He Shut Himself Up In His Cabin, And Left The Ship
To His Lieutenant, Henri De Freycinet.
Le Naturaliste was separated from
her consort during a furious gale which raged on March 7 and 8, and the
two vessels did not meet again till both reached Port Jackson.
While
making for Bass Strait, Le Geographe fell in with a small vessel engaged
in catching seals, with whose captain the French had some converse. He
told them that the British Government had sent out special instructions
to Port Jackson that, should the French exploring ships put in there,
they were to be received "with all the regard due to the nature of their
mission, and to the dignity of the nation to which they belonged"* (*
Peron, 1824 edition 2 175.) - surely a noble piece of courtesy from the
Government of a people with whom the French were then at war. It was this
intimation, there can be no doubt, that a month later determined Baudin
to go to Sydney, for Captain Hamelin of Le Naturaliste was not aware of
his intention to do so, as will appear from the following chapter. Bass
Strait was entered on March 27, and the ship followed the southern coast
of Australia until the meeting with Flinders in Encounter Bay, as
described in the earlier part of this book.
By this time, as has been related, scurvy was wreaking frightful havoc
among the crew. Before the Encounter Bay incident occurred, the French
sailors had expressed so much disgust with their putrid meat, weevilly
biscuit, and stinking water, that some of them threw their rations
overboard, even in the presence of the captain, preferring to endure the
pangs of hunger rather than eat such revolting food.
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