The Book Could Have Been Of No Use To Decaen For Any Other
Purpose.
Its contents had no bearing on the Terre Napoleon coasts, as
they related to a period subsequent to Flinders' voyage there.
Doubtless
the book showed why the Cumberland called at Mauritius, but the reason
for that was palpable. The idea that a leaky twenty-nine ton schooner,
with her pumps out of gear, could have put into Port Louis with any
aggressive intent against the great French nation, which had a powerful
squadron under Admiral Linois in the Indian Ocean, was too absurd for
consideration. But Decaen was plainly hunting for reasons for detaining
Flinders, and it is possible that he found a shred of justification in
the despatches which the Cumberland was carrying from Governor King to
the British Government; though the protracted character of the
imprisonment, after every other member of the ship's company had been set
free, cannot have been due to that motive.
It is most probable that representations made to Decaen by Peron, before
Le Geographe sailed, had an effect upon the mind of the governor which
induced him to regard any ship flying the British flag as an enemy to
French policy. Peron, from what he had seen of the growth of Port
Jackson, and from the prompt audacity and pugnacious assertiveness of an
incident which occurred at King Island - to be described in the ninth
chapter - had conceived an inflated idea of the enormity of British
pretensions in the southern hemisphere. He was convinced that, using the
Sydney settlement as a base of operations, the British intended to
dominate the whole Pacific Ocean, even to the degree of menacing the
Spanish colonies of South America. On 20th Frimaire, Revolutionary Year
12 (December 11, 1803), four days before Le Geographe sailed from the
island, Peron set his views on paper in a report to Decaen, stating that
his interviews with officers, magistrates, clergymen, and other classes
of people in Sydney, had convinced him that his anticipations were well
founded. He pointed out that already the English were extending their
operations to the Sandwich, Friendly, Society, Navigator, and other
islands of the South Pacific; that at Norfolk Island they had a colony of
between fifteen hundred and sixteen hundred people, and found its timber
to be of great value for shipbuilding; and that gradually the British
Government, by extending their military posts and trading stations across
the ocean, would sooner or later establish themselves within striking
distance of Chili and Peru.* (* Peron's report to General Decaen is given
in M. Henri Prentout's valuable treatise, L'Ile de France sous Decaen,
1803 to 1810; essai sur la politique coloniale du premier empire, Paris
1901 page 380. M. Prentout's book is extremely fair, and, based as it is
mainly upon the voluminous papers of General Decaen, preserved in his
native town of Caen, is authoritative.) Peron pointed to the political
insecurity of the Spanish-American colonies, and predicted that the
outbreak of revolution in them, possibly with the connivance of the
English, would further the deep designs of that absorbent and dominating
nation.* (* A French author of later date, Prevost-Paradol (La France
Nouvelle, published in 1868), predicted that some day "a new Monroe
doctrine would forbid old Europe, in the name of the United States of
Australia, to put foot upon an isle of the Pacific.")
Decaen was pondering over Peron's inflammatory memorandum when the lame
little Cumberland staggered into Port Louis.
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