By Stuart Hetherington
Mr Hetherington has kindly provided a review of the book “Beating France to Botany Bay – the Race to Found Australia,” by Margaret Cameron-Ash.
He writes:
I previously reviewed Margaret Cameron-Ash’s marvellous book “Lying for the Admiralty” in the Spring/Summer 2020 issue of this publication. For readers who missed it, it tells the story as to how the great European powers of Britain and France in the late 18th Century were vying to make new discoveries for developing trade and influence, particularly in the South Seas.
She showed, convincingly, in that book, how Captain Cook in his first voyage in 1770 hid from public view, amongst other things, the information which he had gained about Port Jackson. Despite the fact that he had sailed right past it her theory is that he walked along the coast or through an inland aboriginal track from Botany Bay that took him at least as far as what is now Oxford Street, but probably all the way down to the harbour. As she showed her theory is supported, and entirely plausible.
She showed that in a private memorandum from Captain Phillip to Lord Sydney, the Home Secretary, which she has discovered, before he set sail with the First Fleet in May 1787.
In that correspondence it was apparent that he was aware that there was an alternative to Botany Bay close by. As she shows in this work further evidence can be found in the actions he took on arriving in Botany Bay in January 1788, which she recounts in great detail in this new work. Such knowledge can only have come to him from information supplied to the Admiralty by Captain Cook, or possibly Joseph Banks.
In this new work Margaret Cameron-Ash takes the story of the results of that deception practised by Cook and the government that employed him through the next 18 years. The reader needs to bear in mind that in the years preceding Cook’s voyage in 1770 and Phillip’s arrival in 1788 the British had defeated the French in the Seven Years War so that by 1763 France had lost its colonies in North America and elsewhere and the French, between 1775 and 1783, had assisted the American colonies in overthrowing their British rulers in their war of independence.
Context is everything and Margaret Cameron-Ash reminds us of that volatile world and the intense international rivalry between the British and the French at this time. She likens the competitive mind set of the two nations to the Cold war animosity that drove the race to the moon in the 1960s. It must also be remembered that the French Revolution, the overthrow of the monarchy in France, the rise of Napoleon, the Napoleonic wars culminating in the Battle of Waterloo all took place within a few years of the founding of Australia. That Anglo-French rivalry was not a new phenomenon either: the hundred years war had been going on in the 14th and 15th centuries, the loss of Calais which was to be a stain on Queen Mary’s heart happened in the 16th century. That rivalry can still be seen over fishing rights in the Channel.
Margaret Cameron-Ash, once again, through her diligent research, shows how the British had been preoccupied with other matters since Cook’s discoveries, not least finding ways to house its growing prison population and had not pursued the transportation option until secret intelligence forced a decision to be made to colonise the Australian continent and populate it with convicts. Lord Beauchamp had delivered a report to the government in July 1785 which did not even refer to Botany Bay,
Notwithstanding that there would have been reports of a voyage to the South Seas being about to take place within a few days led by Laperouse, and despite Banks and others advocating for Botany Bay.
The story, as it unfolds, is thrillingly told and involves a cast including William Pitt, the Younger (appointed Prime Minister aged 24 in 1783), Alexander Dalrymple ( cartographer and sailor), Thomas Jefferson (appointed American Ambassador in Paris in 1785), Joseph Banks, Louis XVI, Laperouse (French naval officer), and, the “linchpin in this story” as the author describes him, a colourful American named John Ledyard. He is described by another writer as being “gregarious-he could chat up a tree stump- intelligent sociable and, if not penniless, not far from it.” A detailed and glowing description of his character is also quoted in the book from a British MP, who knew him personally.
One of Banks’s near neighbours and friends was Alexander Dalrymple, a former captain of the East India Company Marine. After ten years in the Far East he returned home and created and published nautical charts, heading the hydrographie office of the East India Company, and later the Admiralty’s Hydrographie Office in 1795. (He had wanted the role given to Cook for the Endeavour’s first voyage in 1768.) He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1777. He and Banks differed in opinion on the colonization of Australia. Banks was in favour and Dalrymple opposed it. The latter believed that the East India Company could manage trade in that part of the world better than anyone else. However in an important letter he wrote in July 1785 he referred to the possibility that Britain’s enemies might seize New Holland in which case he said: “..then it may become our interest to interfere, by way of competition, but never till then.”
Instructions were issued by the French King on 26 June 1785 to Laperouse to conduct a voyage which would last 4 years. His instructions included circumnavigating New Holland in an anti clockwise direction (north, west and south, being areas not visited by Cook), then to New Zealand and the North American west coast with a view to making a settlement on that coast for the fur trade, and thence to the Russian Far east to the port of Petropavlovsk followed by further voyages around the Pacific and south east Asia before returning home. Four months out Laperouse inverted the schedule so that he started his exploration of the Pacific in the northern hemisphere. Whilst there were concerns raised in England about the real intentions of Laperouse’s voyage they were muted at that time.
Jefferson was however concerned about French expansionist plans for the US west coast. He had expressed concerns about British intentions in that part of the country since 1783. He gathered intelligence through John Paul Jones, the naval commander war hero who had been in France seeking reimbursement of prize rewards from the French, and with whom Ledyard had been in discussions and contracted to join forces to develop fur trading in the north west. Jones sent a report dated 5 October 1785 to Jefferson on the results of his investigation into the instructions Laperouse had been given.
Those instructions, he said, were the exploration of the Southern Hemisphere and the establishment of colonies in New Holland and establishing factories for the fur trade on the west coast of America.
Cameron- Ash surmises that Jefferson would have discussed this report with Ledyard, his friend, who was himself planning ventures with Jones on the American west coast and had travelled with Cook to New Holland. She suggests he would have reassured Jefferson that the French were not looking for a permanent settlement on the west coast and that New Holland was the primary target for the Laperouse voyage. Ledyard arrived in London around 12 August 1786 to join a voyage to Nootka Sound in Canada with a view to traversing America from California to the Mississippi. This voyage was due to start within a couple of weeks.
Ledyard’s correspondence says he met Banks on 17 August 1786. Banks had been elected President of the Royal Society in 1778, (aged 35) and held that prestigious position until 1820. He was in London for a regular Thursday dinner on that day of the Royal Society. Cameron-Ash surmises that Ledyard would have discussed with Banks when he met him on that day what he had learnt from Jefferson of the instructions given to Laperouse, as set out in John Paul Jones’s letter, the contents of which had been kept secret. The news would have galvanised Banks and fuelled his long cherished belief that a settlement should be established in New Holland. The circumstances under which Dalrymple had suggested such a move would be a necessity had arrived. It is inconceivable that Banks did not convey this news to the Prime Minister.
The very next day there was a scheduled Cabinet Council followed by one of the King’s regular levees. The Cabinet meeting was prolonged after the levee. It was not until 1 November that press reports contained advertisements from the navy office calling for tenders for ships “to carry persons and provisions to Botany Bay.” Later documents suggest that the government had acted swiftly and ordered on 18 August that an occupation force be sent immediately to New South Wales in order to beat the French to New Holland, and been approved by the King that day. Cameron-Ash then records that Laperouse arrived on the Kamchatka peninsula at the Russian port of Petropavlovsk in early September 1787 and towards the end of that month Laperouse received despatches from his Ministry of Marine. One letter dated 15 December 1786 told him of the British intention to form a settlement at Botany Bay.
No copy has been found of the other letter from the Minister. It is assumed he was told to go directly to Botany Bay. He did not obey those instructions precisely, as he had other business to attend to on the way, fortunately for the British. Had he gone a direct route he would have arrived there before Phillip. As the Duke of Wellington said after the battle of Waterloo: ” It was a damned close run thing.”
The events that occurred in Botany Bay and Sydney Harbour at the end of January make gripping reading. A clue as to the content can be seen in the book’s front cover, Ian Hansen’s painting of Laperouse’s two vessels entering Botany Bay while at the same time the First Fleet is scrambling to leave for Sydney Cove.
Further clues can be seen in the chapter headings: “The Three -Day Battle of Port Jackson” and “Entente Cordiale in the South Pacific” which give a hint of the extraordinary goings on which had such a momentous bearing on Australia’s future and which the author describes with great insight.
This is a tour de force, a well- researched and beautifully presented publication.
