Thoroughly Repugnant To French Intellect And Feeling Was
Conduct Of This Description.
National animosities were more bitter at
this period than they have ever been at any other time, but science knows
no nationality.
Even when the two governments had ceased to have
relations with each other, we still find English and French men of
science communicating on friendly terms; and Napoleon himself was willing
to grant the requests of an English savant while English arms and English
diplomacy were at furious war with him. Thus Sir Joseph Banks, who was a
corresponding member of the Institute of France, could write in 1805, "I
have obtained the release of five persons from the gracious condescension
of the Emperor, the only five, I believe, that have been regularly
discharged from their parole."
Freycinet, then, had to defend his charts. But there never was a more
complete example of the remark that "qui s'excuse s'accuse." He argued
that when Le Geographe cruised along the coasts discovered by Flinders,
there was no published work in which they were described, therefore the
French were justified in applying their own names. But this plea ignored
the fact that if the coasts were not charted in any work published before
1807, they had been, to the full knowledge of the French officers,
charted by Flinders, whose work would have been published earlier if he
had not been forcibly detained. Again he argued* (* Preface to volume 3.)
that, inasmuch as "jamais Peron ni moi" - where Freycinet assumed part of
the responsibility - knew of the work done by Flinders until his book was
published, the work of the French was truly one of discovery; and as to
the names given by the English navigator, "it is certain that we could
not employ them without knowing them." But it was not true that
Freycinet, Peron, or Baudin was unaware of the discoveries made by
Flinders. Even were there not his specific statement that he explained
his discoveries and showed one of his charts to illustrate them, it would
be incredible that while the French and English ships lay together for
some weeks at Port Jackson, with tents erected on the same piece of
ground, the officers frequently meeting on friendly terms, Freycinet and
Peron should not have learnt what the Investigator had been doing. Both
the French authors are individually mentioned by Flinders as having been
present on one or other of these occasions, and Freycinet does not deny
the statement. Further, Captain Hamelin reported to the French
Government, in 1803, that Flinders had traced the coast from the Leeuwin
to Encounter Bay, and had discovered a large and beautiful island which
he had named "L'Ile des Kangaroux."* (* Moniteur, 27 Thermidor,
Revolutionary Year 11.)
It is true that the French were not acquainted with Flinders' names,
except in the one case of Kangaroo Island. He told Baudin what name he
had given in that case. Nevertheless they ignored it, and called the
island Ile Decres. But even when they did know of the names given to
features of the coast by a previous English navigator, Peron and
Freycinet disregarded them. Grant's Narrative of the Voyage of the Lady
Nelson was published, together with his eye-chart of the coast from Cape
Banks to Wilson's Promontory, in 1803. Flinders states positively that
Grant's "discoveries were known to M. Peron and the French expedition in
1802";* (* Voyage 1 201.) as indeed we might well suppose, for Grant was
not the man to allow any one with whom he came in contact to remain
unaware of his achievements, and he was in Sydney just before the French
arrived there. They would hear of him from many people. Yet Grant's
names, inscribed in plain print on his published chart, were all ignored
on the Terre Napoleon charts - his Cape Nelson becoming Cap Montaigne; his
Cape Otway, Cap Desaix; his Cape Schanck, Cap Richelieu; and so forth.
The contention that the south coast exploration of the French was
"entirely a work of discovery,"* (* Freycinet, 2 page 23.) although they
were forestalled in it by Flinders and Grant, is neither true nor
sensible. If it could be held that the voyage of a vessel sailing without
a chart or a pilot along a coast previously unknown to its officers was
"entirely a work of discovery," then a ship that should sail under such
conditions along any piece of coast - say from Boulogne to La Hague - would
accomplish "a work of discovery." Discovery is a matter of priority, or
the word is meaningless.
Freycinet's notes nowhere meet the gravest feature of the case - the
prolongation of the imprisonment of Flinders until the French could
complete their own charts for publication. The talk about not knowing
what Flinders' names were, the affected ignorance of his prior claims,
were crudely disingenuous. Freycinet knew perfectly where Flinders was,
and why his charts were not issued. The Moniteur contained several
references to his case. Sir Joseph Banks repeatedly pressed leading
members of the Institute to lend their influence to secure his
liberation. But Freycinet, who had shared in the generous hospitality of
the British governor in Sydney - extended at a time when the French crews
were sorely stricken - and should have been moved by gratitude, to say
nothing of justice, to help in undoing an act of wrong to a
fellow-navigator, does not seem to have taken the slightest step in this
direction, nor does he in any of his writings express any regret
concerning the unhappy fate that overtook the English captain.
The claim made in behalf of Baudin's expedition can best be stated in the
language of Peron. Dentrecasteaux, he wrote, not having advanced beyond
the islands of St. Peter and St. Francis, which form the extremity of
Nuyts Land, and the English not having carried their researches farther
than Westernport, "it follows that all the portion between the
last-mentioned port and Nuyts Land was unknown at the time when we
arrived on these shores." Peron's words were not candid.
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