All The
Representations Of The Ship's Doctor With A View Of Increasing For The
Time Being The Quantity Of Water Supplied, And Diminishing The Ration
When Cooler Latitudes Were Reached, Were Useless."* (* Peron, 1824
Edition 2 7.) It Is Not Wonderful That Scurvy Broke Out Again With
Increased Virulence.
It is more pleasant to turn to the somewhat prolonged stay made in
southern Tasmania.
At this time, it should be recollected, there was no
European settlement on the beautiful and fertile island which then bore
the name of the old Dutch governor of Java, Anthony Van Diemen. Indeed,
it was only so recently as 1798 that Flinders and Bass, in the Norfolk,
had demonstrated that it really was an island, by sailing round it. On
previous charts, principally founded on that of Cook - the map attached to
the history of Bougainville's voyage (1771) is particularly
interesting - it had been represented as a long projection from the
mainland, shaped like a pig's snout. Not only Abel Tasman, the discoverer
(1642), but the French explorers, Marion-Dufresne (1772) and
Dentrecasteaux (1791), and the English navigators, Cook, Furneaux, Cox,
and Bligh, had visited it.* (* See Backhouse Walker, Early Tasmania,
published by the Royal Society of Tasmania, Hobart 1902.) But as yet the
European had merely landed for fresh water, or had explored the south
coast very slightly as a matter of curiosity, and the aboriginal race was
still in unchallenged possession. Had Baudin been furnished with
instructions to look for a place for French settlement, very little
diligence and perspicacity would have enabled him to fix upon a spot
suitable to the point of perfection before the English at Port Jackson
knew of his whereabouts in these seas at all. He might have planted the
tricolour under the shadow of Mount Wellington, on the site of Hobart,
and furnished it from his ships with the requisites for endurance till he
could speed to the Isle of France and bring out the means of establishing
a stable settlement. But though the geographical work done in this region
was important and of good quality - Freycinet being on the spot - it does
not appear that any investigations were made beyond those natural to a
scientific expedition, and certainly no steps were taken by Baudin to
assert possessive rights. Yet there was no part of Australia as to which
the French could have made out stronger claims on moral grounds; for
though the voyage of the first French navigator who landed in Tasmania
was one hundred and thirty years later than Abel Tasman's discovery,
still it was a solid fact that both Marion-Dufresne and Dentrecasteaux
had contributed more than any other Europeans had done to a knowledge of
what Tasmania was, until Flinders and Bass in their dancing little 25 ton
sloop put an end to mystery and misconception, and placed the charming
island fairly for what it was on the map of the world.
Baudin's ships rounded South-East Cape on January 13 (1802), and sailed
up Dentrecasteaux Channel into Port Cygnet.
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