She Was
Detained There From May 27 Till June 6, When The Admiralty, Being
Informed Of What Had Occurred, Ordered Her Immediate Release.
She left
Portsmouth and arrived at Havre on the same day, June 6, 1803.
Perhaps nothing can convey more effectually the utter weariness and
depression of officers, staff, and crew, than the language in which
Freycinet chronicled the return. It might be supposed, he wrote, that the
end of the voyage would be heralded with joy. But they were themselves
surprised to find that they were but slightly touched with pleasure at
seeing again the shores of their own country after so long an absence.
"It might be said that the very sight of our ship, recalling too strongly
the sufferings of which we had been the victims, poisoned all our
affections. It was not until we were far away from the coast that our
souls could expand to sentiments of happiness which had been so long
strangers to us."
This, surely, was not the language of men who believed that they had
accomplished things for which the world would hold them in honour. It was
not the language of triumphant discoverers, whose good fortune it had
been to reveal unknown coasts, and to finish that complete map of the
continents which had been so long a-making. Would it, one wonders, have
made Freycinet a little happier had he known that at this very time the
English navigator who had made the discoveries for which Baudin's
expedition was sent out, was held in the clutch of General Decaen in
Mauritius, and that the way was clear to hurry on the publication of
forestalling maps and records whilst Flinders was, as it were, battened
under hatches?
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