(A)
Baudin saw no port; (b) Peron says the port was seen from the masthead;
(c) Freycinet says the entrance was seen; (d) on the charts there are
actually soundings shown inside the harbour.
Further consideration will
be given to these soundings in a later chapter.
The reader who has carefully followed the argument so far, will probably
have come to the conclusion that Captain Baudin's statement to Flinders
was perfectly true, and that the assertions of Peron and Freycinet which,
if veracious, would make Le Geographe the second ship that ever saw Port
Phillip - cannot be accepted. One other fact will clinch the case and
place the conclusion beyond doubt.
In 1812 Freycinet published a large folio volume of charts. The sixth
chart in the book is most valuable for our purpose. It is called a "Carte
generale du Detroit de Bass." Its importance lies in the fact that by
means of a dotted line it marks the track of Le Geographe throughout her
course. Now, this track-chart shows clearly that the ship was never, at
any moment, nearer than six or seven miles to Port Phillip heads. On the
greater part of her course across the so-called Baie Talleyrand she was
much farther from the land than that. On no part of her course would it
have been possible for a person at the masthead to see either the
entrance to Port Phillip or any part of the port itself.
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