"Had you a letter from Sir Joseph Banks to me?" Manning
replied that he had no letter from any one, but that Napoleon had ordered
his release without the intervention of any influential person.
The
occurrence of Banks's name to Napoleon's memory in connection with an
application for the release of a traveller may indicate that a
reminiscence of the Flinders case lingered in the mind of the illustrious
exile. So much cannot, however, be stated positively, because Flinders
was not the only prisoner in behalf of whom the President of the Royal
Society had interested himself, though his was the only case which
attracted a very large amount of public attention. But what is chiefly
significant is the absence of any reference to Australia and Baudin's
expedition in the St. Helena conversations, in which the whole field of
Napoleonic policy was traversed with amplitude.
Had the selection of a site for settlement, rather than research, been
intended, it seems most likely that Napoleon, with his trained eye for
strategic advantages, would have directed particular if not exclusive
attention to be paid to the north coast of Australia. If he had taken the
map in hand and studied it with a view to obtaining a favourable
position, he would probably have put his finger upon the part of the
coast where Port Darwin is situated, and would have said, "Search
carefully just there: see if a harbour can be discovered which may be
used as a base." The coast was entirely unoccupied; the French might have
established themselves securely before the British knew what they had
done; and had they found and fortified Port Darwin, they would have
captured the third point of a triangle - the other two being Mauritius and
Pondicherry - which might have made them very powerful in the Indian
Ocean.
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