Terre Napoleon-a History of French Explorations Part 8

"such blushes as adorn The ruddy welkin or the purple morn."

Indeed, they appeared to be quite unaware that there was anything remarkable about their deficiency of clothing. "A naked Duke of Windlestraw addressing a naked House of Lords" might have shocked them, but not merely because he was naked. They were greatly interested when, as a sign of friendliness, one of the Frenchmen, the doctor of Le Naturaliste, began to sing a song. The women squatted around, in att.i.tudes "bizarres et pittoresques," applauding with loud cries. They were not, however, a group of ladies for whom the Frenchmen had any admiration to spare. Their black skins smeared with fish oil, their short, coa.r.s.e, black hair, and their general form and features, were repulsive. Two or three young girls of fifteen or sixteen years of age the naturalist excepted from his generally ungallant expressions of disgust. They were agreeably formed, and their expression struck him as being more engaging, soft, and affectionate, "as if the better qualities of the soul should be, even amidst hordes of savages, the peculiar appanage of youth, grace, and beauty." Peron remarked that nearly all the older women were marked with wounds, "sad results of bad treatment by their ferocious spouses," for the black was wont to temper affection with discipline, and to emphasise his arguments with a club.

If the black gins gave no satisfaction to the aesthetic sense of the naturalist, his white skin appeared to be no less displeasing to them; and one of them made a kindly effort to colour him to her fancy. She was one of the younger women, and had been regarding him with perhaps the thought that he was not beyond the scope of art, though Nature had offended in making his tint so pale. Rouge, says Mr. Meredith, is "a form of practical adoration of the genuine." Charcoal was this lady's subst.i.tute for rouge. A face, to please her, should be black; and, with a compa.s.sionate desire to improve on one of Nature's bad jobs, she set to work. She approached Peron, took up some charred sticks, rubbed them in her hand, and then made advances to apply the black powder to his face.

He gravely submitted--in the sacred cause of science, it may be supposed--and one of his colleagues was favoured with similar treatment.

"Haply, for I am black," he might have exclaimed with Oth.e.l.lo after the treatment; and the makers of charcoal complexions were charmed with their handiwork. "We appeared then to be a great subject of admiration for these women; they seemed to regard us with a tender satisfaction," wrote Peron; and the reflection occurred to him "that the white European skin of which our race is so proud is really a defect, a sort of deformity, which must in these distant climates give place to the hue of charcoal, dull red ochre, or clay." Bonaparte would not have concurred; for he, as Thibaudeau tells us, emphatically told his Council of State, "I am for the white race because I am a white man myself; that is an argument quite good enough for me." It was hardly an argument at all; but it sufficed.

The expedition encountered extremely bad weather along the eastern coast of Tasmania; where, also, Captain Baudin was too ill to superintend the navigation in person. He shut himself up in his cabin, and left the ship to his lieutenant, Henri de Freycinet. Le Naturaliste was separated from her consort during a furious gale which raged on March 7 and 8, and the two vessels did not meet again till both reached Port Jackson. While making for Ba.s.s Strait, Le Geographe fell in with a small vessel engaged in catching seals, with whose captain the French had some converse. He told them that the British Government had sent out special instructions to Port Jackson that, should the French exploring ships put in there, they were to be received "with all the regard due to the nature of their mission, and to the dignity of the nation to which they belonged"* (*

Peron, 1824 edition 2 175.)--surely a n.o.ble piece of courtesy from the Government of a people with whom the French were then at war. It was this intimation, there can be no doubt, that a month later determined Baudin to go to Sydney, for Captain Hamelin of Le Naturaliste was not aware of his intention to do so, as will appear from the following chapter. Ba.s.s Strait was entered on March 27, and the ship followed the southern coast of Australia until the meeting with Flinders in Encounter Bay, as described in the earlier part of this book.

By this time, as has been related, scurvy was wreaking frightful havoc among the crew. Before the Encounter Bay incident occurred, the French sailors had expressed so much disgust with their putrid meat, weevilly biscuit, and stinking water, that some of them threw their rations overboard, even in the presence of the captain, preferring to endure the pangs of hunger rather than eat such revolting food. After Baudin had made those investigations which his means permitted in the region of the two large gulfs, the winter season was again approaching, when high winds and tempestuous seas might be antic.i.p.ated. It was therefore hoped by all on board that when the commandant decided to steer for the shelter and succour of Port Jackson, he would, as it was only sensible that he should, take the short route through Ba.s.s Strait. In view of the distressed state of his company, it was positively cruel to think of doing otherwise. But there was, it seems, a peculiar vein of perversity in Baudin's character, which made him p.r.o.ne to do that which everybody wished him not to do. We may disregard many of the disparaging sentences in which Peron refers to "notre commandant"--never by name--because Peron so evidently detested Baudin that he is a doubtful witness in matters of conduct and character. We must also give due weight to the fact that we have no statement of Baudin's point of view on any matter for which he was blamed by colleagues who were at enmity with him. But even so, we have his unquestionable actions upon which to form a judgment; and it is difficult to characterise by any milder term than stupidity his determination to sail to Port Jackson from Kangaroo Island round by the south of Tasmania, a route at least six hundred miles out of his straight path. That he came to this decision after having himself sailed through Ba.s.s Strait from east to west, and thus learnt that the navigation was free from difficulty; when he had in his possession the charts of Ba.s.s and Flinders showing a clear course; during a period of storms when he would be quite certain to encounter worse weather by sailing farther south; when his crew were positively rotting with the s...o...b..tic pestilence that made life all but intolerable to them, and attendance upon them almost too loathsome for endurance by the ship's surgeon; and when his supplies were at starvation limit in point of quant.i.ty and vermin-riddled in respect of quality that he resolved to take the long, stormy, southern route in face of these considerations, seems hardly to admit of explanation or excuse. "A resolution so singular spread consternation on board," wrote Peron; and it is not wonderful that it did. The consequence was that the voyage to Port Jackson made a story of privations pitiful to read. The bare fact that it took Baudin from May 8 to June 20, forty-three days, to sail from Kangaroo Island to Sydney, whilst Flinders in the Investigator, despite contrary winds, covered the distance by the Ba.s.s Strait route in thirty days (April 9 to May 9), including several days spent at King Island and Port Phillip, is sufficient to show how much Baudin's obtuse temper contributed to aggravate the distress of his people.

Peron described the weather during the voyage southward as "frightful."

"And now the storm blast came, and he Was tyrannous and strong: He struck with his o'er-taking wings, And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow, As who pursued with yell and blow Still treads the shadow of his foe, And forward bends his head, The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the blast, And southward aye we fled."

Torrents of very cold rain fell, furious squalls lashed the sea to a boil, thick fogs obscured the atmosphere; and the ship had to be worked by men "covered with sores and putrid ulcers, each day seeing the number of the sick augmented." There was a short rest in Adventure Bay, Bruni Island, for the purpose of procuring fresh water on May 20, and when the order to sail again was given, the crew were so much enfeebled by disease that it took them four hours to weigh the anchor. On the east coast more storms came to hara.s.s the unfortunate men. A paragraph in Peron's own terms will convey a sufficient sense of the agony endured on the stricken ship.

"On June 2 and 3 the weather became very bad. Showers of rain succeeded each other incessantly, and squalls blew with a violence that we had never experienced before. On the 4th, during the whole day, the weather was so frightful that, accustomed as we had become to the fury of tempests, this last made us forget all that had preceded. Never before had the squalls followed each other with such rapidity; never had the billows been so tumultuous. Our ship, smitten by them, at every instant seemed about to break asunder under the shock of the impact. In the twinkling of an eye our foremast snapped and fell overboard, and all the barricading that we had erected to break the force of the wind was smashed. Even our anchors were lifted from the catheads despite the strength of the ropes which held them. It was necessary to make them more secure, and the ten men, who were all that were left us to work the ship, were engaged in this work during a great part of the day. During the night the tempest was prolonged by furious gales. The rain fell in torrents; the sea rose even higher; and enormous waves swept over our decks. The black darkness did not permit the simplest work to be done without extreme difficulty, and the whole of the interior of the vessel was flooded by sea-water. Four men were compelled to enter the hospital, leaving only six in a condition to carry out the orders of the officer on the bridge, and these unfortunates themselves dropped from sheer exhaustion and fatigue. Between decks, the sick men lay about, and the air was filled with their groans. A picture more harrowing never presented itself to the imagination. The general consternation added to the horror of it. We had nearly reached the point of being unable to control the movements of the ship amidst the fury of the waves; parts of the rigging were broken with every manoeuvre; and despite all our efforts we could scarcely shift our sails. For a long time our commandant had had no rest. It was absolutely necessary to get out of these stormy seas at the extremity of the southern continent, and hasten on our course for Port Jackson. 'At this time,' says the commandant in his journal, and the fact was only too true, 'I had not more than four men in a fit condition to remain on duty, including the officer in charge.' The ravages of the scurvy can be estimated from these words. Not a soul among us was exempt from the disease; even the animals we had on board were afflicted by it; some, including two rabbits and a monkey, had died from it."

Slowly, painfully, as though the ship herself were diseased, like the miserable company on board, the coast was traversed, until at last, on June 20, Le Geographe stood off Port Jackson heads. Even then, with the harbour of refuge in sight, the crew were so paralysed by their affliction that they were positively unable to work her into port.* (* An astonishing statement indeed, but here are Peron's words: "Depuis plusieurs jours, nous nous trouvions par le travers du port Jackson sans pouvoir, a cause de la faiblesse de nos matelots, executer les manoeuvres necessaires pour y entrer.") But the fact that a ship in distress was outside the heads was reported to Governor King, who was expecting Le Geographe to arrive, and who had doubtless learnt that there was scurvy aboard from Flinders, whose quick eye would not have failed to perceive some trace of the sad state of affairs when he boarded the vessel in Encounter Bay. Accordingly King sent out a boat's crew of robust blue-jackets from the Investigator; and Peron records with what trembling joy the afflicted Frenchmen saw the boat approaching on that June morning. Soon the British tars climbed aboard, sails were trimmed, the tiller was grasped by a strong hand, a brisk British officer took charge, and the ship was brought through the blue waters of Port Jackson, where, in Neutral Bay, her anchor was dropped.

It is not overstating the case to say that Le Geographe was s.n.a.t.c.hed from utter destruction by the prompt kindness of the British governor. A slight prolongation of the voyage would have rendered her as helpless as if peopled by a phantom crew; and she must have been blown before the wind until dashed to fragments on the rocks on some uninhabited part of the coast. The extremity of abject powerlessness had unquestionably been reached when the wide entrance to Port Jackson could not be negotiated.

Peron regarded the dreadful condition of the vessel as furnishing a great and terrible lesson to navigators. "These misfortunes," he wrote, "had no other cause than the neglect of our chief of the most indispensable precautions relative to the health of the men. He neglected the orders of the Government in that regard; he neglected the instructions which had been furnished to him in Europe; he imposed, at all stages of the voyage, the most horrible privations upon his crew and his sick people." The naturalist concluded his doleful chapter of horrors by quoting the words of the British navigator, Vancouver, who was one of Cook's officers on his third voyage: "It is to the inestimable progress of naval hygiene that the English owe, in great part, the high rank that they hold to-day among the nations." He might also have quoted, had he been aware of it, an excellent saying of Nelson's: "It is easier for an officer to keep men healthy than for a physician to cure them."

CHAPTER 9. PORT JACKSON AND KING ISLAND.

Le Naturaliste at Sydney.

Boullanger's boat party.

Curious conduct of Baudin.

Le Naturaliste sails for Mauritius, but returns to Port Jackson.

Re-union of Baudin's ships.

Hospitality of Governor King.

Peron's impressions of the British settlement.

Morand, the banknote forger.

Baudin shows his charts and instructions to King.

Departure of the French ships.

Rumours as to their objects.

King's prompt action.

The c.u.mberland sent after them.

Acting Lieutenant Robbins at King Island.

The flag incident.

Baudin's letters to King.

His protestations.

Views on colonisation.

Le Naturaliste sails for Europe.

Le Naturaliste had been unable to rejoin her consort after the tempest of March 7 and 8. She being a slow sailer, the risk of the two vessels parting company was constant, and as there had already been one separation, before the sojourn at Timor, Baudin should have appointed a rendezvous. But he had neither taken this simple precaution, nor had he even intimated to Captain Hamelin the route that he intended to pursue.

When, therefore, the storm abated, the commander of the second ship neither knew where to look for Le Geographe, nor had he any certain information to enable him to follow her.

Before making up his mind as to what he should do, Captain Hamelin had the good luck to pick up an open boat containing Boullanger, one of the scientific staff of Le Geographe, a lieutenant, and eight sailors. They were absent from the ship when the storm burst, and Baudin had sailed away without them. His conduct on this occasion had been inexplicable.

Boullanger and his party had gone out in the boat to chart a part of the coast with more detail than was possible from the deck of the corvette.

But they had not been away more than a quarter of an hour, according to Peron, when Baudin, "without any apparent reason," bore off the coast.

Then came the tempest, night fell, the following days were too stormy for putting off another boat to search for the missing men; and in the end, Baudin left them to their fate. They had no chart or compa.s.s, merely enough food and water to last for a day, and were abandoned on an uninhabited coast, in an open boat, in bitterly cold, squally weather, with the rain falling in sheets at frequent intervals. Here again, British kindness saved the Frenchmen. Before having the good fortune to perceive the sails of Le Naturaliste, the starved, drenched, and miserable men had attracted the attention of a sealing brig, the Snow-Harrington, from Sydney. Her skipper, Campbell, took them on board, supplied them with warm food, and offered to convey them to Port Jackson forthwith. They remained on the Snow-Harrington for the night, but on the following morning sighted Le Naturaliste, and, after profusely thanking Captain Campbell for his generosity, soon picked her up.

Hamelin, having no instructions as to where he should go, resolved to devote himself to work in Ba.s.s Strait. Eight days were spent in Westernport, the limit of Ba.s.s's discoveries in January 1798; and the name French Island preserves the memory of their researches there. They found the soil fertile, the vegetation abundant, the timber plentiful; the port was, they considered, "one of the most beautiful that it would be possible to find, and it unites all the advantages which will make it some day a precious possession."

But the supplies on board Le Naturaliste were becoming exhausted, and, being still without news of his chief, Hamelin decided to sail for Port Jackson. He arrived there on April 24. As far as he knew, however, the war between England and France still raged. News of the Treaty of Amiens was not received at Sydney till the middle of June. He was therefore gravely concerned about the reception that would be accorded him. He had his pa.s.sport, which protected him from molestation, but he feared that the British would "at least refuse him succour," of which he was desperately in need. Evidently the Snow-Harrington had not communicated to him the same welcome news as the sealing craft had given to Baudin, concerning the instructions of King George's Government.

How different was his welcome from his antic.i.p.ation! He found "nothing but sweet peace and gentle visitation." "The English received him, from the first instant, with that great and cordial generosity which the perfection of European civilisation can alone explain, and which it alone can produce. The most distinguished houses in the colony were thrown open to our companions, and during the entire length of their sojourn, they experienced that delicate and affectionate hospitality, which honours equally those who bestow and those who receive it." So Peron testified; but one cannot transcribe his words without a reflection on the sort of "European hospitality" that Matthew Flinders received by way of contrast when he was compelled to seek, shelter in Mauritius.

Le Naturaliste was lying at anchor when Flinders' arrived with the Investigator in May. Learning from him of the meeting with Le Geographe in Encounter Bay in the previous month, and inferring that Baudin would sail for Mauritius after finishing what he had to do on the southern coast, Hamelin determined also to make his way to the French colony. He left Sydney harbour on May 18, with the intention of rounding the southern extremity of Tasmania, and striking across the Indian Ocean from that point. But here again fearful storms were encountered. "The sea was horrible; the winds blew with fury and in squalls; torrents of rain fell incessantly"; and, increasing the misfortunes, the westerly winds were so strong at the time when the ship was endeavouring to turn westward, that no headway could be made. Hamelin's men were already on short rations, but even so the supplies would not suffice for a voyage to Mauritius, unless a fairly rapid pa.s.sage could be made. The contrary winds, fogs, and storms of "the roaring forties" offered no such a.s.surance; and the French captain, casting a "longing, lingering look behind" at the comforts and hospitalities of Port Jackson, determined to double back on his tracks. He re-traversed the east coast of Tasmania, and entered Port Jackson for the second time on July 3, to find that his chief and the leading ship of the expedition had been snugly berthed there during the past fortnight. "And so," Peron comments, "were united for the second time, and by the most inconceivable luck, two ships which, owing to the obstinacy of the commandant, had had no appointed rendezvous, and were twice forced to navigate independently at two periods of the voyage when it would have been most advantageous for them to act in concert."

As the two French vessels lay at Sydney for nearly six months, during which time the officers and men mingled freely with the population of the colony, whilst the naturalists and artists occupied themselves busily with the work of their special departments, the occurrences have a two-fold interest for one who wishes to appreciate the significance of Baudin's expedition. There is, first, the interest arising from the observations of so intelligent a foreign observer as Peron* was, concerning the British colony within fifteen years after its foundation; and there is, secondly, the special interest pertaining to the reception and treatment of the expedition by the governing authorities, their suspicions as to its motives, and the consequences which arose therefrom.

(* Curiously enough, there was another Peron who visited Port Jackson in a French ship in 1796, and gave an interesting account of it in a book which he wrote--Memoires du Capitaine Peron, two volumes Paris 1824. But the two men were not related. The nautical Captain Peron was born at Brest in 1769.)

Apart from Peron's writings, we have a considerable body of doc.u.mentary material, in the form of letters and despatches, which must be considered. We cannot complain of an insufficiency of evidence. It covers the transactions with amplitude; it reveals purposes fully; the story is clear.

What Peron saw of the infant settlement filled him with amazement and admiration. "How could we fail to be surprised at the state of that interesting and flourishing colony," cried the naturalist. It was only so recently as January 26, 1788, that Captain Arthur Phillip had entered the commodious and beautiful harbour which is not eclipsed by any on the planet. Yet the French found there plentiful evidences of prosperity and comfort, and of that adaptable energy which lies at the root of all British success in colonisation. Master Thorne, in the sixteenth century, expressed the resolute spirit of that energy in a phrase: "There is no land uninhabitable, nor sea innavigable"; and in every part of the globe this British spirit has applied itself to many a land that looked hopeless at first, and has frequently found it to be one:

"whose rich feet are mines of gold, Whose forehead knocks against the roof of stars."

We need hardly concern ourselves with Peron's survey of the administrative system, social factors, education, commerce, agriculture, fisheries,, finance, and political prospects, valuable as these are for the student of Australian history. Nor would it further our purpose to extract at length his views on the reformative efficacy of the convict system, as to which he was certainly over sanguine. The benevolent naturalist dealt with the convicts in the next paragraph but one from that in which he had described the growing wool trade; and it would almost seem that observations which he had intended to make relative to sheep and lambs had by chance strayed amongst the enthusiastic sentences in which he related how transportation humanised criminals. "All these unfortunates, lately the refuse and shame of their country, have become by the most inconceivable of metamorphoses, laborious cultivators, happy and peaceful citizens"; "nowhere does one hear of thieves and murderers"; "the most perfect security prevails throughout the colony"; "redoubtable brigands, who were so long the terror of the Government of their country, and were repulsed from the breast of European society, have, under happier influences, cast aside their anti-social manners"; and so forth.

On this subject Peron is by no means a witness whom the sociologist can trust; though it should not escape notice that the generous temper in which he described what he saw of the convict system in operation, and his view of it as a n.o.ble experiment in reformation, indicate his desire to appraise sympathetically the uses to which the British were putting their magnificent possessions in the South Seas.

Captain Baudin's impressions of the young colony, contained in his letter to Jussieu,* (* Moniteur, 22nd Fructidor, Revolutionary Year 11.

(September 9, 1803).) are also interesting, and may with advantage be quoted, as they appear to have escaped the attention of previous writers.

"I could not regard without admiration," he wrote, "the immense work that the English have done during the twelve years that they have been established at Port Jackson. Although it is true that they commenced with large resources ["grands moyens"; but, indeed, they did not!] and incurred great expenditure, it is nevertheless difficult to conceive how they have so speedily attained to the state of splendour and comfort in which they now find themselves. It is true that Nature has done much for them in the beauty and security of the harbour upon which their princ.i.p.al establishment is erected; but the nature of the soil in the vicinity has compelled them to penetrate the interior of the country to find land suitable for the various crops which abundantly furnish them with the means of subsistence, and enable them to supply the wants of the European vessels which the fisheries and commerce attract to this port."

The French visitors were far more genial in their view of the affairs of the colony than many British writers have been. It was concerning this very period that Dr. Lang said that the population consisted, apart from convicts, "chiefly of those who sold rum and those who drank it."

The reader must not, however, be hurried away from the subject of the convict population without the pleasure of an introduction to a delightful rascal, under sentence for forgery, with whom Peron had an interview. The ironical humour of the pa.s.sage will lighten a page; and the plausible character revealed in it might have escaped from a comedy of Moliere. Morand was his name, and his crime--"son seul crime," wrote Peron in italics--was in having "wished to a.s.sociate himself with the Bank of England without having an account there."

Morand shall be permitted to tell, in his own bland, ingenuous way, how, like a patriot, he tried to achieve financially what Bonaparte failed to do by military genius; and doubtless in after years he reflected that if his own efforts brought him to Sydney Cove, Napoleon's landed him at St.

Helena.

"The war," said Morand, "broke out between Great Britain and France; the forces of the two nations were grappling; but it appeared to me to be easier to destroy our rival by finance than by arms. I resolved, therefore, as a good patriot, to undertake that ruin, and to accomplish it in the very heart of London. If I had succeeded," he cried with enthusiasm, "France would have held me in the greatest honour; and instead of being branded as a brigand, I should have been proclaimed the avenger of my country. Scarcely had I arrived in England when I commenced my operations; and at first they succeeded beyond all my hopes. a.s.sisted by an Irishman not less skilful than myself, and who, like me, was actuated by a n.o.ble patriotism, desiring even more fervently than I did the downfall of England, I was soon enabled to counterfeit the notes of the Bank with such perfection that it was even difficult for us to distinguish those which came from our own press from the genuine paper. I was at the very point of a triumph; all my preparations were made for inundating England with our manufactured notes; nothing was wanting except some information in regard to numbering them--when my companion, whom up till then I had regarded as AN HONEST MAN,* (* The italics are Peron's.) took it into his head to steal some of the notes, which were as yet defective, inasmuch as they lacked a few trifling but indispensable formalities. He was arrested almost immediately; and as he had behaved dishonourably towards me, he did not hesitate to relapse into sin in another aspect. He revealed everything to the authorities; I was arrested and plunged into prison with him; all my instruments, all our bank notes, were seized--and Great Britain was saved from the ruin which I had prepared for her!

"Evident as were the proofs of our project, I did not despair, thanks to the nature of the criminal laws of England, of escaping death; but such were the feebleness and fright of my wretched partner, that I had no doubt of our common downfall if I were compelled to appear before the tribunals in a.s.sociation with that cowardly wretch. To obviate the aggravation of my own misfortunes, which could not have prevented his, I determined to endeavour to get rid of him; and, as the author of both our disasters, it was quite right that he should suffer. In a speech to him that was very pathetic, therefore, I tried to prove to him, that, our death being inevitable, we had nothing better to think about than how best to sustain the sadness and ignominy that had come upon us; and that, death for death, it was better to fall like men of honour than under the hand of the executioner. The Irishman was moved, but not yet resolved. I then made him feel that if his own infamy did not touch him, he ought at least to spare his children the disgrace of being pointed at as the offspring of one who had been hanged; and that, if he had not been able to leave them wealth, he should at least, by an act of generous devotion, save them from that shame.

"These last reflections inflamed the Irishman with a fine courage. We managed to procure a strong corrosive acid; I feigned to take some of it; but he took it really, and died; when, disembarra.s.sed from that silly rascal, I avoided the gallows which a.s.suredly awaited me had I been tried with him. I was, instead, sentenced to transportation to this colony, where I am condemned to pa.s.s the remainder of my days. But the period of my servitude in prison is now finished; I follow with advantage two of my early trades, those of goldsmith and clockmaker.* (* He was an emancipist; that is, a convict liberated from prison confinement on probation. His two "knaves" were also convicts. Transported men could often earn their liberty by exemplary behaviour. When Flinders went north in the Investigator, he was allowed to take nine convicts with him as part of his crew, on the promise that a good report from him would earn them their liberty; but that experiment was not a marked success. Morand, as I understand it, escaped the death penalty because the suicide of his companion prevented his being tried for conspiracy. The punishment for forgery was transportation.) The two knaves who work for me increase my profits threefold. In a few years I shall be one of the wealthiest proprietors in the colony; and I should be one of the happiest if I were not constantly tormented with regret at having so unfortunately failed in an honourable enterprise, and at being regarded on that account as a vile criminal, even by those among you, my compatriots, who cannot know the n.o.ble principles [sic "n.o.bles principes"!] which actuated my conduct, or who cannot appreciate them."

As the good Peron does not mention discovering that his pockets had been picked after his interview with this choice and humorous rogue, it will be agreed that he escaped from the interview with singular good fortune.

The naturalist presented a lively picture of the port of Sydney, which even in those very early days was becoming a place of consequence. There were ships from the Thames and the Shannon, brought out to engage in whaling, which was an important industry then and for many years after; ships from China; ships laden with coal bound for India and the Cape; ships engaged in the Ba.s.s Strait sealing trade; ships which pursued a profitable but risky business in contraband with the Spanish South American colonies; ships fitting out for the North American fur trade; ships destined for enterprises among the South Sea Islands; and, lastly, there was the ship of "the intrepid M. Flinders" getting ready to continue the navigations of that explorer in northern and north-western Australia. "All this ensemble of great operations, all these movements of vessels, give to these sh.o.r.es a character of importance and activity that we did not expect to meet with in regions so little known in Europe, and our interest redoubled with our admiration." Above all, one is glad to notice, Peron was interested in the boat in which George Ba.s.s had accomplished that "audacieuse navigation," the discovery of Ba.s.s Strait, in 1797 and 1798. It was, at the date of this visit to Sydney, preserved in the port with a sort of "religious respect," and small souvenirs made out of a portion of its keel were regarded as precious relics by those who possessed them. Governor King believed that he could not make a more honourable present to Baudin than a piece of the wood of the boat enclosed in a silver frame, upon which he had had engraved a short statement of the facts of Ba.s.s's remarkable exploit.