Le Naturaliste Had Been Unable To Rejoin Her Consort After The Tempest Of
March 7 And 8.
She being a slow sailer, the risk of the two vessels
parting company was constant, and as there had already been one
separation, before the sojourn at Timor, Baudin should have appointed a
rendezvous.
But he had neither taken this simple precaution, nor had he
even intimated to Captain Hamelin the route that he intended to pursue.
When, therefore, the storm abated, the commander of the second ship
neither knew where to look for Le Geographe, nor had he any certain
information to enable him to follow her.
Before making up his mind as to what he should do, Captain Hamelin had
the good luck to pick up an open boat containing Boullanger, one of the
scientific staff of Le Geographe, a lieutenant, and eight sailors. They
were absent from the ship when the storm burst, and Baudin had sailed
away without them. His conduct on this occasion had been inexplicable.
Boullanger and his party had gone out in the boat to chart a part of the
coast with more detail than was possible from the deck of the corvette.
But they had not been away more than a quarter of an hour, according to
Peron, when Baudin, "without any apparent reason," bore off the coast.
Then came the tempest, night fell, the following days were too stormy for
putting off another boat to search for the missing men; and in the end,
Baudin left them to their fate. They had no chart or compass, merely
enough food and water to last for a day, and were abandoned on an
uninhabited coast, in an open boat, in bitterly cold, squally weather,
with the rain falling in sheets at frequent intervals. Here again,
British kindness saved the Frenchmen. Before having the good fortune to
perceive the sails of Le Naturaliste, the starved, drenched, and
miserable men had attracted the attention of a sealing brig, the
Snow-Harrington, from Sydney. Her skipper, Campbell, took them on board,
supplied them with warm food, and offered to convey them to Port Jackson
forthwith. They remained on the Snow-Harrington for the night, but on the
following morning sighted Le Naturaliste, and, after profusely thanking
Captain Campbell for his generosity, soon picked her up.
Hamelin, having no instructions as to where he should go, resolved to
devote himself to work in Bass Strait. Eight days were spent in
Westernport, the limit of Bass's discoveries in January 1798; and the
name French Island preserves the memory of their researches there. They
found the soil fertile, the vegetation abundant, the timber plentiful;
the port was, they considered, "one of the most beautiful that it would
be possible to find, and it unites all the advantages which will make it
some day a precious possession."
But the supplies on board Le Naturaliste were becoming exhausted, and,
being still without news of his chief, Hamelin decided to sail for Port
Jackson. He arrived there on April 24.
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