"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.
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