Probably It Was A Very Rough Chart; But Even So, If Freycinet Had Had
Anything Like A Drawing Of Port Phillip Made On Le Geographe, He Would
Have Turned Out A Better Piece Of Work.
Not only is the outline very
defective, but the "lay" of the Nepean peninsula is so grossly wrong that
This alone would suffice to show that Freycinet did not merely correct
his chart with the aid of that captured from the Fame, but that the whole
drawing of Port Phillip was fitted in, like a patch. However ill a
navigator may draw, he always knows whether a coast along which he is
sailing runs west or north-west. A mariner's apprentice would know that.
But on the Terre Napoleon charts, the peninsula lies due east and west,
whereas in reality, as the reader will see by reference to any good map,
it has a decidedly north-westerly inclination. The patch was not well put
on. The consequence of this bad cobbling was to give a box-like,
rectangular appearance to the bay, utterly unlike the reality. The east
and west sides were carried about as far as Mornington and St. Leonards
respectively, in two nearly straight and parallel lines; Swan Bay and
Swan Island were missed altogether; and the graceful curve of the coast
round by Sorrento and Dromana - a curve most grateful to the eye on a day
when sea and sky are blue, and the silver sands and white cliffs shine in
the clear light - was tortured into a sharp bend. It was a very rough bit
of work.
The fact that an expedition sent out for discovery purposes, and which
named a considerable extent of the coast-line traversed after the Emperor
who had enabled it to be despatched, had to depend upon a manuscript
accidentally obtained from a captured British merchant ship for a chart
of the principal port in the territory so flauntingly denominated, hardly
calls for comment. But even when we are in possession of this
information, we are still left in some doubt as to whether the French had
not some sort of a drawing of Port Phillip before they left Sydney.
Otherwise the course pursued by their commodore after quitting that port
is quite unaccountable. The following reasons induce that belief.
When Baudin bade an affectionate and grateful farewell to Governor King
at Sydney on November 18, he sailed direct to King Island, which is
situated in Bass Strait, on the 40th parallel of south latitude, about
midway between the south-east of Cape Otway and the north-west corner of
Tasmania. Le Geographe was accompanied by Le Naturaliste and the little
Casuarina. A camp was established on the island, which was fully charted.
Baudin had missed it on his former voyage, though he had sailed within a
few miles of it. It will be remembered that when Flinders conversed with
him in Encounter Bay, and "inquired concerning a large island said to lie
in the western entrance of Bass Strait," Baudin said he had not seen it,
"and seemed to doubt much of its existence."* (*Flinders, Voyage 1 188.)
But Flinders found it easily enough, and spent a little time there before
entering Port Phillip. It was doubtless this inquiry of Flinders that
induced Baudin to mark down on his chart a purely fictitious island far
westward of the actual one, and to inscribe against it the words, "it is
believed that an island exists in this latitude."* (* "On croit qu'il
existe une ile par cette latitude." See the chart, a little west of Cape
Bridgewater (Cap Duquesne).)
As Baudin afterwards found the real island, it is curious that the
imaginary one should have been kept upon his chart; but there is a reason
for that also. While the French lay at King Island, most of the work done
up to date - geographical, zoological, and other - was collected and sent
back to France on Le Naturaliste; Le Geographe and the Casuarina
remaining to finish the exploratory voyage. Le Naturaliste sailed for
Europe on December 16, and entered the port of Havre on June 6, 1803. Had
Baudin lived to return to France, and to supervise the completion of the
charts, it is most probable that he would have erased the island which
was merely supposed, as he had since charted the real one; but Freycinet,
not having been present at the meeting with Flinders, and knowing nothing
of the reason which induced Baudin to set it down, left it there - a
quaint little fragment of corroboration of the truth of Flinders'
narrative of the Encounter Bay incident.
Now, when at the end of December Le Geographe and the Casuarina sailed
from King Island - the naturalists having in the interval profitably
enjoyed themselves in collecting plants, insects, and marine
specimens - they made direct for Kangaroo Island, four hundred miles away,
to resume the work which had been commenced in the gulfs in the previous
April and May. The whole of the movements of the ships up to this time
are to be read in the printed logs appended to volume 3 of the Voyage de
Decouvertes. Baudin made no call at Port Phillip, nor did one of his
three vessels visit the harbour either before or after reaching King
Island. But by this time Baudin knew all about the port, and it is surely
difficult to suppose that he would have sailed straight past it in
December unless at length he had it marked on his rough charts. His
officers knew about it too, though none of them had seen it; for Captain
Hamelin of Le Naturaliste reported when he reached Paris, that, as he
left King Island, he met and spoke to "an English goelette on her way to
Port Philips [sic], south-east coast."* (* Moniteur, 27 Thermidor.) It
was the Cumberland, Lieutenant Charles Robbins, bound on a mission to be
explained later.
It seems reasonable to assume that when Le Naturaliste sailed for France
on December 16, and the two other ships for Kangaroo Island later in the
same month, Baudin was quite satisfied that he had in his possession as
complete a representation of the whole of the Terre Napoleon coasts
westward to the gulfs, as would justify him in resuming the work from
that situation.
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