It Was This
Manuscript Which The Admiralty Permitted To Be Perused By The Writer Of
The Powerful Quarterly Review Article Of August 1810.
The feeling of
indignation evoked by the treatment which the navigator received was
intensified when the publication of his
Voyage and his charts in 1814
showed the measure of his shining merits - his thoroughness, his accuracy,
his diligence, the beauty of his drawings, the vast extent of the
entirely new work which he had done, and the manliness, gentleness,
courage, and fairness of his personal character.
In addition to the discredit, of which he had to bear his full share,
Freycinet was involved in perplexities of another kind. It was a
convenient piece of flattery to name the two great gulfs after Napoleon
and Josephine when they were Emperor and Empress; but the courtier-like
compliment was embarrassing when Josephine was supplanted by Marie
Louise, and it became offensive when Napoleon himself was overthrown and
a Bourbon once more occupied the throne of France. Many of the other
names, too, were those of men no longer in favour. Yet the earlier
volumes of the Voyage de Decouvertes had referred in the text to the
names on the French charts as though they formed a final system of
nomenclature. What was poor Freycinet to do in completing the work? Here,
indeed, was a sailor hoist to his own yard-arm with his own halyard. The
work could not be dropped, since faith had to be kept with purchasers. In
the event, the old names were employed in the text of the completed book,
but a fresh atlas was issued (1817) with the name Terre Napoleon wiped
off the principal chart, most of the names changed to those given by
Flinders and Grant, and a neat note in the corner taking the place of the
former eagle - which was moulting; no longer the screaming fowl it used to
be - announcing that "this map of New Holland is an exact reduction of
that contained in the first edition."* (* "Cette carte de la
Nouvelle-Hollande est une reduction exacte de celle contenue dans la
premiere edition du Voyage aux Terres Australes.") The announcement was
not quite true. It was not "une reduction exacte." The imperial bird had
flown, and the names had undergone systematic revision. The Bonaparte
family were pitilessly evicted. It was a new and smaller map, with a new
allocation of names. Freycinet's name appeared upon it, and he probably
wrote the inscription in the corner.
CHAPTER 5. DID THE FRENCH USE FLINDERS' CHARTS?
Assertions commonly made as to French plagiarism of Flinders' charts.
Lack of evidence to support the charges.
General Decaen and his career.
The facts as to Flinders' charts.
The sealed trunks.
The third log-book and its contents; detention of it by Decaen, and the
reasons for his conduct.
Restoration of Flinders' papers, except the log-book and despatches.
Do Freycinet's charts show evidence of the use of Flinders' material?
How did the French obtain their chart of Port Phillip?
Peron's report to Decaen as to British intentions in the Pacific and
Indian Oceans, and the effect on his mind.
Liberation of Flinders.
Capture of Mauritius by the British.
English naval officers and the governor.
Later career of Decaen.
Flinders, in the decrepit little Cumberland, put into Port Louis,
Mauritius, on December 16, 1803. He was not permitted to sail out again
till July 1810; and then he was a broken man, smitten with diseases, the
painful product of exposure, shipwreck, confinement in a tropical
climate, anxiety, and bitter years of heart-sickness and weary
disappointment; yet a brave man still, with some hope nobly burning in
the true hero's heart of him; but with less vitality than hope, so that
he could do no more than write his big book of travel, and then lie down
to die.
Many loose statements have been written about the use which the French
made of Flinders' charts while he was held in captivity. It has been too
often taken for granted that the evidence of plagiarism is beyond
dispute. Not only popular writers, but historians with claims to be
considered scientific, are substantially in agreement on this point. Two
examples will indicate what is meant. Messrs. Becke and Jeffery, in their
Naval Pioneers of Australia (page 216), assert that "among other
indignities he suffered, he found that the charts taken from him by
Decaen had been appropriated to Baudin's exploring expedition." Again, to
take a work appealing to a different section of readers, the Cambridge
Modern History also charges the French with "the use of his papers to
appropriate for their ships the credit of his discoveries."* (* Volume 9
page 739 (Professor Egerton). Two more examples may be cited. Thus,
Laurie, Story of Australasia (1896) page 86. "He found that his journals
and charts had been stolen by the French governor of the Mauritius and
transferred to Paris, where the fullest advantage was taken of them by M.
Peron." Again, Jose, Australasia (1901) page 21: "His maps were taken to
France to be published there with French names as the work of French
explorers.")
The charge is, it will be observed, that not only did the French governor
of Mauritius imprison the English navigator despite his passport,
detaining him years after the other members of the Cumberland's company
had been liberated, but that Flinders' charts and papers were improperly
used in the preparation of the history of Baudin's expedition. Indeed,
the accusation is equivalent to one of garrotting: that General Decaen
seized and bound his victim, robbed him, and enabled Freycinet and Peron
to use his work as their own.
So widely has this view been diffused, that probably few will be prepared
for the assurance that there is no evidence to support it. On the
contrary, as will be shown, neither Peron nor Freycinet ever saw any
chart or journal taken from Flinders. Use was made, it is believed, of
one British chart which may possibly have been his - that embodying a
drawing of Port Phillip - but reasons will be given for the opinion that
this, whether it was Flinders' chart or Murray's, was seen by the French
before Baudin's ships left Sydney, and was certainly not copied at
Mauritius.
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