The Golfe Joseph Bonaparte Of The Large French Chart, If Traced
With Some Degree Of Particularity, Would Have Led To Several Highly
Important Discoveries.
But it was not carefully investigated at all, and
thus Baudin totally missed Bathurst Island and Melville Island, which
together stretch for over one hundred miles across the entrance to Van
Diemen's Gulf.
Instead of definiteness of outline, the French charts
presented the world with a bristling array of names affixed to contours
which were cloudy and ill-defined, incomplete and inaccurate.
The most serious omission of all was the superb natural harbour of Port
Darwin, the finest anchorage in northern Australia. The French missed it
altogether. Yet here also they peppered their chart of the neighbouring
coasts with the names of their notable countrymen, as though they had
explored the environs meticulously. Baudin certainly lost a fine
opportunity of doing good original work in north-western Australia; and
had his real object been to find a suitable site for French settlement,
his research would have been amply rewarded had he found the port which
now bears the noble name of the greatest modern man of science. There is,
however, one French name which should not escape mention, since it serves
to remind us that Peron was writing his book at the time when, amidst the
smoke and flame and thunder of Trafalgar, two fleets locked in fierce
conflict were deciding momentous issues. Off the very broken coast of
what is now the Kimberley division of Western Australia, the French
styled a small cluster of rocky islets the Isles d'Arcole; and one of
these was named Ile Lucas, "in honour of the captain of the vessel which,
in the combat of the Redoutable against the Victory, has lately attained
so much honour."* (* Peron, Voyage de Decouvertes 1 136.) The English
reader will scarcely need to be reminded that it was by a shot from the
mizzen top of the Redoutable in that immortal fight that Nelson received
his death wound; and thus, by giving his name to a desolate rock, was it
sought to honour the captain of the ship that had accounted for the death
of a nation's hero.
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