Even Then, With The
Harbour Of Refuge In Sight, The Crew Were So Paralysed By Their
Affliction That They Were Positively Unable To Work Her Into Port.* (* An
Astonishing Statement Indeed, But Here Are Peron's Words:
"Depuis
plusieurs jours, nous nous trouvions par le travers du port Jackson sans
pouvoir, a cause de la faiblesse
De nos matelots, executer les manoeuvres
necessaires pour y entrer.") But the fact that a ship in distress was
outside the heads was reported to Governor King, who was expecting Le
Geographe to arrive, and who had doubtless learnt that there was scurvy
aboard from Flinders, whose quick eye would not have failed to perceive
some trace of the sad state of affairs when he boarded the vessel in
Encounter Bay. Accordingly King sent out a boat's crew of robust
blue-jackets from the Investigator; and Peron records with what trembling
joy the afflicted Frenchmen saw the boat approaching on that June
morning. Soon the British tars climbed aboard, sails were trimmed, the
tiller was grasped by a strong hand, a brisk British officer took charge,
and the ship was brought through the blue waters of Port Jackson, where,
in Neutral Bay, her anchor was dropped.
It is not overstating the case to say that Le Geographe was snatched from
utter destruction by the prompt kindness of the British governor. A
slight prolongation of the voyage would have rendered her as helpless as
if peopled by a phantom crew; and she must have been blown before the
wind until dashed to fragments on the rocks on some uninhabited part of
the coast. The extremity of abject powerlessness had unquestionably been
reached when the wide entrance to Port Jackson could not be negotiated.
Peron regarded the dreadful condition of the vessel as furnishing a great
and terrible lesson to navigators. "These misfortunes," he wrote, "had no
other cause than the neglect of our chief of the most indispensable
precautions relative to the health of the men. He neglected the orders of
the Government in that regard; he neglected the instructions which had
been furnished to him in Europe; he imposed, at all stages of the voyage,
the most horrible privations upon his crew and his sick people." The
naturalist concluded his doleful chapter of horrors by quoting the words
of the British navigator, Vancouver, who was one of Cook's officers on
his third voyage: "It is to the inestimable progress of naval hygiene
that the English owe, in great part, the high rank that they hold to-day
among the nations." He might also have quoted, had he been aware of it,
an excellent saying of Nelson's: "It is easier for an officer to keep men
healthy than for a physician to cure them."
CHAPTER 9. PORT JACKSON AND KING ISLAND.
Le Naturaliste at Sydney.
Boullanger's boat party.
Curious conduct of Baudin.
Le Naturaliste sails for Mauritius, but returns to Port Jackson.
Re-union of Baudin's ships.
Hospitality of Governor King.
Peron's impressions of the British settlement.
Morand, the banknote forger.
Baudin shows his charts and instructions to King.
Departure of the French ships.
Rumours as to their objects.
King's prompt action.
The Cumberland sent after them.
Acting Lieutenant Robbins at King Island.
The flag incident.
Baudin's letters to King.
His protestations.
Views on colonisation.
Le Naturaliste sails for Europe.
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