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Description

Striking, Separately-Issued Example of Freycinet's Chart of King Island, in the Bass Strait

Fine, rare chart of King Island, in the Bass Strait, as it was surveyed by Louis Claude Desaulses de Freycinet while part of the Baudin expedition. It was published in his celebrated and very rare hydrographic atlas, part of the official account of the expedition. This example is special in that it is a separately issued sheet from the French Hydrographic Office, sold for 1.5 francs.

The chart shows a portion of the Bass Strait which had only recently been discovered when Freycinet was there in 1802-3. Here, the mainland is labeled as Terre Napoleon, part of the French attempt to lay claim to the Australian continent. The chart is unadorned and contains no decorations; it was meant to simply and clearly communicate the extensive survey undertaken by the French despite the presence of another voyage, that of British Royal Navy officer Matthew Flinders in the Investigator, which was also surveying Australia at the time (see below).

The title of the chart explains that the observations for this chart were taken by several individuals that accompanied the Baudin Expedition. These included Freycinet in the 29-foot Casaurina, a ship bought specifically to conduct survey work. The aptly-named Geographe and the Naturaliste are the larger ships associated with the Baudin expedition. Others who contributed include Pierre Faure, who served on the Naturaliste, and Pierre-Francois Bernier, astronomer on the Geographe. The chart was compiled by Charles Pierre Boullanger, a midshipman and hydrographic engineer on the Geographe.

King Island

The chart includes a portion of coast first charted by Flinders in his chart of 1800 and Port Western, with the Ile des Francais and the Ile des Anglais (now Philip Island). This bay was first discovered by George Bass and Matthew Flinders when surveying the southern coast with a whaleboat in 1797. Flinders' chart of 1800, cited here, did not include King Island.

However, a Captain Reed, who commanded the seal hunting ship Martha, had sighted the island in 1799 and sent word to Flinders. The island does gain a mention in Flinders' Observations on the Coast of Van Diemen's Land, on Bass's Strait and its Islands, published in 1801, "Land of considerable extent has been seen about this situation."

The island was first named by Captain John Black, who visited just after Reed did. He named the island for Philip Gidley King, the Colonial Governor of New South Wales. When King heard of the Baudin expedition, he sent the Australian-built ship HMS Cumberland under HMS Cumberland to claim the island for the British, a feat barely accomplished when Baudin arrived. The French survey had a lasting impact, however, as several toponyms, including Phoques Bay ( Baie des Phoques), are still in use.

Port Philip and early settlement of southern Australia

Port Philip, to the west, was first visited by Europeans when the HMS Lady Nelson, commanded by Lieutenant James Grant, became the first known ship to pass through the strait west to east . Grant also first charted Wilson's Promontory, shown on this chart. Only ten weeks after Grant, Flinders arrived in Port Philip in the Investigator on his survey mission of Australia.

In the official account of the Baudin expedition, written by Freycinet and the voyage's naturalist, Francois Peron, the Frenchmen claimed that the Geographe had also sighted the entrance to Port Phillip. However, the ship's log does not record that they were in such a location. Aware of the French threat, the HMS Cumberland, the British ship sent to claim King Island, was also sent to Port Philip to stake a claim for Britain.

After Charles Grimes became the first European to walk around the entirety of the bay in February 1803, and while the Baudin expedition was still surveying the Australian continent, Governor King decided to start a convict settlement in the bay, largely to stave off any French attempts to claim the land. In October of that year, the HMS Calcutta and the HMS Ocean entered the bay with 402 people. They claimed their first settlement at Sullivan Bay, near modern day Sorrento, on October 25, 1803. It was abandoned due to lack of fresh water and timber in January 1804.

It was not until 1835 that another settlement was attempted. Settlers from Tasmania, led by John Batman and a former Sorrento colonist, John Pascoe Fawkner, established a new colony near the Yarra River. This settlement was called Melbourne and it would grow into one of the largest cities in Australia.

European exploration of Australia and the Bass Strait

Although the first European ships to sail along the south coast of Australia were Dutch, the first detailed surveying was done by Tobias Furneaux. Furneaux was one of the first men to circumnavigate the world in both directions. He went round Cape Horn with Samuel Wallis (1766-8) and round the Cape of Good Hope with Cook on his second voyage (1772-5). He was the first European to set foot on Tahiti, where he hoisted the pennant. It was with Cook, however, that he visited New Holland. As commander of the Adventure, Furneaux was separated from his commander and took to surveying the coast south of Botany Bay. He got as far west as Van Diemen's Land and the Furneaux Islands.

Cook sailed to the south of Van Diemen's Land on his third expedition, thus leaving the Bass Strait uncharted. Another near miss happened on Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux's voyage to find out the fate of the celebrated French explorer La Perouse. D'Entrecasteaux left France in October 1791 and arrived off Van Diemen's Land in April 1792. He stayed in the vicinity for five weeks, surveying and charting in the south of the island, which was then still thought to be part of the mainland. He returned in 1793 and started a systematic search of the southern coast, laying claim to first discovery of that area, but was forced to sail for a known port in Van Diemen's Land due to lack of water. If he had continued east, perhaps the Bass Strait would be named for d'Entrecasteaux.

As it is, the strait bears the name of George Bass, but it owes its charting to Flinders. Flinders first came to Australia in 1795 as a young naval officer on a voyage to deliver John Hunter to serve as the Governor of New South Wales. On that voyage he met Bass, the ship's surgeon. Once in Port Jackson, the two men set out on two surveying voyages in two tiny vessels, both named Tom Thumb. This established their reputations as skilled hydrographers and navigators.

In 1798, now Lieutenant Flinders was charged with command of the Norfolk and ordered to sail west of Furneaux's islands to see if a strait did indeed exist, as there were recent rumors from a shipwrecked crew that a strait was a possibility. Flinders confirmed the suspicion in 1798-9, when he and Bass circumnavigated Van Diemen's Land. Flinders suggested naming the strait after his good friend, which the Admiralty accepted. The discovery was to change the shape of Australia on all maps and cut the voyage to New South Wales short by several crucial days. It is noted here in the insets of Port Dalrymple and the Furneaux Islands, both of which are drawn after Flinders's charts made while commanding the Norfolk.

Louis Freycinet and the Baudin Expedition

This chart featured in the rarest of the volumes to come out of the Baudin expedition. When Nicolas Baudin left Le Havre in the Geographe and the Naturaliste in October 1800, he was embarking on a voyage meant to survey the shores of Australia. At this time, the British had established their presence in eastern Australia, but the western and southern portions of the continent remained unexplored and not necessarily claimed by the British. In other words, although ostensibly a scientific expedition, the French were also open to possible overseas expansion if the opportunity arose.

In the Naturaliste, commanded by Captain Hamelin, was Louis Freycinet, then only 21 years old. He had joined the French Navy in 1793 and was accompanied on this voyage by his brother, Louis-Henri, who would go on to become an admiral.

Initially the ships, sometimes separated, made their way north up the western coast of Australia from Cape Leeuwin to Timor. They then went south again, but were separated a second time. Baudin and the Geographe made for Van Diemen's Land and then returned toward the west. En route, they encountered Flinders in the Investigator. Flinders, on his third Australian surveying mission, was heading to Sydney, from where he would begin a clockwise circumnavigation of the Australian continent, the first such voyage to ever do so. Flinders named the place where he and Baudin met Encounter Bay.

Baudin and Hamelin were reunited in Sydney, where both ships had come to recuperate in late 1801. While there, Baudin purchased a 29-foot vessel. He named it Casuarina and placed Freycinet, who had proved himself an adroit hydrographer under Hamelin, in command. With his new charge, Freycinet was to perform inshore surveys.

During the course of 1802, the Geographe and the Casuarina surveyed the southern coast of Australia (the Naturaliste had been sent back to France). They then sailed round the west coast to Timor, then back to Mauritius, where Baudin died. It was also where the Casuarina's career ended, as the ship was abandoned in favor of consolidating the crews on the Geographe. The ship returned home on March 25, 1804.

The publication of the voyage accounts and atlas

This map chronicles the work of these ships and was part of the rare hydrographic atlas published in 1812. Although they were largely repeating work already done by Matthew Flinders, some of the French toponyms survive today. This is due in large part to the fact that this map was finished before Flinders could produce his own account of his Australian circumnavigation. He had published several charts of his 1798 expedition, which were used by Freycinet in making this chart, but Freycinet's work shows a much larger and more complete area, lending it importance and primacy.

Why did Flinders take so long to publish his own findings, yielding the novelty of publishing the charting of the Australian coastline to the French? Flinders left New Holland in 1803 and arrived in Mauritius to water and repair his leaky vessel on December 15, 1803. Unfortunately, word had reached the French-controlled island only three weeks prior to his arrival that the British had ruptured the fragile Peace of Amiens; the French and British were at war once again. The French governor, General Decaen, detained Flinders after the British officer was not entirely polite. Flinders was kept against his will on the island for six and a half years, returning to England only in October of 1810. Additionally, the French seized his papers, including the ships logs, though they were eventually returned in part.

Freycinet, meanwhile, had returned to France in 1804. Since Baudin had died in Mauritius, the naturalist Francois Peron and Freycinet were directed to prepare for publication the official account of the voyage, with an accompanying atlas. Baudin was not generally well liked by his fellow sailors, a fact borne out by the limited reference made to him or his discoveries in the narrative and maps of the voyage. The French maps also do not recognize the prior claims of first discovery by men like Flinders, in an attempt to give France more prominence. However, Freycinet did likely have access to copies of Flinders' documents seized when he was imprisoned, improving the detail of his charts.

This borrowing of information led to a dispute with Flinders about the extent to which the French could say they first charted any of the coast. On this map, Terre Napoleon is used generally for the Australian mainland, with a parenthetical reference to the British name for the continent, New Holland. Flinders, by contrast, said Terre Napoleon's easternmost extent could only be in roughly 140.5 degrees of longitude, which would be to the left (west) off this chart, as it is calculated from the Paris meridian. In the second edition of the voyage accounts and atlas the Terre Napoleon is greatly diminished.

The official account appeared over ten years and in four volumes. The first narrative of the voyage, primarily by Peron, was published in 1807. The second narrative volume was published in 1816 and was written primarily by Freycinet. Peron had died in 1810. The first part of the Atlas, which contained 40 engraved plates, two of them folding, appeared in 1807. The second atlas, was published in 1811 with 14 engraved charts, two of them double-page. These double-page maps include a map of the Australian continent, the first map to show the continent in its entirety and made partially from Flinders' papers.

The map shown here was part of the rarest of the volumes prepared by Freycinet, the hydrographic atlas dated 1812, although it was not distributed until 1814. It contained 32 engraved charts, 25 of them double-page. An accompanying text volume was published in 1815, also by Freycinet.

By contrast, Flinders' narrative and atlas of his own account appeared only in 1814, almost a decade after the first maps of the Baudin expedition were published and three years after the completion of this chart.

Freycinet's later career

His publications stemming from the Baudin expedition would have been enough to secure the fame of Louis Freycinet. However, he is perhaps best known today for his second voyage to the Pacific, one he commanded in the Uranie. From 1817 to 1820, Freycinet cruised the Pacific performing experiments and, of course, making detailed charts. He was accompanied by his wife Rose.

Although the Uranie was wrecked in the Falklands on the return journey, the natural historical specimens and geographical notes were saved. They were published in 13 volumes with 4 additional volumes of plates and maps between 1824 and 1844.

The voyage secured Freycinet a place in the Academie des Sciences. He also went on to help found the Paris Geographical Society, the first such group of its kind. Louis Freycinet died in 1841.

Rarity

The hydrographic atlas is the rarest of the Baudin publications, many times rarer than the narrative, and it is seldom on the market. This separately issued print is very rare, especially in such good condition.

Reference
ADNB, entries for Flinders, Baudin and Freycinet. A Guide to Maps of Australia in Books Published 1780-1830, map 1812.11.
Louis Claude Desaulses de Freycinet Biography

Louis Claude Desaulses de Freycinet (1779-1841) was a French hydrographer and explorer. He joined the French Navy in 1793. In October 1800, at the age of 21, Freycinet set off in the Naturaliste, part of an exploratory expedition to chart Australia. He was accompanied on this voyage by his brother, Louis-Henri, who would go on to become an admiral.

In Sydney, the leader of the expedition, Nicholas Baudin, purchased a 29-foot vessel. He named it Casuarina and placed Freycinet, who had proven himself an adroit hydrographer, in command. With his new charge, Freycinet was to perform inshore surveys. During the course of 1802, the Casuarina charted large portion of the southern coast of Australia.

Freycinet returned to France in 1804. Since Baudin had died in Mauritius, the naturalist Francois Peron and Freycinet were directed to prepare for publication the official account of the voyage, with an accompanying atlas. The official account appeared over ten years and in four volumes. The first narrative of the voyage, primarily by Peron, was published in 1807. The second narrative volume was published in 1816 and was written primarily by Freycinet. Peron had died in 1810. The first part of the Atlas, which contained 40 engraved plates, two of them folding, appeared in 1807. The second atlas, was published in 1811 with 14 engraved charts, two of them double-page. These double-page maps include a map of the Australian continent, the first map to show the continent in its entirety and made partially from Matthew Flinders’ papers.

His publications stemming from the Baudin expedition would have been enough to secure the fame of Louis Freycinet. However, he is perhaps best known today for his second voyage to the Pacific, one he commanded in the Uranie. From 1817 to 1820, Freycinet cruised the Pacific performing experiments and, of course, making detailed charts. He was accompanied by his wife Rose.

Although the Uranie was wrecked in the Falklands on the return journey, the natural historical specimens and geographical notes were saved. They were published in 13 volumes with 4 additional volumes of plates and maps between 1824 and 1844.

The voyage secured Freycinet a place in the Academie des Sciences. He also went on to help found the Paris Geographical Society, the first such group of its kind. Louis Freycinet died in 1841.