4. Butterflies & Charts

In the 18th century, Australia, then known as New Holland, was still a mysterious place. Nothing was known about the interior of the land or the people and animals that might live there. Most of the coast was uncharted, and little was known about the winds and tides.

After the French Revolution, Napoléon Bonaparte’s rise to power in 1799 as First Consul of the French Republic saw him as an enthusiastic supporter of Nicolas Baudin’s proposal to explore these unknown lands. In addition to the scientific study and collection of flora and fauna, Baudin’s expedition was to map the ‘unknown’ southern coast of New Holland, the mysterious fifth continent. His task was to provide new insights, observations and material in order to promote French science in Europe. There was also political concern that the British would make a colonial claim before France could establish one, should they find it first.

When the British learned of this planned expedition, they launched their own expedition in a race to be the first to finish charting New Holland and ‘beat’ the French in this rival venture.

For almost four years, Baudin’s expedition explored the western and southern coasts of Australia, and the island of Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen’s Land). Thousands of kilometres of coast and islands were charted, and coastal topography was recorded, filling in most of the gaps on the existing Dutch charts.

Matthew Flinders was the British navigator and cartographer who was charting the Australian coast at the same time as Baudin’s expedition. In 1802 the two expeditions had a chance encounter at what Flinders later named Encounter Bay in South Australia. It was here that Baudin learned, to his great disappointment, that Flinders had already mapped the nearby coastline. Flinders had ‘won’ the great race between the French and English to be the first expedition to circumnavigate Australia and prove that the continent was a single island. 

Flinders wrote in his account of his circumnavigation of the continent that one of Baudin’s officers (Henri de Freycinet), told him:

“If we had not been kept so long picking up shells and catching butterflies at Van Diemen’s Land, you would not have discovered the South Coast before us.”

To catch such butterflies, each of Baudin’s ships carried 12 insect boxes lined with cork, 100 insect needles, 10000 insect pins and 12 metres of plain gauze for insect nets. Baudin even had a species of butterfly named after him (Elodina baudiniana).