There Was One Other Occasion When The Recurrence Of French Exploring
Ships In Australian Waters Revived The Idea That Foreign Settlement On
Some Portion Of The Continent Was Contemplated.
Just as the appearance of
Baudin's expedition at the commencement of the century expedited the
colonisation of Tasmania, and
Prompted a tentative occupation of Port
Phillip, so the renewed activity of the French in the South Seas during
the years 1820 to 1826, was the immediate cause of the foundation of the
Swan River Settlement (1829), the nucleus of the present state of Western
Australia. Steps were also taken to form an establishment at Westernport,
where, on the arrival of H.M.S. Fly with two brigs conveying troops,
evidences were found showing that the French navigators had already paid
a call, without, however, making any movement in the direction of
"effective occupation." The Swan River Settlement grew, but the
Westernport expedition packed up its kit and returned to Sydney when the
alarm subsided.
There is perhaps some warrant for believing that the French Government,
when it sent out Freycinet in the Uranie and the Physicienne from 1817 to
1820, and the Baron de Bougainville in the Esperance and the Thetis from
1824 to 1826, desired to collect information with a possible view to
colonise in some part of Australasia; though the fear that these
commanders were themselves commissioned to "plant" a colony was quite
absurd, and the express exploratory purpose of their voyages was
abundantly justified by results. Lord John Russell, in after years,
related that "during my tenure of the Colonial office, a gentleman
attached to the French Government called upon me. He asked how much of
Australia was claimed as the dominion of Great Britain. I answered, 'The
whole,' and with that answer he went away."* (* Russell's Recollections
and Suggestions (1875) page 203.) Lord John Russell was at the head of
the Colonial Office in the second Melbourne Administration, 1839 to 1841,
a long time after the French explorers had gone home and published the
histories of their voyages. But it is still quite possible that the
researches made by Freycinet and the Baron de Bougainville prompted the
inquiry of the Colonial Secretary's visitor. The phrase, "a gentleman
attached to the French Government," is rather vague. The question was
clearly not asked by the French Ambassador, or it would have been
addressed to the Foreign Secretary, who at that time was Lord Palmerston,
and whose reply would certainly not have fallen short of Lord John's,
either in emphasis or distinctness. It may well be, however, that the
Government of King Louis Philippe - whose chief advisers during the period
were Thiers (1839 to 1840) and Guizot (from July 1840) - desired to make
their inquiry in a semi-official manner to avoid causing offence.
Yet the fact cannot escape notice, that at this particular time the
French were busily laying the foundation of that new colonial dominion
with which they have persevered, with admirable results, since the
collapse of their oversea power during Napoleon's regime. Though their
aptitude for colonisation had been "unhappily rendered sterile by the
faults of their European policy,"* (* Fallot, L'Avenir Colonial de la
France page 4.) the more far-seeing among their statesmen and publicists
did not lose sight of the ideal of creating a new field for the diffusion
of French civilisation. They commenced in 1827 that colonising enterprise
in Algiers which has converted "a sombre and redoubtable barbarian coast"
into "a twin sister of the Riviera of Nice, charming as she, upon the
other side of the Mediterranean."* (* Hanotaux, L'Energie Francaise
(1902) page 284.)
Lord John Russell was not likely to be regardless of this movement, nor
unaware of the strongly marked current of opinion in France in favour of
expansion.
Twenty years later Lord John Russell had the position of Australia, as a
factor in world politics, brought under his notice again, through a
document to which he evidently attached importance, and which is still
the legitimate subject of historical curiosity. He was then Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs in the second Palmerston Administration (1859
to 1865). A great change had meanwhile taken place affecting the economic
value of this large island in the South Seas. Apart from the growth of
its commerce and the productive capacity of its great fertile areas, the
gold discoveries of the early fifties - the nuggets of Ballarat and the
rich auriferous gravels of wide belts of country - had turned the eyes of
the world towards the land of whose agricultural and mineral resources so
little had been previously known. France, too, had passed through a new
series of changes in her very mutable modern history, and a Bonaparte
once more occupied the throne, as Napoleon III.
One day the British Foreign Minister received, from a source of which we
know nothing - but the Foreign Office in the Palmerstonian epoch was
exceedingly well informed - a communication which, having read, he did not
deposit among the official documents at Downing Street, but carefully
sealed up and placed among his own private papers. His biographer, Sir
Spencer Walpole, tells us all that is at present known about this
mysterious piece of writing. "There is still among Lord John's papers,"
he says, "a simple document which purports to be a translation of a
series of confidential questions issued by Napoleon III on the
possibility of a French expedition, secretly collected in different
ports, invading, conquering, and holding Australia. How the paper reached
the Foreign Office, what credit was attached to it, what measures were
suggested by it, there is no evidence to show. This only is certain. Lord
John dealt with it as he occasionally dealt with confidential papers
which he did not think it right to destroy, but which he did not wish to
be known. He enclosed it in an envelope, sealed it with his own seal, and
addressed it to himself. It was so found after his death."* (* Walpole,
Life of Lord John Russell 2 177.)
Oddly enough, the period within which Lord John received the piece of
information which he carefully kept to himself in the manner described,
corresponds with that of the most notorious effort of Napoleon III to
assert his power beyond the confines of Europe.
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