"How, Then, Came M. Peron To Advance What Was So
Contrary To Truth?" He Wrote.
"Was he a man destitute of all principle?
My answer is, that I believe his candour to have been equal to his
acknowledged abilities, and that what he wrote was from overruling
authority, and smote him to the heart.
He did not live to finish the
second volume."
This would be an acceptable way of disposing of the question if we could
reasonably accept the explanation. But can we? Freycinet denied that any
pressure was exerted. Those who knew Peron's character, he wrote,* (*
Voyage de Decouvertes 2 page 21.) were aware that he would have refused
to do anything with which his conscience could reproach him. He was so
able and zealous a man of science, that we should like to believe that of
him. justice demands that we should give full weight to every favourable
factor in the case as affecting him. Flinders was a British naval
officer, and naval men at that period were disposed to see the hand of
Napoleon in every bit of mischief. But the "pressure" theory does not
sustain examination.
The task thrust upon Peron in the writing of the historical narrative of
the voyage was one for which he had not prepared himself, and which did
not properly pertain to him. The death of Baudin, whose work this would
naturally have been, compelled the naturalist to become historian. He had
not kept the log, and it may be reasonably assumed that he had not
concerned himself in a particular degree with those events of which he
would have made careful notes had it been intended from the beginning
that he should be the official recorder.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 83 of 299
Words from 22971 to 23257
of 83218
