The Next Link In The Chain Was Furnished By The Expedition Commanded By
Bruni Dentrecasteaux, Who, While The Hurricane Of The Revolution Was
Raging, Was Despatched (1791) To Search For La Perouse.
He made important
discoveries on his own account,* (* Voyage de Dentrecasteaux, redige par
M. de Rossel, Paris 1808; Labillardiere,
Relation du Voyage a la
Recherche de la Perouse, Paris 1800.) both on the mainland of Australia
and in Tasmania; and though he found no trace of his predecessor, his own
name is honourably remembered among the eminent navigators who did
original work in Australasia. It was Dentrecasteaux's hydrographer,
Beautemps Beaupre, whose charting of part of the southern coast of
Australia was so highly praised by Flinders.
The expeditions thus enumerated were all despatched before the era of
Napoleon, and appreciation of their objects cannot therefore be
complicated by doubts as to his Machiavellian designs. Bougainville's
voyage, and that of Marion-Dufresne, were promoted under Louis XV, that
of La Perouse under Louis XVI, and Dentrecasteaux's under the
Revolutionary Assembly. Each was an expedition of discovery.
Next came the expedition commanded by Nicolas Baudin, with which we are
mainly concerned, and which was despatched under the Consulate. It will
presently be demonstrated that it did not differ in purpose from its
predecessors, and that there is nothing to show that in authorising it
Bonaparte had any other object than that professed. But before pursuing
that subject, let it be made clear that French exploring expeditions to
the South Seas were continued after the final overthrow of the Empire.
In 1817, while Napoleon was mewed up in St. Helena, and a Bourbon once
more occupied the throne of France as Louis XVIII, the ships Uranie and
Physicienne were sent out under the command of Captain Louis de
Freycinet, the cartographer of Baudin's expedition.* (* Voyage autour du
Monde, entrepris par ordre du Roi, par Louis de Freycinet, Paris 1827.)
They visited some of the scenes of former French exploits, and Freycinet
took advantage of his position on the west coast to pull down and
appropriate for the French Academy of Inscriptions the oldest memorial of
European presence in Australia. That is to say, he took the plate put up
by the Dutchman Vlaming in 1697, in place of that erected in 1616 by Dirk
Haticks on the island bearing the name of "Dirk Hartog," to commemorate
his visit in the ship Eendraght of Amsterdam.* (* Ibid 1 449.) Freycinet
had desired to take the plate when he was an officer on Le Naturaliste in
July 1801, but Captain Hamelin, the commander, would not permit it to be
disturbed. On the contrary, he set up a new post with the plate affixed
to it, and expressed the opinion that to remove an interesting memorial
that for over a century had been spared by nature and by man, would be to
commit a kind of sacrilege.* (* "Il eut pense commettre un sacrilege en
gardant a son bord cette plaque respectee pendant pres de deux siecles
par la nature et par les hommes qui pouvoient avant nous l'avoir
observee." Peron, Voyage de Decouvertes 1 195.) Freycinet was not so
scrupulous.
Again, in 1824, the Baron de Bougainville, a son of the older navigator,
and who as a junior officer had sailed with Baudin, took out the ships
Thetis and Esperance on a voyage to the South Seas, for purely
geographical purposes;* (* Journal de la Navigation autour du monde de la
fregate La Thetis et de la corvette L'Esperance, pendant les annees
1824-1826; publie par ordre du Roi. Par M. le Baron de Bougainville.) and
still later, in 1826 to 1828, during the reign of Charles X, Dumont
d'Urville, in the Astrolabe, did valuable exploratory work, especially in
the Western Pacific.* (* Voyage de la corvette L'Astrolabe, execute par
ordre du Roi, pendant les annees 1826-1829, sous le commandement de M. J.
Dumont D'Urville, Paris 1830.)
The whole of these expeditions, with the partial exception of that of
Marion-Dufresne, were conducted in ships of the French navy, commanded by
French officers, supported by French funds, and their official records
were published at the expense of the French Government. A certain unity
of purpose characterised them; and that purpose was as purely and truly
directed to extend man's knowledge of the habitable earth as was that of
any expedition that ever sailed under any flag.
To attempt, therefore, to isolate Baudin's expedition from the series to
which it rightly belongs, simply because it was undertaken while
Bonaparte was at the head of the State, is to convey a false idea of it.
If there were any evidence to show that it differed from the others in
its aims, it would be quite proper to make it stand alone. But there is
not.
Nor must it be supposed that this particular enterprise originated with
the First Consul. It was not a scheme generated in his teeming brain,
like the strategy of a campaign, or a masterstroke of diplomacy. It was
placed before him for approval in the shape of a proposition from the
Institute of France, a scientific body, concerned not with political
machinations, but with the advancement of knowledge. The Institute
considered that there was useful work to be done by a new expedition of
discovery, and believed it to be its duty to submit a plan to the
Government. We are so informed by Peron, and there is the best of reasons
for believing him.* (* "L'honneur national et le progres des sciences
parmi nous se reunissoient donc pour reclamer une expedition de
decouvertes aux Terres Australes, et l'Institut de France crut devoir la
proposer au gouvernement." Peron, Voyage de Decouvertes 1 4.) The history
of the voyage was published after Napoleon had become Emperor, under his
sanction, at the Imperial Press. If his had been the originating mind, it
is quite certain that credit for the idea would not have been claimed for
others. On the contrary, we should probably have had an adulatory
paragraph from Peron's pen about the beneficence of the Imperial will as
exercised in the cause of science.
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