THE SUCCESSORS OF COOK 511 



was dreaming that France's future was on the sea, 1 

 and who was planning Empires in America, and in India, 

 and why not beyond ? There is no reason to think that, 

 when Napoleon sanctioned the plan of the scientific 

 gentlemen of the Institute, he expected Baudin to make 

 straight the way for a Napoleonic Empire in Australia. 

 He was, in 1800, far too busy in Europe, and far too weak 

 on the sea, to be inclined to formulate concrete plans 

 of annexation in Australia. But British statesmen in 

 London, and British officials in Sydney, were convinced 

 that a Napoleonic victory in Europe would be followed 

 by a challenge to British sea power, that the ultimate 

 aim would be to make the Napoleonic Empire not merely 

 European but world-wide, and that there was reason to 

 fear plans for a Terre Napoleon in New Holland. There- 

 fore they regarded Baudin's search for " scientific know- 

 ledge " with suspicion, and their suspicion was just. 2 



Such suspicions must have been in the minds of British British 

 ministers when, in June 1800, they granted passports sus P lclons - 

 to the two French ships as ships of discovery. And they 

 were in the minds of the Directors of the East India 

 Company when they voted 600 for the table-money 

 of Flinders and his officers" this voyage being within 

 the limits of the Company's Charter." " I hope th'e French 

 ships will not station themselves on the North-West 

 coast of Australia," wrote one of the Company's Directors. 

 And yet, in spite of these fears, there were intolerable 

 delays. Baudin was away in October 1800. The Investi- Baudin sails, 

 gator was not ready till April 1802, and in May Flinders Oct ' l8o ' 

 wrote to Banks to express his excessive anxiety to be 

 off, for " the French are gaining time on us." It was not 



1 Cf. his instructions to De Caen in 1805. He intends some day 

 to strike a blow for " that glory which perpetuates the memory of 

 men throughout the centuries, and it is first necessary that we should 

 become masters of the sea " (Scott's Flinders, p. 316). 



2 Peron told De Caen : "It would be easy to demonstrate to 

 you that all our natural history researches, extolled with so much 

 ostentation by the government, were merely the pretext of the enter- 

 prise." Scott shows that scientific research was not merely a pretext. 

 But Peron's words illustrate the fact that scientists were politicians, and 

 were more interested in politics than in science. 



