acquiescing in the proposition, he yielded to any other impulse than that of securing for France the glory of discovery, there may yet have been at the back of his mind, so to speak, the idea that if good fortune attended the effort, the French nation might profit otherwise than in repute. To say so much, however, is not to admit that there is any justification for thinking that the acquisition of dominion furnished a direct motive for the expedition. If Bonaparte entertained such a notion he kept it to himself. There is not a trace of it in his correspondence, or in the memoirs of those who were intimate with him at this period. One cannot say what thoughts took shape at the back of a mind like Napoleon's, nor how far he was looking ahead in anything that he did. One can only judge from the evidence available. On some of Flinders' charts there are dotted lines to indicate coasts which he had not been able to explore fully. He would not set down as a statement of fact what he had not verified. History, too, has its dotted lines, where supposition fills up gaps for which we have no certain information. There is no harm in them; there is some advantage. But we had better take care that they remain dotted lines until we can ink them over with certainty, and not mistake a possibly wrong guess for a fact.

It is also necessary to distinguish between the exalted motives of which we may think the First Consul capable in 1800, and for a year or two after, and the use he would have made five, eight, or ten years later of any opportunities of damaging the possessions and the prestige of Great Britain. In the full tide of his passionate hatred against the nation that mocked and blocked and defied him at every turn of his foreign policy, he would unquestionably have been delighted to seize any opportunity of striking a blow at British power anywhere. He kept Decaen at Mauritius in the hope that events might favour an attempt on India. He would have used discoveries made in Australasia, as he would have used Fulton's steamboat in 1807, to injure his enemy, could he have done so effectually. But to do that involved the possession of great naval strength, and the services of an admiral fit to meet upon the high seas that slim, one-armed, one-eyed man whose energy and genius were equal to a fleet of frigates to the dogged nation whose hero he was; and in both these requirements the Emperor was deficient.

Indeed, we can scarcely realise how much Australia owes to Britain's overwhelming strength upon the blue water at the beginning of the nineteenth century. But for that, not only France but other European powers would surely have claimed the right to establish themselves upon the continent. The proportion of it which the English occupied at the time was proportionately no more than a fly-speck upon a window pane. She could not colonise the whole of it, and the small portion that she was using was a mere convict settlement. Almost any other place would have done equally well for such a purpose. It needed some tremendous exertion of strength to enable her to maintain exclusive possession of a whole continent, such as Spain had vainly professed regarding America in the sixteenth century. From the point of view of Australian "unity, peace, and concord," the Napoleonic wars were an immense blessing, however great an infliction they may have been to old Europe. In an age of European tranquillity, it is pretty certain that foreign colonisation in Australia would not have been resisted. Great Britain would not have risked a war with a friendly power concerning a very distant land, the value and potentialities of which were far from being immediately obvious. The Englishman, however, is tremendously assertive when threatened. He will fight to the last gasp to keep what he really does not want very much, if only he supposes that his enemy wishes to take a bit of it. It was in that spirit of pugnacity that he stretched a large muscular hand over the whole map of Australia, and defied his foes to touch it. Before the great struggle it would have been quite possible to think of colonising schemes in the southern hemisphere without seriously contemplating the danger of collision with the British. But the end of the Napoleonic wars left the power and prestige of Great Britain upon the sea unchallengeable, and her possessions out of Europe were placed beyond assail. This position was fairly established before Napoleon could have made any serious attempt to annoy or injure the English settlement in Australia. Traced back to decisive causes, the ownership of Australia was determined on October 21, 1805, when the planks of the Victory were reddened with the life-blood of Nelson.

The remaining points to be considered are the following.

The Treaty of Amiens was negotiated and signed in 1801 and 1802, while Baudin's expedition was at sea. Had Napoleon desired to secure a slice of Australia for the French, here was his opportunity to proclaim what he wanted. Had he done so, we can have no reasonable doubt that he would have found the British Government compliant. His Majesty's Ministers were in a concessionary mood. By that treaty Great Britain surrendered all her maritime conquests of recent wars, except Trinidad and Ceylon. She gave up the Cape, Demerara, Berbice, Essequibo, Surinam, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Minorca, and Malta.* (* Cambridge Modern History 9 75 et seq; Brodrick and Fotheringham, Political History of England 11 9 et seq.) She was eagerly desirous for peace. Bread was dear, and England seethed with discontent. Napoleon was fully aware that he was in a position to force concessions. King George's advisers were limp. "England," wrote Thibaudeau, who knew his master's mind, "was driven by sheer necessity to make peace; not so Bonaparte, whose reasons were founded on the desire of the French nation for peace, the fact that the terms of the treaty were glorious for France, and the recognition by his bitterest enemy of the position which the nation had bestowed upon him."* (* Fortescue's English edition page 18.) The value of Australia at this time was scarcely perceived by Great Britain at all. Sydney was just a tip for human refuse, and a cause of expense, not of profit or advantage. The only influential man in England who believed in a future for the country was Sir Joseph Banks; and he, in 1799, had written to Governor Hunter: "The situation of Europe is at present so critical, and His Majesty's Ministers so fully employed in business of the highest importance, that it is scarce possible to gain a moment's audience on any subject but those which stand foremost in their minds, and colonies of all kinds, you may be assured, are now put in the background...Your colony is a most valuable appendage to Great Britain, and I flatter myself we shall, before it is long, see her Ministers made sensible of its real value."* (* Banks to Hunter, February 1, 1799. Historical Records of New South Wales 3 532.) If that was the feeling in 1799, we can imagine how a claim to the right to found a French settlement in Australia during the nerveless regime of Addington would have been received. It would not have delayed the signing of the Treaty of Amiens by one hour. England at that time would not have risked a frigate or spent an ounce of powder on resisting such a demand. But the subject does not appear to have been even mentioned during the negotiations.

Nor was it mentioned by Napoleon during the years of his captivity at St. Helena. He talked about his projects, his failures, his successes, with O'Meara, Montholon, Las Cases, Admiral Malcolm, Antommarchi, Gourgaud, and others. Australia and the Baudin expedition were never discussed, though Surgeon O'Meara knew all about Flinders' imprisonment, and mentioned it incidentally in a footnote to illustrate the hardships brought upon innocent non-belligerents during the Napoleonic wars. Indeed, an interesting passage in O'Meara's Napoleon at Saint Helena* (* Edition of 1888, 2 129.) causes a doubt as to whether Napoleon had a clear recollection of the Flinders case at all. It is true that General Decaen's aide-de-camp had mentioned it to him in 1804, and that Banks had written to him on the subject; but he had many larger matters to occupy him, and possibly gave no more than passing thought to it. O'Meara records that among Napoleon's visitors at the rock was an Englishman, Mr. Manning, who was travelling in France for the benefit of his health in 1805. He had been arrested, but on writing to Napoleon stating his case, was released. He mentioned the incident in the course of the conversation, and expressed his gratitude. "What protection had you?" asked Napoleon. "Had you a letter from Sir Joseph Banks to me?" Manning replied that he had no letter from any one, but that Napoleon had ordered his release without the intervention of any influential person. The occurrence of Banks's name to Napoleon's memory in connection with an application for the release of a traveller may indicate that a reminiscence of the Flinders case lingered in the mind of the illustrious exile. So much cannot, however, be stated positively, because Flinders was not the only prisoner in behalf of whom the President of the Royal Society had interested himself, though his was the only case which attracted a very large amount of public attention. But what is chiefly significant is the absence of any reference to Australia and Baudin's expedition in the St. Helena conversations, in which the whole field of Napoleonic policy was traversed with amplitude.