is own country, handed over the whole collection to the Museum in
Paris. This action, which in the circumstances was probably regarded as
patriotic, brought him under the notice of Jussieu, the famous French
botanist; and when the South Sea expedition was authorised, that
scientist recommended Baudin as one who had taken an interest in natural
history researches, and who had given "a new proof of his talent and of
his love for science by the choice of the specimens composing his last
collection, deposited in the museum." The Minister of Marine minuted
Jussieu's recommendation in the margin: "No choice could be happier than
that of Captain Baudin,"* and so he was appointed. (* Manuscripts,
Bibliotheque Nationale, nouveaux acquisitions, France 9439 page 121.) He
was by no means the kind of officer whom Napoleon would have selected had
his designs been such as have commonly been alleged.

Two ships of the navy were commissioned for the service. Under the names
La Serpente and Le Vesuve they had been built with a view to an invasion
of England, contemplated in 1793.* (* Manuscripts, Bibliotheque
Nationale, nouveaux acquisitions, France 9439 report of de Bruix to the
Minister.) They were re-named Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste on being
allotted to a much safer employment. Both were described as solidly
built, good sailers, and easy to control; and the officer who surveyed
them to determine whether they would be suitable reported that without
impairing their sea-going qualities it would be easy to construct upon
their decks high poops to hold quantities of growing plants, which it was
intended to collect and bring home. On these ships Baudin and his
selected staff embarked at Havre, and, a British passport being obtained
under the circumstances already related, sailed south in October.

If Baudin had been the keen and capable commander that those who secured
his appointment believed him to be, he should have discovered and charted
the whole of the unknown southern coast of Australia, before Flinders was
many days' sail from England. The fact that this important work was
actually done by the English navigator was in no measure due to the
sagacity of the Admiralty--whose officials procrastinated in an
inexplicable fashion even after the Investigator had been commissioned
and equipped--but to his own promptness, competence and zeal, and the
peculiar dilatoriness of his rivals. Baudin's vessels reached
Ile-de-France (Mauritius)