No Reference Was
Made To Seeing Any Port, Although If One Had Been Seen By Any One On
Board Le Geographe, It Surely Would Have Been Mentioned With Some Amount
Of Pride In An Official Despatch.
As has already been said, Freycinet was not with Le Geographe on this
voyage, and therefore knew nothing about it personally.
But before the
publication of the official history was completed, Peron died. Baudin was
also dead. Freycinet, who was preparing the maps, was instructed to
finish the work. He therefore wrote up from the notes and diaries of
other members of the expedition a geographical description of the coasts
traversed. His general plan, when describing coasts with which he had no
personal acquaintance, was to acknowledge in footnotes the particular
persons on whose notes he relied for his descriptions. But it is a
singular circumstance that when he came to describe this part of the
coast of Terre Napoleon, and to repeat, with an addition, Peron's
statement that Port Phillip was seen on March 30, he gave no footnote or
reference. In whose diary or notes was that fact recorded? It was not in
the ship's log, as we have seen. Who, then, saw Port Phillip from Le
Geographe? Henri de Freycinet did not; Baudin did not; Peron did not;
Louis de Freycinet was not there. If it were seen by a look-out man, did
no officer, or scientist, or artist on board, take the trouble to look at
it, or to make a note about it, or a drawing of it? What singular
explorers these were!
We must examine Freycinet's story a little more closely. He is not
content with saying, as Peron had done, that the port was seen from the
masthead. He is more precise - he, the man who was not there. He says:
"Nous en avons observe l'entree." That is more than Peron, who was there,
had claimed. If the "entrance" to Port Phillip was "observed" on March
30, still more incomprehensible is it that the ship did not enter, that
the fact was not mentioned in the log, that the latitude and longitude
were not taken, and that the artists neglected so excellent an
opportunity.
But that is not all. Freycinet, the man who was not there, and whose
narrative was not published till thirteen years after the voyage, has
further information to give us. He states, on whose authority we are not
told, that the country observed along part of this coast, between Cap
Suffren and Cap Marengo (that is, between Cape Patton and Cape Franklin),
presented "un aspect riant et fertile." The book containing these
descriptive words was, the reader will recollect, published in 1815. Now,
Flinders' volumes, A Voyage to Terra Australis, were published in 1814.
There he had described the country which he saw from inside the port as
presenting "a pleasing and in many places a fertile appearance." "Un
aspect riant et fertile" and "a pleasing and fertile appearance" are
identical terms.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 35 of 158
Words from 18024 to 18523
of 83218
