This was a safe step to take, as
the annexation was performed with the concurrence of Great Britain. But
Napoleon's oversea move of nine years later was rash in the extreme.
From 1862 to 1866 - after a joint Anglo-French-Spanish movement to compel
the Republic of Mexico to discharge her debts to European bondholders,
and after a disagreement between the allies which led to the withdrawal
of the British and the Spaniards - forty thousand French troops were
engaged upon the quixotic task of disciplining Mexican opinion,
suppressing civil war, and imposing upon the people an unwelcome and
absurd sovereign in the person of Maximilian of Austria. His throne
endured as long as the French battalions remained to support it. When
they withdrew, Maximilian was deposed, court-marshalled, and shot. The
wild folly of the Mexican enterprise, from which France had nothing to
gain, illustrated in an expensive form the unbalanced judgment and the
soaring megalomaniac propensities of "the man of December." That he
should institute such inquiries as are indicated by the document
described by Lord John Russell's biographer, even though the preservation
of friendly relations with Great Britain was essential to him, was quite
in accordance with the "somewhat crafty" character of the man of whom a
contemporary French historian has said: "He knew how to keep his own
counsel, how to brood over a design, and how to reveal it suddenly when
he felt that his moment had come."* (* M. Albert Thomas in Cambridge
Modern History 11 287.) It is a little singular, however, that Russell
did not allude to the mysterious paper when he wrote his Recollections
and Suggestions, five years after the fall of Napoleon III. There was no
imperative need for secrecy then, and the passage quoted from his book
indicates that the welfare of Australia was under his consideration.
The facts set forth in the preceding pages are sufficient to show that
the people of no portion of the British Empire have greater reason to be
grateful for the benefits conferred by the naval strength maintained by
the mother country, during the past one hundred years, than have those
who occupy Australia. Their country has indeed been, in a special degree,
the nursling of sea power. By naval predominance, and that alone, the way
has been kept clear for the unimpeded development, on British
constitutional lines, of a group of flourishing states forming "one
continent-isle," whose bounds are "the girdling seas alone."
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
ALARD, Eloge Historique de Francois Peron, redacteur du Voyage de
Decouvertes aux Terres Australes. Paris, 1811.
Almanac de Gotha, 1811, contains a good narrative of the Baudin
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discoveries claimed to have been made.
Annual Register, 1800 to 1814. Various References.
AUDIAT, Louis, Peron, sa vie, ses voyages (en Oceanie) et ses ouvrages.
Moulins, 1855.
AULARD, A., Paris sous le Consulat. 5 volumes. Paris, 1903.
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1899.
BLADEN, F.M. (Editor), Historical Records of New South Wales. 7 volumes.
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historical material up to the year 1812; prints all the important
documents preserved in the Record Office, Colonial Office, and Admiralty.
An indispensable work.
BLAIR, DAVID, Cyclopaedia of Australasia. Melbourne, 1811. Useful, but to
be used with caution.
BONWICK, J., Port Phillip Settlement. London, 1883.
BORY ST. VINCENT, J.B.G., "Histoire de la traversee du Capitaine Baudin
jusqu'au Port Louis de L'Ile Maurice, in Voyage dans les quatre
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1804.
BOUGAINVILLE, LOUIS ANTOINE DE, Voyage autour du monde par la fregate du
roi La Boudeux et la flute L'Etoile, en 1766 a 1769. Paris, 1771;
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BOUGAINVILLE, THE BARON DE, journal de la Navigation du monde de la
fregate La Thetis et de la corvette L'Esperance pendant les annees 1824
to 1826. Paris, 1828 to 1837.
BROSSES, CHARLES DE, Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes. 2
volumes. Paris, 1756. The series of organised French expeditions to the
South Seas was largely impelled by the publication of this work.
BURNEY, JAMES, Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea
or Pacific Ocean. 5 volumes. London, 1803 to 1817.
BURNEY, JAMES, Voyages and Discoveries in the South Seas. 2 volumes.
London, 1806.
CALLANDER, JOHN, Terra Australis Cognita. 3 volumes Edinburgh, 1766 to
1768.
CHEVALIER, E., Histoire de la marine francaise sous le Consulat et
l'Empire. Paris, 1886.
CLEVELAND'S Voyages, volume 1 page 35. London, 1842.
COCKBURN, RODNEY, Nomenclature of South Australia. Adelaide, 1909.
COLLINGRIDGE, GEORGE, Discovery of Australia. Sydney, 1895.
COLLINS, DAVID, Account of the English Colony in New South Wales from its
first Settlement in January 1788 to August 1801. London, 1804. Contains a
contemporary account of the discoveries of Bass and Flinders in the Tom
Thumb, the whale-boat, and the Norfolk; embodying Bass's diary.
COOK, JAMES, Voyage towards the South Pole and round the World, performed
in His Majesty's Ships the Resolution and Adventure, in the Years 1772 to
1775. 2 volumes. London, 1777.
COOK, JAMES, Voyage to the Pacific Ocean in His Majesty's Ships the
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COOK, Journal during his first Voyage round the World made in H.M. Bark
the Endeavour, 1768 to 1771, edited by Captain W.J.L. Wharton. London,
1893.
(There have been many reprints of Cook's Voyages, and many translations.
The best Biography of Cook is that of Kitson, 1907.
