The Extremity Of Abject Powerlessness Had Unquestionably Been
Reached When The Wide Entrance To Port Jackson Could Not Be Negotiated.
Peron regarded the dreadful condition of the vessel as furnishing a great
and terrible lesson to navigators.
"These misfortunes," he wrote, "had no
other cause than the neglect of our chief of the most indispensable
precautions relative to the health of the men. He neglected the orders of
the Government in that regard; he neglected the instructions which had
been furnished to him in Europe; he imposed, at all stages of the voyage,
the most horrible privations upon his crew and his sick people." The
naturalist concluded his doleful chapter of horrors by quoting the words
of the British navigator, Vancouver, who was one of Cook's officers on
his third voyage: "It is to the inestimable progress of naval hygiene
that the English owe, in great part, the high rank that they hold to-day
among the nations." He might also have quoted, had he been aware of it,
an excellent saying of Nelson's: "It is easier for an officer to keep men
healthy than for a physician to cure them."
CHAPTER 9. PORT JACKSON AND KING ISLAND.
Le Naturaliste at Sydney.
Boullanger's boat party.
Curious conduct of Baudin.
Le Naturaliste sails for Mauritius, but returns to Port Jackson.
Re-union of Baudin's ships.
Hospitality of Governor King.
Peron's impressions of the British settlement.
Morand, the banknote forger.
Baudin shows his charts and instructions to King.
Departure of the French ships.
Rumours as to their objects.
King's prompt action.
The Cumberland sent after them.
Acting Lieutenant Robbins at King Island.
The flag incident.
Baudin's letters to King.
His protestations.
Views on colonisation.
Le Naturaliste sails for Europe.
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