Baudin and the Bees

The Penal settlement known as Port Arthur may never have existed except for the efforts of two Frenchmen separated in time and space by almost 50 years and 16,000 kilometres.
One, born into wealth and privilege in Dijon in 1709, was to write a book which, as Tom Ryan says, marked, ‘…a fundamental change in Western thinking about the human inhabitants of the South Seas…’

(ref T. Ryan. Le Presidente des Terres Australes in The Journal of Pacific History, Vol 37 No. 2, 2002. P176)

The other, born in Cerilly in 1775, the son of a harness maker, was to play a significant role in the Baudin expedition of 1800-04.
Charles de Brosses studied law with a view to becoming a magistrate however, his main interests were in literature and science and he was to become one of the most significant French writers of the 18th century and a leading figure of the Enlightenment. He was a friend of the naturalist, mathematician, biologist, and cosmologist, the Comte de Buffon who was one of the early proponents of the idea of natural evolution.
In 1739 Buffon was elected an associate of the Academy of Sciences and was also appointed keeper of the Jardin du Roi (subsequently renamed the Jardin de Plantes) and of the Royal Museum. His greatest work was his Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière; which was published in Paris between 1749 and 1804 in forty-four quarto volumes. The 1911 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica states that this publication, “…can undoubtedly claim the merit of having been the first work to present the previously isolated and apparently disconnected facts of natural history in a popular and generally intelligible form.” (ref http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Buffon%2C_George_Louis_Leclerc%2C_Comte_de" )
His writing was to influence subsequent generations of scientists such a Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Charles Darwin. In the foreword to the 6th edition of his Origin of Species Charles Darwin credited Buffon as, "the first author who in modern times has treated it (the theory of evolution) in a scientific spirit …"
It was Buffon who encouraged the now, President Charles de Brosses, as the French Advocate and President of the Parliament of Dijon, to undertake the process of synthesising the existing knowledge about the pacific and to publish it in a single publication. In a method similar to that of Buffon, and calling upon Charles de Vaugondy, one of the most respected and prolific cartographers of the time to draw up maps under his direction, he completed and published the two volume, Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes in 1756.
This publication was notable for many things; in it he propounded theories similar to those of Buffon regarding a common lineage for all mankind including the various peoples of the pacific and, to circumvent the outlandish claims of some early explorers, he proposed that all future expeditions should carry a complement of scientists to authenticate the collection of data – a practice carried out by all subsequent expeditions by both the French and English. De Brosses also provided the first definitive description of the areas of Polynesia and Australasia.
(ref Vaugondy map – Le President des Terres Australes, Tom Ryan, Journal of Pacific History, Vol 37, Number 2, 2002. p162)
But, most notably for the purpose of this paper he proposed the establishment of a colony in the South Seas – his choice was New Britain – which would be the key to controlling this newly explored area. Such a settlement, he said, should be based on a convict economy supplemented by foundlings sent as free settlers

(ref James R Walker Early Tasmania: the Walker Memorial Volume, Tasmania Government Printer, 1950 P3

T. Ryan op cit p172).
Both the French and English had seen the Falkland Islands as the key to the Pacific.
This book was published in French and subsequently translated into German. A plagiarised English edition was published as the work of the writer John Callander under the title Terra Australis Cognita between 1766 and 1769 (T. Ryan op cit p180) As Beaglehole points out, ‘The British had deprived France of her colonial empire, now with as little scruple and considerable less effort, a Scotchman appropriated de Brosses’ work and de Brosses’ program’

J C Beaglehole The Exploration of the Pacific (London 1947) pp228-9 quoted in Ryan op cit p180