"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.
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