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.
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