Department of Social Sciences French Exploration and Intentions with Regard to the West Coast of Australia 1772–1829 Dorothy V Reid This thesis is presented for the Degree of Master of Social Science of Curtin University of Technology August 2008 Table of Contents Acknowledgement iii Declaration iv Abstract v Maps: 1) “Dauphin” Map” superimposed on map of Australia vi 2) Historical Boundaries of Australia 1788 – Present vii 3) Map or Western Australia showing Longitude Lines viii 4) Map of Australia showing States and Oceans ix Chapter One: Historical Background 1 Chapter Two: 29 Spatiality and Territoriality Chapter Three: 64 Voyages of Exploration Chapter Four: 95 Science Chapter Five: 130 Law Conclusion 152 Bibliography 156 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT In acknowledgement of her support and assistance, I wish to sincerely thank Dr Bobbie Oliver for the great help and encouragement received during the later part of the thesis’ development and finalisation. Also my sincere gratitude goes to my co-supervisor Dr. Patrick Bertola for his support and helpful advice given to me during his supervision of the early development of this thesis and his encouragement during that time iii Declaration To the best of my knowledge and belief this thesis contains no material previously published by any other person except where due acknowledgment has been made. This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. Signature: ………………………. Date: ……………………….. iv ABSTRACT In 1772 French navigator Alesno de Saint-Aloüarn, visited the western coast of the Australian continent, and claimed it for France. Some French authorities and later French navigators believed that Saint-Aloüarn’s claim was valid under prescriptive law, yet this law is only valid if the land claimed is settled within a time frame of thirty years. However, France did not intend to either lay claim to, or establish a colony in western Australia during later voyages of exploration conducted in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially as in 1778 Captain Cook had taken possession of the east coast of Australia which was fortified by the British Navy. While this thesis does not dispute Saint-Aloüarn’s claim, a long succession of writing developed from a British perspective has located rivalry and fear of French colonial ambitions as the cause for British occupation of western Australia. French, Dutch and British voyages to the west coast of Australia have been canvassed, drawing upon both contemporary accounts and twentieth century interpretations of the aims and motives of the respective governments. This thesis investigates three factors considered to have significantly influenced the motivation for and preparation of relevant French and British voyages of exploration covering the period 1772 to 1829. Differences between concepts held by both nations, such as spatiality and territoriality, the value of science, together with the fact that Britain and France operated under two quite distinct legal systems in regard to territorial claim, form the basis for arguing against past historical understandings. It is argued that while the primary aim of British exploration was to establish colonies to satisfy economic and defence requirements, as well as expansion of the empire, French voyages of exploration undertaken to the west of the Australian continent after 1778 were for scientific purposes. By adding knowledge of a largely unknown part of the continent to the world at large, the French hoped to restore national pride after their humiliating loss at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, which effectively ended the Napoleonic Wars. The corollary is that the rivalry factor, often put forward by historians as the reason for British annexation of Western Australia in 1829, is shown to be of little value against the other three factors. v Map 1. “Dauphin” Map C.Halls, Westerly, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, February 1965. a = The Lines of demarcation of Pope Alexander VI, 1494 b = The Pope’s Line of 1529 vi Map 2. Historical Boundries Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore, Pan Books in Association with Collins, 1988. vii Map 3. Map of Western Australia showing Longitude Lines William Henry Wells, (Facsimile Edition), A Geographical Dictionary or Gazetteer of the Australian Colonies, The Council of the Library of New South Wales, Sydney 1970. viii Map 4. Map of Australia showing States and Oceans http://wikitravel.org/upload/en/8/8c/As-mao.png . 9/6/2007 ix Chapter One – Introduction / Historical Background 1 History means interpretation – imaginative understanding.2 History is movement; and movement implies comparison. The emergence of a particular value or ideal at a given time or place, is explained by the historical condition of time and place. The content of hypothetical absolutes like quality, liberty, justice or natural law, varies from period to period or from continent to continent.3 The purpose of this thesis is examine the general statement that France sought to lay claim to the western third of the Australian continent prior to 1829. French navigator Alesno de Saint- Aloüarn’s 4 early claim to western Australia in 1772, followed by later French navigators in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, have formed the basis for assumptions that British annexation of the western third of the continent, together with immediate colonisation, was made in order to forestall French claims. Examinations of various texts reveal that there is a long succession and consensus of writing developed from a British perspective where historians emphasise a single cause of international rivalry between France and Britain as the reason for Britain colonising the west of Australia in 1829. The rivalry concept as a simple causal argument, leads to a limited historical understanding of the French reasons for their explorations. Rivalry as the primary concept appears unsatisfactory; accordingly, this thesis proposes alternative explanations for the French presence in western Australia, relying on more complex concepts and perceptions. The evolution of knowledge from the Renaissance, followed by the Reformation and the Enlightenment periods, produced differing outlooks and perspectives. Historical differences between the two nations of France and Britain are henceforth discussed. Following the Renaissance, the Reformation initiated in France early in the sixteenth century witnessed a great revolution in the Christian church, ending both the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Pope in western Christendom, and the worldview that the Church had presented for a thousand years. The division of France into Protestant and Roman Catholic factions led to a generation of religious civil wars between 1652 and 1698, resulting in French King Louis XIV, a Roman Catholic, trying to force French protestants to convert, thereby reducing absolutism to the formula ‘Un roi, une foi, une loi’ (one king, one faith, one law.)5 In 1 In this thesis the use of (w)estern (small “w”) Australia is used in references prior to 1829. After the official founding in 1829 (W)estern (capital “W”) Australia has been used in references. 2 E.H.Carr, What is History? The Macmillan Press Ltd., London, 1977, p.18. 3 Ibid, pp.17–18. 4 French Navigator Aleno de Saint-Aloüarn (as noted in the Cohérence du [email protected]) will be referred to throughout this thesis as Saint-Aloüarn. 5 David Parker, The Making of French Absolutism, Edwin Arnold (Publishers) Ltd., London, 1983, pp.1–2, and p.120. 1 contrast, the English Parliament in 1534 at King Henry VIII’s insistence passed a series of acts that separated the English Church from the Roman hierarchy as a result of Pope Gregory VII’s refusal to annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. The Act of Supremacy effectively transferred to the king the ecclesiastical jurisdiction previously exercised by the pope by appointing the king as head of the Church of England, thus establishing an independent national church. The national religion of France remained Roman Catholic, while that of England remained Protestant. François Dosse asserted that as royal power grew stronger in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, leaning more and more on the divine nature of the leaders, Louis XIV of France and the Stuarts of England became the object of an idolatry that was more and more widespread – ‘absolutism as a kind of religion’.6 However, England’s political resistance against absolutism finally won out after the 1688 Glorious Revolution. Thus developed two different concepts: France’s king ruled as an absolute monarch whereas the King of England who, as a constitutional monarch, ruled with the consent of parliament. France had to wait until embodying the values of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution of 1789–1792 resulted in the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy, thereby discarding absolutism in favour of establishing the First Republic of France 7 and the subsequent rise to power of Napoléon Bonaparte. Geoffrey Best has argued that the Revolution must have produced a military power and leadership such as Napoléon’s, proportionate to its capabilities and its needs.8 This imperial concept alone is difficult to attach to the argument that France would have conducted a campaign to secure western Australia, as the British navy was present in the eastern portion of the Australian continent to protect the British colony in 1788. Eric Hobsbawm’s book The Age of Revolution 1789–1848 covers this period, documenting the institutional changes introduced directly or indirectly by French conquest and showing the institutions of the French Revolution and the Napoléonic Empire was automatically applied.9 Further, the principal concepts used in such studies tend first to assume a conception of imperialism that conflates with empire building/imperialism that is more properly linked to 6 François Dosse, New History in France – The Triumph of the Annales, (trans. by Peter V. Conroy Jr.), University of Illinois Press, Chicago, USA, 1994, p.69.