It Is A Pleasure To
Acknowledge That All The References To Flinders Which The Author Has Seen
In French Works
Unanimously and strongly condemn the treatment of him,
and do ample justice to his splendid qualities.) They are very like
In
one respect, namely, in the representation of Spencer's and St. Vincent's
Gulfs and Kangaroo Island. In other particulars, at all events as far as
relates to the Terre Napoleon coasts, the French charts are quite unlike
those of Flinders. But contemporaries - knowing that Flinders' charts had
been taken from him by Decaen, and that he had been held in captivity
until the French could finish their work, and then, comparing his charts
with Freycinet's, finding that parts of the coasts discovered by the
English captain were well represented on the French charts, while other
parts of the outline of Terra Australis were badly done or
inadequate - not unnaturally drew the inference that the well-drawn
sections were based upon drawings improperly acquired. If the chain of
evidence was not complete, the violent racial animosities then prevalent
moulded the missing links in the fervent heat of imagination.
But it is quite easy to account for the superior cartography of the two
gulfs and Kangaroo Island. Le Geographe visited this region twice. In
April 1802, after meeting Flinders in Encounter Bay, Baudin sailed west,
and endeavoured to penetrate the two gulfs. But his corvette drew too
much water to permit him to go far, and he determined to give up the
attempt, and to devote "une seconde campagne" to "la reconnaissance
complete de ces deux grands enfoncements."* (* Voyage de Decouvertes 3
11.) In Sydney, Governor King permitted him to purchase a small locally
constructed vessel of light draught - called the Casuarina, because she
was built of she-oak - with which to explore rivers and shallow waters.
The command of this boat was entrusted to Lieutenant Louis de Freycinet,
the future cartographer and part historian of the expedition; and the
charts of the two gulfs and Kangaroo Island were made by, or under the
superintendence of, that officer.
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