The Contradictions Are Not
Observed In Bonwick's Port Phillip Settlement, In Rusden's Discovery,
Survey, And Settlement Of Port Phillip, In
Shillinglaw's Historical
Records of Port Phillip, in Labilliere's Early History of Victoria, in
Mr. Gyles Turner's History of the Colony
Of Victoria, nor in any other
work with which the author is acquainted.)
He gave an account of the storm in Bass Strait which had separated him
from Le Naturaliste on March 21, and went on to say that "having since
had fair winds and fine weather, he had explored the south coast from
Westernport to our place of meeting without finding any river, inlet, or
other shelter which afforded anchorage." In his report to the Admiralty,
dated May 11, 1802, Flinders related what Baudin told him on this point,
in the following terms, which it is worth while to compare with those
used by him in his book, quoted above: "Captain Baudin informed me that
after parting with the Naturaliste in the Strait, in a heavy gale, he had
had fine weather, and had kept the coast close on board from Westernport
to the place of meeting, but that he had found no bay or place where a
vessel could anchor, the coast having but few bights in it, and those
affording nothing to interest." It will be seen that the official report
and the account given to the public twelve years later are in close
agreement. The important fact to be noticed is that Le Geographe had
slipped past Port Phillip without observing the entrance, and that her
captain was at this time entirely ignorant of the existence of the
harbour which has since become the seat of one of the greatest cities in
the southern hemisphere.
Now this statement, which is sufficiently surprising without the
introduction of complicating contradictions, becomes quite mysterious
when compared with the accounts given by Lieutenant Louis de Freycinet
and Francois Peron, the joint authors of the official history of the
French voyage. It is astonishing in itself, because a vessel sent out on
a voyage of exploration would not be expected to overlook so important a
feature as Port Phillip. Here was not a small river with a sandbar over
its mouth, but an extensive area of land-locked sea, with an opening a
mile and a half wide, flanked by rocky head-lands, fronted by usually
turbulent waters, at the head of a deep indentation of the coast. The
entrance to Port Phillip is not, it must be acknowledged, so easy to
perceive from the outside as would appear from a hasty examination of the
map. If the reader will take a good atlas in which there is a map of Port
Phillip, and will hold the plate in a horizontal position sufficiently
below the level of the eye to permit the entrance to be seen ALONG the
page, he will look at it very much as it is regarded from a ship at sea.*
(* A reduced copy of the Admiralty chart of the entrance (1907) is
prefixed to this chapter.
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