Freycinet Was Not With Le Geographe On Her First Cruise In These Waters, And Was Not Responsible For The Original Drawings Upon Which His Charts Of The Terre Napoleon Coasts Eastward Of Cape Jervis Were Founded.

But the fact that he surveyed the gulfs and Kangaroo Island on the second visit, in 1803, is quite sufficient to account for the improved cartography of this region in the French atlas.

Whatever we may think of the part played by Freycinet in relation to Flinders and the history of the expedition, his professional ability was of a high character. All the charting work done by him, when he had not to depend upon the rough drawings of inferior men, was very good. His interest in scientific navigation was deep, and when, in 1817, he was given the command of a fresh French expedition, consisting of the Uranie and the Physicienne, the large folio atlas produced by him indicated that he had studied the technicalities of his profession to excellent purpose.

The superiority of the work done by Baudin's expedition in the vicinity of the two gulfs, then, was not due to any fraudulent use of Flinders' material, but simply to the fact that there was a competent officer in charge of it at that time; and there is nothing on the charts for which Freycinet was personally responsible to justify the belief that his work claiming to be original was not genuinely his own. When, in 1824, he published a second edition of the Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres Australes,* (* In octavo volumes; the first edition was in quarto.) he repudiated with quiet dignity the suggestion that the work of the English navigator had been plagiarised.* (* "C'est assez," he wrote, "repousser des accusations odieuses et envenimees, fondees sur des idees chimeriques, avec absence de toute espece de preuve. Le temps, qui calme les passions humaines et permet toujours a la verite de reprendre ses droits, fera justice d'accusations concues avec legerete et soutenues avec inconvenance. Peron et Flinders sont morts; l'un et l'autre ont des titres certains a notre estime, a notre admiration; ils vivront, ainsi que leurs travaux, dans la memoire des hommes, et les nuages que je cherche a dissiper auront disparu sans retour" (volume 1 Preface page 11). One cannot but be touched by that appeal; but at the same time it is to be observed that in the very preface in which he made it, Freycinet did far less than justice to the work of Flinders.) Except for the Port Phillip part of the work, we might fairly say that history has commonly done him and his confreres a serious injustice.

But we have seen that, although Port Phillip was included in the French charts, and inside soundings were actually shown, neither the port nor the entrance was seen by the expedition. How was that information obtained?

Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste lay in Sydney harbour from June 20 to November 18, 1802, their afflicted crews receiving medical treatment, and their officers enjoying the hospitality of Governor King.

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