147 



FRANCE AND AUSTRALIA. 



THE "PRISE DE POSSESSION." 



A NEW CHAPTER IN OUR EAULY HISTORY. 



By Thomas Dunbabin, B.A. (Oxon.), M.A. (Tasmania). 



[Originally written for the Hobart-Melbourne Meeting 

 of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, January, 1921.]" 



(Read before the Royal Society of Tasmania, 8th 

 August, 1921.) 



When Ernest Scott, Professor of History in the Uni- 

 versity of Melbourne, was working en his Life of Flinders, 

 he employed a copyist to obtain material from the Paris 

 archives. The copyist found so much about Australia that 

 the charges mounted very high. So Professor Scott pointed 

 out to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library and the 

 Mitchell Library that they ought to have copies of these 

 valuable historical documents. The authorities agreed, and 

 the cost of Professor Scott's material was one-third of what 

 it would otherwise have been. 



This partial overhaul of the Paris archives by an in- 

 telligent copyist has thrown a flood of light on the early 

 relations of France and Australia. An examination of the 

 papers in the Commonwealth Library, made by the courtesy 

 of the Speaker, reveals the hitherto unpublished fact that 

 a French expedition did, in 1772, take formal possession of 

 Western Australia. 



It is not in France alone that material may be found. 

 Hidden away in some dusty corner in Portugal, Spain, or 

 possibly Holland, there may be documents which upset ac- 

 cepted ideas about the obscure but fascinating subject of 

 early exploration in Australasian regions. For the history 



*Owing to the Shipping: Strike, the Meeting of the A.A.A.S., which 

 was to have been held in Hobait in January, had to be held in Melbourne. 

 Many difficulties had to be overcome, and it was found impossible to 

 publish the usual full report of the A.A.A.S. Meeting and to print all 

 papers. Arrangements were therefore made for certain papers to be 

 read before the Society and published in the Papers and Proceedings 

 for 1921. 



