Government. It was not that Freycinet had plagiarised
Flinders' charts, but that the Government had plagiarised his discoveries
by, as Malte-Brun thought, ordering French names to be strewn along the
Terre Napoleon coasts. In a later issue of the Annales des Voyages*
Malte-Brun testified to having seen Freycinet working at the material
upon which his charts were founded. (* Volume 24 273.) But his former use
of the word "plagiat" had created a general impression that Flinders'
charts had been dishonestly taken from him in Mauritius, and used by
those responsible for the French maps; a charge which Malte-Brun never
meant to make, and which, though still very commonly stated and believed,
is wholly untrue.

The really deplorable feature of the affair is that Peron and Freycinet,
in their published book and atlas, gave no credit to Flinders for
discoveries which they knew perfectly that he had made. They knew where
he was while they were working up their material. It does not appear that
either of them ever moved in the slightest degree to try to secure his
liberation. Peron died in December, 1810. Malte-Brun, who saw him
frequently after the return of Baudin's expedition, says that in
conversation on the discoveries of Flinders, Peron "always appeared to me
to be agitated by a secret sorrow, and has given me to understand that he
regretted not being at liberty to say in that regard all that he knew."
Flinders also believed Peron to be a worthy man who acted as he did "from
overruling authority." Those who have read the evidence printed in this
book, exhibiting the detestable conduct of both Peron and Freycinet in
repaying indulgence and hospitality by base espionage, will hardly be
precipitate in crediting either of them with immaculate motives. There is
no evidence that authority was exercised to induce them to name the
southern coasts Terre Napoleon, or to give the name Golfe Bonaparte to
the Spencer's Gulf of Flinders, that of Golfe Josephine to his St.
Vincent's Gulf, that of Ile Decres to his Kangaroo Island, that of
Detroit de Lacepede to his Investigator Strait, and so forth. They knew
that Flinders had made these discoveries before their own ships appeared
in the same waters; they knew that only the fact of his imprisonment
prevented his charts from being published before theirs. The names with
which they adorned their maps were a piece of courtiership and a means of
currying favour with the great and powerful, ju