Freycinet's Maps Would Have
Been Of No More Use To Napoleon In Getting A Footing In Australia Than A
Postage Stamp Would Be In Shifting One Of The Pyramids.
He was capable of
many mean things, but we gravely undervalue his capacity for seeing to
the heart of
A problem if we suppose him both mean and silly enough to
conspire to cheat Matthew Flinders out of his well and hardly won
honours, on the supposition that the maps would help him to assert a
claim upon Australia. He could have made good no such claim in the teeth
of British opposition without sea power; and that he had not.
The consequences of the suspicion that Napoleon intended to seize a site
in Australia, were, however, quite as important as if he had formally
announced his intention of doing so. What men believe to be true, not
what is true, determines their action; and there was quite enough in the
circumstances that occurred to make Governor King and his superiors in
England resolve upon decisive action. King having communicated his
beliefs to Ministers, Lord Hobart, Secretary of State for War and the
Colonies, in June 1803, wrote a despatch in which he authorised the
colonisation of Van Diemen's Land by the removal of part of the
establishment at Norfolk Island to Port Dalrymple - "the advantageous
position of which, upon the southern coast of Van Diemen's Land, and near
the entrance of Bass Straits, renders it, in a political view,
particularly necessary that a settlement should be formed there."* (* See
Backhouse Walker, Early Tasmania page 22.) It will be observed that the
Secretary of State's geographical knowledge of the countries under his
regime was quite remarkable.
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