Meeting of the Investigator and Le Geographe in Encounter Bay.
Flinders cautious.
Interview of the two captains.
Peron's evidence.
The chart of Bass Strait.
Second interview: Baudin inquisitive.
Baudin's account of his explorations.
On the afternoon of April 8,* (* In his manuscript journal, which was
used by the Quarterly reviewer of the first volume of the Voyage de
Decouvertes, in August 1810, Flinders gave the date on which he met Le
Geographe as April 9th (Quarterly Review volume 4 52). But there is no
contradiction. In his journal Flinders gave the date of the nautical day,
which commenced at noon. As he met Baudin's corvette in the late
afternoon, it was, by nautical reckoning, April 9th. But by the calendar,
the civil day commencing at midnight, the date was April 8th, as stated
by Flinders in his published volumes, by both Peron and Louis de
Freycinet, and in the log of Le Geographe. A similar difference of dates,
which puzzled Labilliere in writing his Early History of Victoria 1 108,
occurs as to the first sighting of Port Phillip by Flinders. It is
explained in exactly the same way.) the man at the masthead of the
Investigator reported a white rock ahead. He was mistaken. Glasses were
turned towards it, and as the distance lessened it became apparent that
the white object was a sail. The sloop was at this time in latitude 35
degrees 40 minutes south, longitude 138 degrees 58 minutes east. To meet
another vessel in this region, many leagues from regular trading routes,
in a part of the world hitherto undiscovered, was surprising. The
Investigator stood on her course, and as the strange ship became more
clearly defined it was evident that she was making towards the British
sloop. Flinders therefore "cleared for action in case of being attacked."
He knew that the French Government had sent out ships having like objects
with his own; he knew that some influential persons in England,
especially the Court of Directors of the East India Company, were uneasy
and suspicious about French designs; and he had been fully instructed by
the Admiralty as to the demeanour he should maintain if he met vessels
flying a hostile flag. But though his duty prescribed that he must not
offer any provocation, he could not forget that when he left Europe Great
Britain and France were still at war, and preparation for extremities was
a measure of mere prudence.
The stranger proved to be "a heavy-looking ship without any top-gallant
masts up." On the Investigator hoisting her colours, Le Geographe "showed
a French ensign, and afterwards an English jack forward, as we did a
white flag." Flinders manoeuvred so as to keep his broadside to the
stranger, "lest the flag of truce should be a deception." But the
demeanour of the French being purely pacific, he had a boat hoisted out
and went on board, Le Geographe having also hove to.
On the French vessel, meanwhile, similar curiosity had been provoked as
to the identity of the ship sailing east. Captain Baudin's men had been
engaged during the morning in harpooning dolphins, which they desired for
the sake of the flesh. Peron, in his narrative, waxes almost hysterically
joyous about the good fortune that brought along a school of these fish
just as the ship's company were almost perishing for want of fresh food.
They appeared, he says, like a gift from Heaven.* (* "Cette peche
heureuse nous parut comme un bienfait du ciel. Alors, en effet, le
terrible scorbut avoit commence ses ravages, et les salaisons pourries et
rongees de vers auxquelles nous etions reduits depuis plusieurs mois
precipitoient chaque jour l'affreux developpement de ce fleau." Voyage de
Decouvertes 1 323.) Unlike the bronzed and healthy crew of the
Investigator, the company on Le Geographe were suffering severely from
scurvy. The virulence of the disease increased daily. They were rejoicing
at the capture of nine large dolphins, which would supply them with a
feast of fresh meat, when the look-out man signalled that a sail was in
sight.* (* Mr. T. Ward, in his Rambles of an Australian Naturalist (1907)
page 153, relates that in 1889 he harpooned a large dolphin, Grampus
gris, in King George's Sound, and that whalers told him that dolphins
were at one time common in the Bight, in schools of two and three
hundred. As to dolphin flesh as food, the reader may like to be reminded
that Hawkins's men, in 1565, found dolphins "of very good colour and
proportion to behold, and no less delicate in taste" (Hakluyt's Voyages
edition of 1904 10 61). So also in 1705 a voyager to Maryland related the
capture of dolphins, "a beautiful fish to see...it is also a good fish to
eat." "Narrative of a Voyage to Maryland," printed from manuscript in
American Historical Review 12 328.)
At first it was considered that the ship was Le Naturaliste, the consort
of Le Geographe, the two vessels having become separated in a storm off
the Tasmanian coast. But as the Investigator steered towards the French
and hoisted her flag, the mistake was corrected.
Flinders took Brown, the naturalist, with him on board, because he was a
good French scholar; but Captain Baudin spoke English "so as to be
understood," and the conversation was therefore conducted for the most
part in that language. Brown was the only person present at the first
interview on the 8th, and at the second on the following morning;* (* "No
person was present at our conversations except Mr. Brown" (Flinders,
Voyage 1 190). Robert Brown was a very celebrated botanist. Humboldt
styled him "botanicorum facile princeps." His Prodromus Florae Novae
Hollandiae is a classic of price.) both taking place in the French
captain's cabin. Peron, in the first volume of the Voyage de Decouvertes,
wrote as though he were present and heard what occurred between the two
commanders. "En nous fournissant tous ces details M. Flinders se montre
d'une grande reserve sur ses operations particulieres," he wrote; and
again:
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