As A Matter Of Fact, The
Snow-Harrington, Which Had Succoured Boullanger And His Boat Crew Of
Abandoned Frenchmen In
The previous March, had, after that fortunate
meeting, stayed at the island ten weeks, when there were killed the
enormous
Number of six hundred sea-elephants and four thousand three
hundred seals.* (* Backhouse Walker, Early Tasmania page 21.) Besides,
Baudin assured King that "I intend" that the island "shall continue to
bear your name," forgetful that it would not have had a name already if
his own visit had been "prior" to others.
The second, unofficial, letter which Baudin wrote to the governor
repeated his positive assurances that the suspicions concerning his
objects were without foundation, but on account of the personal regard
which he entertained for King, he determined to tell him frankly his
opinion regarding the forming of European settlements and the
dispossessing of native peoples. The view expressed by him bears the
impress of the "ideas of '89," ideas which laid stress on the rights of
man and human equality, and professed for the backward races a special
fraternal tenderness. "To my way of thinking," said the commodore, "I
have never been able to conceive that there was any justice or equity on
the part of Europeans, in seizing, in the name of their governments, a
land for the first time, when it is inhabited by men who have not always
deserved the title of savages, or cannibals, which has been given to
them, while they were but children of nature, and just as little savages
as are actually your Scotch Highlanders* (* Had Baudin been reading about
the Sage of Lichfield?
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