SHIPS
PASSING AT THE ENDS OF THE WORLD
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Captain Arthur
Phillips First Fleet arriving at Botany Bay 17th January
1788
Drawing by 1st
Lieutenant William Bradley of the Sirius.
History
often throws up some unexpected parallels, curious coincidences that centuries
later warm the heart and remind us that we are all indeed members of the same universal
family.
Now
if that sounds awfully pompous I do apologise.
But it is true, we all belong to the one family, one that was once
known simply as ‘mankind’. A word curious in
its make up... a kind man... and given the opportunity to meet each other
quietly and without fanfare, most of us on this planet would behave in that
way. With kindness and consideration to
each other.
So
I was pleasantly surprised to read about a brief event that took place in the
very early days of Australia’s attempt to establish a penal settlement in
Botany Bay. An event that involved
ships of the then often opposing world powers, France and England, and of the brave men who sailed in them.
You
will remember the stories of my convict ancestors, Bryan Spalding, Mary Welch and Samuel
Marshall. Ancestors who owed their survival
in those early days of convict
settlement to the careful management and supervision of Governor Arthur
Phillip. A man who most unusually for
those times of political appointment turned out to be the right man for a difficult and inhumane task.
( see the ...The Irish Born Convict )
BOTANY
BAY 24TH Janury 1788.
The
First Fleet of Convict ships have already arrived at their destination, Botany
Bay, and despite favourable description made by Captain Cook on an earlier
voyage of discovery some few years before was now found to be unsuitable for
settlement. With food stocks dwindling at an alarming rate Governor Phillip decides
to remove the entire fleet north to Port Jackson where it is hoped conditions
will be best suited for the colony.
But
now prevailing winds are wreaking havoc on the 11 ships of the fleet as they attempt to make sail. Governor Phillip decides to leave the fleet
behind in the care of Captain Hunter on
the Sirius to await calmer weather while he takes the smaller vessel the Supply to secure a new landing site in
the larger harbour to the north.
SAIL
AHOY!
In
the midst of these efforts English sailors are astonished to sight two French ships holding to off the
coast. They will be identified as the La Boussole and L’Astrolabe under the
command of the Navigator, Jean-Francois
de Galaup La Perouse.
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It
happens the prevailing winds are proving equally unfavourable for the French
ships attempting entry into Botany Bay and it will be a few days before La
Perouse can actually enter the safe
haven.
At
the same time Governor Phillip aboard the Supply
suffering the same problem leaving the Bay, finally succeeds and neither party make contact.
Left
behind to await a change in the weather the Governor’s deputy John Hunter helps
La Perouse anchor their ships and for the next few days the two groups maintain good relations each
with the other. With winds abating the
remainder of the First Fleet departs to
rejoin Governor Phillips and the Supply
in the vast seaway we now call Sydney Harbour.
The
French commander has a sad duty to perform.
The expeditions naturalist and chaplain Father Receveur dies from
injuries received in a skirmish the previous December in Samoa, in which
Langle, commander of the Astrolabe and 12 other crew members were killed. The chaplain is buried at Frenchmans Cove
just below the headland that is now called La Perouse.
For
the remainder of the French sailors stay, just a few miles south of the convict settlement
at Sydney Cove, visits are made by Phillips deputies, both overland a matter of
a few miles, and by small row boat: Friendships
are established and indeed La Perouse hands over a satchel of letters and
correspondence requesting the next vessel returning to England deposits them
with the French Ambassador in London.
Governor
Arthur Phillips, faced with famine and the desperate need to establish shelter
for the 1,044 captive souls in his care is otherwise occupied and makes no
personal contact with the Navigator Jean-Francois de Galaup La Perouse.
Eventually,
On March 10, 1788, just six weeks after making initial contact with the English
First Fleet, the French ships quietly make sail and leave Botany Bay.
They
will never be heard of again.
This
1788 meeting of sailors and nations in the middle of a vast unknown part of the
globe was astonishing, but when you understand the remarkable navigation skills
of both Phillips and La Perouse, and the reason for the Frenchman’s voyage you
become filled with admiration that such men of honour once existed.
Captain
Arthur Phillips was brought out of retirement to command the First Fleet. He had been both a ships captain and a farmer
and his skills were ideal for the task ahead of him. His expertise in navigation was evident as he
kept the 11 ships of the fleet on course during the long dangerous voyage
south.
Albi
– the pink city.
Jean-Francoise
La Perouse was born in 1741 to a distinguished
and prominent family in the vicinity of the medieval town of Albi on the Tarn River in
the south of France. He entered the
navy at the age of 15, saw battle against the English in 1759, was wounded and
taken captive. Repatriated to France he
was promoted to lieutenant in 1775 and
to captain in 1780 and saw service with the French in the American war of
revolution.
In
1783 the French Government and King Louis the 16th, an admirer of the
voyages and discoveries of England’s Captain Cook sent an expedition to the
Pacific to complete Cook’s scientific work and in particular to explore the
passages in the Bering Sea. La Perouse
was put in charge of the expedition in 1785, and for the next three years he
sailed the oceans of the world, across the Atlantic to Brazil, round Cape Horn,
onto Chile, north to the Sandwich Islands and from there to Alaska before swinging south to the new country documented by Cook.
The
French navigators orders were to survey the north and south Pacific and the
Indian Ocean studying climate, native peoples, flora and fauna. He took with him a number of scientists and
botanists.
The Australian author David Hill in
his book 1788, quoting from actual journals refers to another of Governor
Phillip’s emissaries, Lieutenant King visiting the French ships and being
impressed with the array of scientists on the French expedition...including botanists, astronomers and natural
historians and their impressive range of astrological and navigational
equipment...
King particularly envied the French
the three timepieces they carried on both of their ships considering only the
one was provided for the entire English fleet.
Three year voyage of the French
Expedition.
Jean-Francoise
was not only a navigator of note and confidante of a King, he was also a great
romantic. Most of his life had been
spent at sea. During a time he spent in the East Indies, La Perouse often
visited Ile-de-France, now the British possession of Mauritius. On an early voyage he fell in love
with the daughter of a minor official in Port Louis, Louise Eleanore Broudon
and advised his parents he wished to marry her.
Alas,
in those days a young man of La Perouse’s station did not marry beneath his
rank and his father forbade the union.
Apparently it didn’t matter that he was 33 years of age, Jean- Francoise
had no say in the matter. His father
was adamant, La Perouse had a brilliant
future to consider and his parents would set about finding a more suitable
match. An engagement was arranged with a
woman he would never set eyes on. But Jean-Francoise’s heart lay with
another. For ten years Eleanor waited
and her lover pleaded with his family.
His
perseverance was finally rewarded, and he and the fair Eleanor finally wed in
1783. Their married life together
however was short. Within two years La
Perouse had sailed away on his momentous voyage of discovery and for the next
three years the couple’s only contact was by letters sent from distant ports.
One
such letter would eventually arrive in Albi by way of England, from
the pouch of documents entrusted to the First Fleet for transport on the first
ship returning to England.
In
the official documents La Perouse advised his itinerary after the brief visit
to Botany Bay would take in New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the Louisades, the
Solomons and the Gulf of Carpentaria expecting to arrive at Ile de France
by December of 1788.
By
the end of 1789 nothing had been heard of the French ships and Eleanore moved
from Albi to Paris to press the French Government for further action.
Years
slipped by. Sydney Cove had seen an
influx of even more convicts with the arrival of the Second and Third Fleets. The
tiny colony was well on the way to becoming a nation. On the other side of the
world in 1789 the French Revolution erupted and King Louis 16th was
executed three years later.
JEAN-FRANÇOIS GALAUP, COMTE DE LAPÉROUSE.
Albi, France.
Despite
the unrest in France, La Perouse’s plight remained a priority and in 1791 the
French Society of Natural History petitioned the new National Assembly to
assemble a rescue expedition. The
Commander of the two ships comprising the expedition was Antoine-Raymond Joseph
Bruny d’Entrecasteaux. They found no
sign of the missing ships nor of La Perouse and his men.
(Tasmania though would benefit from the new
expedition’s search as its leader left behind his name on various parts of the
island.)
Nothing
more would be heard of the missing Frenchmen until in May 1826 an Irish Pacific
trader, Peter Dillon uncovered French relics among the Polynesian inhabitants
of Tikopia that they claimed had been taken from an island known as
Vanikoro. Dillon proceeded to the
island and brought back testimony that two ships had been driven onto the beach
in a storm, and that the crew had been either drowned in the surf or massacred
as they reached the beach.
Dillon
was also able to purchase from the island relics of the two French ships, an
old sword blade, a rusted razor, a silver sauce-boat with fleur-de-lis upon it,
a brass mortar, a few small bells, a silver sword handle bearing a cipher, the
crown of a small anchor and many other articles. He also reported talking to a native who
described the chief of the strangers who...was
seen to be looking at the stars and the sun and beckoning to them. In much
the way an astronomical observation of the heavens would be made.
____
As it transpired and in this tragic way, the
story of two countries meeting for a brief moment in time on common ground in a
virtually unexplored and distant part of the world, ended.
The
famous navigator La Perouse and his Frenchmen left their mark on Australia as
memorably as they left it on all the other parts of the world they traversed.
- · The heart broken Eleanor lived on in the family home at Albi in the south of France and survived her husband by only 9 years. The couple were childless.
- · The two most famous sons of Albi are today remembered as La Perouse and the artist Toulouse-Lautrec.
- · The recovered items from Vanikoro are exhibited in the Marine Museum at the Louvre in Paris.
- · Modern day descendents of Captain Dillon, who solved the mystery of the missing ships, continue to this day to live in Sydney.
- · Two memorials have been erected to the memory of the French expedition..one in Albi, the other on the island of Vanikoro.
- · And on a headland overlooking Botany Bay stands an impressive memorial to both La Perouse and the Expedition, and to the French chaplain Father Receveur who died in Botany Bay following injuries he received the previous year in Samoa.
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