Yet It May
Be Allowed That If Le Geographe Had Sailed Close In, With The Shore On
Her Starboard Quarter,
And the coast had been examined with care, she
would hardly have missed the port; and, her special business being
Exploration, she certainly ought not to have missed it.* (* In Appendix
B, at the end of this chapter, are given quotations from the journals of
Murray and Flinders, in which they record how they first saw the port.)
But although Baudin said he had seen nothing "to interest," both Peron
and Freycinet, in their volumes - published years later, after they had
learnt of the discovery of Port Phillip by Lieutenant John Murray in
January 1802 - stated that it was seen from Le Geographe on March 30.
Peron wrote that shortly after daybreak, the ship being in the curve of
the coast called Baie Talleyrand on the Terre Napoleon maps - that is,
between Cape Schanck on the eastern side of Port Phillip heads, and Cape
Roadknight on the western side - the port was seen and its contours were
distinguished from the masthead.* (* The matter is sufficiently important
to justify the quotation of the passages in which Peron and Freycinet
recorded the alleged observation, and these are given at length in
Appendix A to this chapter.) Peron did not say that he saw it himself. He
merely recorded that it was seen. Freycinet did not see it himself
either. He was at this time an officer on Le Naturaliste, and was not on
the Terre Napoleon coasts at all until the following year, when he
penetrated St. Vincent's and Spencer's Gulfs.
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