igation, and the distressful condition of his
people should have impelled him to choose a route which would take them
to succour in the briefest period of time. He insisted on the longer
course, and in consequence brought his ship to the very verge of
disaster, besides intensifying the sufferings of his crew. The voyage
from the region of the gulfs to the harbour of refuge was full of pain
and peril. Man after man dropped out. The sailors were unable to trim the
sails properly; steersmen fell at the wheel; they could not walk or lift
their limbs without groaning in agony. It was a plague ship that crept
round to Port Jackson Heads in that month of storms:

"And as a full field charging was the sea,
And as a cry of slain men was the wind."

All this bitter suffering was caused because, as the official historian
of the expedition tells us, Baudin "neglected the most indispensable
precautions relative to the health of the men." He disregarded
instructions which had been furnished with reference to hygiene, paid no
heed to the experience of other navigators, and permitted practices which
could not but conduce to disease. His illustrious predecessor, Laperouse,
a true pupil of Cook, had conducted a long voyage with fine immunity from
scurvy, and Baudin could have done the same had he possessed valid
qualifications for his employment.

There is no satisfaction in dwelling upon the pitiful condition to which
Baudin's people were reduced; but it is necessary to set out the facts
clearly, because the visit paid by Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste to
Sydney, and what the French officers did there, is of the utmost
importance in relation to what happened to Flinders at a later date.

Baudin brought his vessel up to the entrance to the harbour on June 20th,
but so feeble were his crew that they could not work her into port. It
was reported that a ship in evident distress was outside, and at once a
boat's crew of Flinders' men from the Investigator was sent down to
assist in towing her to an anchorage. "It was grievous," Flinders said,
"to see the miserable condition to which both officers and men were
reduced by scurvy, there being not more out of one hundred and seventy,
according to the Captain's account, than twelve men capable of doing
their duty." Baudin's own journal says they were only four; but, whatever
the number may have been, even these were sick, and could only perform
any kind of work under the whip of absolute nece