It Is True That General Decaen's Aide-De-Camp Had Mentioned It To Him In 1804, And That Banks Had Written To Him On The Subject; But He Had Many Larger Matters To Occupy Him, And Possibly Gave No More Than Passing Thought To It.

O'Meara records that among Napoleon's visitors at the rock was an Englishman, Mr. Manning, who was travelling in France for the benefit of his health in 1805.

He had been arrested, but on writing to Napoleon stating his case, was released. He mentioned the incident in the course of the conversation, and expressed his gratitude. "What protection had you?" asked Napoleon. "Had you a letter from Sir Joseph Banks to me?" Manning replied that he had no letter from any one, but that Napoleon had ordered his release without the intervention of any influential person. The occurrence of Banks's name to Napoleon's memory in connection with an application for the release of a traveller may indicate that a reminiscence of the Flinders case lingered in the mind of the illustrious exile. So much cannot, however, be stated positively, because Flinders was not the only prisoner in behalf of whom the President of the Royal Society had interested himself, though his was the only case which attracted a very large amount of public attention. But what is chiefly significant is the absence of any reference to Australia and Baudin's expedition in the St. Helena conversations, in which the whole field of Napoleonic policy was traversed with amplitude.

Had the selection of a site for settlement, rather than research, been intended, it seems most likely that Napoleon, with his trained eye for strategic advantages, would have directed particular if not exclusive attention to be paid to the north coast of Australia. If he had taken the map in hand and studied it with a view to obtaining a favourable position, he would probably have put his finger upon the part of the coast where Port Darwin is situated, and would have said, "Search carefully just there: see if a harbour can be discovered which may be used as a base." The coast was entirely unoccupied; the French might have established themselves securely before the British knew what they had done; and had they found and fortified Port Darwin, they would have captured the third point of a triangle - the other two being Mauritius and Pondicherry - which might have made them very powerful in the Indian Ocean. And that is precisely what the East India Company's directors feared that Napoleon intended. One of them, the Hon. C.F. Greville, wrote to Brown, the naturalist of the Investigator, "I hope the French ships of discovery will not station themselves on the north coast of New Holland";* (* January 4, 1802. Historical Records of New South Wales 4 677.) and the Company, recognising their own interest in the matter, voted six hundred pounds as a present to the captain, staff, and crew of the Investigator before she sailed from England. But instead of what was feared, the French ships devoted principal attention to the south, where there was original geographical work to do - a natural course, their object being discovery, but not what might have been expected had their real design been acquisition.

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