The Best Australian Sea Stories Page 14
With her foremast gone and her bottom stove in, the Porpoise was being pounded to pieces while a futile attempt was made to fire a cannon to warn the other two ships. Sadly this could not be done. Those clinging desperately to the disintegrating Porpoise watched the Cato hit the reef 300 metres distant and disappear from view.
The Bridgewater seemed likely to suffer a similar fate, but a huge swell lifted her and she cleared the reef and stood out to sea. Flinders immediately took charge and ordered the ship’s rowboat to be launched. He told Captain Fowler that he intended to save his charts and journals, although many of his specimens were lost.
Flinders’ plan was to row to the Bridgewater and take charge of the rescue of those wrecked on the reef. The leaking rowboat was at a safe distance from the wreck as he conveyed his plan to Captain Fowler. Rather than risk losing the rowboat, Flinders swam through the raging waves to board her. He and five others bailed and rowed in pursuit of the Bridgewater, but could not reach her.
Rather than attempt to return to the wreck of the Porpoise through the breakers in darkness, Flinders kept the rowboat outside the reef until morning, assuming that they would all be rescued by the Bridgewater at first light.
At dawn, Flinders climbed back onto what was left of the Porpoise and took stock of the situation. About half a mile inside the reef he saw a dry sandy island, and directed all survivors of both vessels to jump overboard and swim through the surf to the island, using planks and spars. All were saved except three young crewmen from the Cato, who had perished in the night.
Not only did Flinders organise for all left alive at sunrise to reach the island safely, he also managed to get most of the provisions from the Porpoise ashore. Stores were landed, tents were made from sails, and ‘on the fourth day’, Flinders wrote, ‘each division of officers and men had its private tent, and the public magazine contained sufficient provisions and water to subsist us three months’.
Indeed, the stores saved from the wreck and itemised on the tiny island included 940 pounds of biscuit, 9644 pounds of flour, 1776 four-pound pieces of beef, 592 two-pound pieces of pork, 50 bushels of oatmeal, 1225 pounds of rice, 448 pounds of sugar and molasses, 398 gallons of spirits and wine and porter, and 5650 gallons of water.
Also many of Flinders’ specimens and the Investigator artist Westall’s drawings were salvaged—along with sundry amounts of sauerkraut, malt, vinegar, salt, sails, spars, an anchor, an armourer’s forge, canvas, twine, four and a half barrels of gunpowder, two swivel cannons, muskets and pistols, and a few sheep, which unfortunately trampled over some of Westall’s drawings as they came ashore. Their hoof-marks are still visible on one of the drawings, preserved in the Royal Colonial Institute Library.
Once the 94 survivors had been organised, Flinders, determined to preserve discipline, read aloud the articles of war and had one seaman, an ex-convict, publicly flogged for disorderly conduct. He was determined to ensure that all survivors, including merchant seamen from the Cato, knew where they stood. The island operated in the same manner as a British ship of the line until all were saved three months later.
But just how were they saved? And where was the Bridgewater?
The answers to these two questions make for two amazing tales: one of heroism, skill, bravery and salvation; the other of cowardice and treachery, followed by honesty and retribution.
So, let us first return to the Bridgewater.
After narrowly avoiding the same fate as the Porpoise and Cato, the Bridgewater stood out to sea and waited for the storm to abate. On his arrival in India, Captain Palmer related his story to a newspaper and sent official correspondence ashore at Thalassery.
When the day was broke, we had the mortification to perceive the Cato had shared the fate of the Porpoise; the bow and bow sprit of the latter only at intervals appearing through the surf . . . with her bottom exposed to the sea, which broke with tremendous fury over her; not a mast standing.
Finding we could not weather the reef, and that it was too late had it been in our power to give any assistance; and still fearing that we might be embayed or entangled by the supposed chain or patches . . . We therefore determined, while we had the day before us, to run to the westward of the northern reef. At five p.m. we could perceive the wrecks . . . After passing the reef we lay too for the night; and in the morning we lost sight of it, having drifted to the northward.
In other words, Captain Palmer sailed back and forth at a safe distance from the reefs and the wrecks and, fearing his ship was in danger if he approached closer, abandoned the two wrecks and sailed away to India.
As fate would have it, Palmer’s false account of the shipwrecks was entrusted to his ship’s third mate, a Mr Williams, to be taken ashore at Thalassery.
Williams was disgusted at his captain’s behaviour—he had noted the sandy island inside the reef and thought, from the position of the wrecks on the reef, there was every likelihood that there were survivors.
When he was chosen to take the message ashore, Williams made a decision that could have ruined his career. As he put it:
In executing this service, I did, for the first time to my knowledge, neglect my duty, and gave a contrary account; but for this reason— I was convinced that the crews of those ships were on the reefs, and that this was an erroneous account made by Captain Palmer to excuse his own conduct.
Not only did Williams contradict his captain’s account, he returned to the ship and informed Palmer that he had done it. For this he was put ashore by Palmer in Bombay without his pay and some of his belongings.
In a twist of fate that would seem implausible in fiction, the Bridgewater was lost at sea with all hands on its voyage back to Britain, while Williams and several others who had left the ship in protest at Bombay lived to tell the true story.
Meanwhile, back on the sandy island, Flinders called a council of officers, which resolved that he should take the largest of the Porpoise’s two six-oar cutters, with an officer and crew, and make his way to Port Jackson—a risky voyage that would have to be made against prevailing strong southerly winds. In case his mission ended in death or failure, he ordered that two boats should be built by the carpenters from the wreckage, so all the survivors could attempt to sail back to Sydney.
The cutter was prepared for her long voyage. Appropriately named the Hope, she was launched on 26 August..
With Captain Park of the Cato as his assistant officer, and a double set of rowers, fourteen men in all set out with three weeks’ provisions.
Flinders had flown a large blue ensign upside down on a masthead as a signal of distress for the Bridgewater to see. In a gesture of admiration, a sailor hauled it down and flew it right way up as Flinders and his crew left the tiny island.
‘This symbolic expression of contempt for the Bridgewater and of confidence in the success of our voyage,’ said Flinders, ‘I did not see without lively emotion.’
On the evening of 8 September, Governor King and his family had just commenced dinner when a servant announced a visitor. Matthew Flinders, who had not shaved for a month, was ushered into the dining room.
Plans to rescue the shipwrecked men were immediately formed. Captain Cumming of the Rolla, a 438-ton merchant ship, agreed to call at the reef and carry some to Canton, while the Francis would bring the remainder back to Sydney.
Flinders himself was given command of the Cumberland, a 29-ton schooner, and was to sail in her to England with his charts and papers as rapidly as possible. The Cumberland was a small ship built in Sydney for local service. Her crew consisted of just a boatswain and ten men, but she was the only boat available.
Although it took just two weeks to prepare the rescue mission, Flinders stated that ‘every day seemed a week’. On Friday 7 October, exactly six weeks after Hope had left Wreck Reefs, the lookout on the Rolla spotted the blue ensign flying on the flag-staff of the little desert island, and the rescue was completed.
Thus it was that Matthew Flinders, having found himself shipwr
ecked like his hero Robinson Crusoe, took control, formulated a plan for salvation, swam through mountainous seas to board a leaking rowboat and chase a ship which deserted him, managed to save and get safely to shore all but three of the passengers and crew of two wrecked ships, set up a well-run camp, organised the civilised and orderly storage and distribution of provisions, and sailed over 1000 kilometres back to Port Jackson in an open boat to organise the rescue.
It was, I believe, his finest and bravest adventure. Robinson Crusoe could have done no better!
Having arranged for the relief and rescue of his wrecked shipmates, Flinders sailed off in the 29-ton schooner Cumberland, planning to proceed to England by way of Torres Strait.
The ship soon proved totally unfit for the task, needing almost constant pumping to keep her afloat, as well as being almost impossible to sail on the open sea. Flinders therefore decided to seek assistance at Ile-de-France (known before and after French rule as Mauritius), in conformity with his French passport. He arrived there on 17 December 1803, three months to the day after his friend Baudin had died there, and exactly one day after Baudin’s ship, the Geographe, had departed for France.
There were two small details that were to make this an unfortunate turn of events.
Firstly, in his haste to leave Port Jackson and return to rescue those on Wreck Reefs, Flinders had neglected to change the details on his French passport. He was sailing in a different ship to that for which his papers were valid.
Secondly, he had sailed inadvertently into an enemy port, for France and Britain were once again at war.
The story of Matthew Flinders’ imprisonment on Mauritius has been told many times. It was six years and six months before he was released, even though the French government ordered his release just two years after his arrival.
There are many reasons why things went so badly for Flinders on Mauritius.
The governor of the colony, Charles Decaen, was a brave soldier, a good general in battle and a scrupulously honest man with a brusque manner. He was a protege of the great French general Jean Moreau, and his actions were largely responsible for Moreau’s crushing victory against the Austrians in 1800 at Hohenlinden. Decaen had good reason to hate the British and feel suspicious of their actions.
In spite of Napoleon’s distrust of Moreau, whom he had dismissed for disloyalty in 1797 but reinstated after he seized power as France’s ruler in 1799, Napoleon trusted and confided in Decaen and had great plans for him.
In February 1803, under the conditions of the Peace of Amiens (a truce between France and Britain), Decaen was chosen to sail to India to govern the French territories that had been taken by the British and were to be returned to France under the terms of the treaty.
Decaen left Brest in February, expecting to arrive in India to find the territories restored to French rule, as agreed. The British, however, had decided not to hand back the colonies, so Decaen arrived in the port at Pondicherry in June to find the British still in control and unwilling to negotiate.
Another French ship then arrived with news that war was imminent (it had actually been declared in May, while the ship was at sea). Decaen was instructed to return to the much less important colony of Mauritius and take up the post of governor there, which he did, four months before Flinders’ arrival.
The British, as Decaen saw it, had stolen French territories, reneged on promises made in a treaty, and robbed him of a valuable career opportunity.
It is little wonder he was suspicious of Flinders’ motives. Although he quickly realised that Flinders had not been aware that France and Britain were at war, he suspected Flinders might have been sent to do reconnaissance on the island’s defences for the British government.
It was quite logical for Decaen to assume that the British merely used the Treaty of Amiens as a cover to prepare for an onslaught on the French colonies, because in fact it was true.
Both nations used the treaty as an opportunity to plot and spy and make plans. The French naturalist Francois Peron, who was a member of Baudin’s expedition and wrote the official account of the voyage after Baudin’s death, also prepared a secret report, which shows he operated as a spy while in Port Jackson and advocated a French attack on the colony. Peron had undoubtedly spoken to Decaen about these plans, and perhaps filled his mind with doubts about Flinders.
It is ironic that Peron, to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude for his work in collecting over 100,000 zoological specimens, and making the only detailed study of Tasmanian Aborigines before their contact with Europeans destroyed their culture, was also operating as a spy, and advocated and planned the downfall of the British settlement in New South Wales.
Francois Peron was an unusual man. He studied for the priesthood before joining the army. While a prisoner of war after the Battle of Kaiserslautern, in which he lost an eye, he read accounts of voyages and decided to become a naturalist. He was the only one of five naturalists to survive Baudin’s voyage, and his work was excellent. He did not like Baudin and the feeling was mutual. It is doubly ironic that, when Baudin refused to fund Peron’s exploration of the outlying areas of the colony during their stay at Port Jackson, Governor King gave him the resources he needed and paid for him to undertake the task!
Whatever the reason for Decaen’s original distrust of Flinders, the situation soon became exacerbated by the reactions of the two men to each other. Even though their nations were at war, there was an expectation of mutual respect between officers and gentlemen, and especially so in the case of explorers and men of science, but Decaen was suspicious, and Flinders was insulted and annoyed.
Soon it was Decaen’s turn to be insulted and annoyed. Having concluded his official business with Flinders, he immediately sent him a message inviting him to dine with his wife and himself.
Flinders refused the invitation, even though the officer who delivered it begged him to reconsider, pointing out that conversation over dinner would perhaps serve to solve the misunderstandings between him and the Governor.
Refusing an invitation to dine with the one man who could help him, as a fellow officer and gentleman, was a decision Flinders would have plenty of time to regret. Indeed Flinders soon realised that much of the problem between himself and Decaen was caused by him mistaking Decaen’s brusqueness for deliberate rudeness.
Decaen was flabbergasted by the refusal. He felt that Flinders’ behaviour at their official interview made his invitation to dine an exceptionally gracious gesture. In his memoirs, he recalled that:
although he had given me cause to withhold the invitation on account of his impertinence; but from boorishness, or rather from arrogance, he refused that courteous invitation, which, if accepted, would indubitably have brought about a change favourable to his position, through the conversation which would have taken place.
Apart from all the other obvious impediments to a successful outcome of the unfortunate circumstance of Flinders arriving at an enemy port, the personality clash between the two men was to set in motion a series of events that led to Flinders spending six and a half years on the island.
Decaen saw it like this: ‘Captain Flinders imagined that he would obtain his release by arguing, by arrogance, and especially by impertinence.’
Flinders’ version was:
I believe that the violence of his passion outstrips his judgment and reason . . . he is instantaneous in his directions, and should he do an injustice he must persist in it because it would lower his dignity to retract. His antipathy, moreover, is so great to Englishmen, who are the only nation that could prevent the ambitious designs of France from being put into execution, that immediately the name of one is mentioned he is directly in a rage . . .
Flinders, however, thought Decaen was an honest and honourable man, and admitted that ‘he has the credit of having a good heart at the bottom’.
To the credit of Decaen, Flinders was treated with dignity and respect during his enforced stay on Mauritius. His every request was agreed to—
except his request to leave.
His papers and documents were returned to him, his crew were allowed to leave and he was accommodated in comfort at the expense of the French government in very comfortable lodgings in the hills at Wilhelm’s Plains.
He made many friends, worked on his journals, learned to speak excellent French and passable Malay, and reflected on life in general, and his own in particular. He later said that in some respects those years were the most serene and pleasant of his entire life.
In a letter to his wife he admitted, ‘I am proud, unindulgent, and hasty to take offence, but . . . my mind has been taught a lesson in philosophy, and my judgment has gained an accession of experience that will not soon be forgotten.’
Many requests for release were made to both Decaen and the French government on Flinders’ behalf, by respected British citizens, including Governor King, Sir Joseph Banks and the Governor of India, and also by French scientists and notables, including explorer Louis-Antoine Bougainville, and eminent citizens on Mauritius.
Although other British prisoners and captured naval personnel were released or traded for French prisoners of war, Decaen obstinately refused to allow Flinders to leave—despite a release order being signed by Napoleon in March 1806. The release document approved of Decaen’s actions, but asked that Flinders’ ship be restored to him and Flinders be released.
It is true that, due to the successes of the British fleet in the ongoing war, no copy of the release document arrived on Mauritius until mid-1807, but when it did arrive Decaen chose to take it as advice that he could release Flinders when he thought it appropriate, rather than as a direct order.
It was not until three years later, with Mauritius doomed and blockaded by the British, that Flinders was informed that the Emperor’s order for his release was to be activated. He was then conveyed to one of the British ships involved in the blockade and returned home via the Cape Colony, which was now under British control, arriving back to greet his wife nine years and three months after his departure.