WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

contemporaries had made several voyages through the South Pacific and Southern
Ocean.
The French remained keen to find new colonies, and they mounted expeditions with
expressly scientific intentions but underlying territorial goals. The British responded
in kind, in an attempt to preserve their strategic and commercial dominance. Anglo-
French political rivalry centred on Australia's northern and western coastlines, an area
still unclaimed, unsettled, and unknown to Europeans. From 1801 to 1803, Baudin
and Freycinet made detailed surveys of the Western Australian coast. They
concentrated their efforts around Shark Bay, well south of the Kimberley. Freycinet
undertook surveys as a cartographer and surveyor in Baudin's expedition. Peron, the
expedition's naturalist, collected an extraordinary 100,000 animal specimens over
three voyages. Among the locations named during this voyage were Cape Cuvier, the
Lacepede Islands and the Bonaparte Archipelago. Many of the places named by the
French along the west Kimberley coast commemorate Napoleon's generals (Edwards
1991). There is no evidence in the literature of the specific locations of any landings
that may have been made.
The colonies look north
Following British settlement of southern Australia, the British Admiralty sent a
number of hydrographical expeditions to chart the northern coastline in greater detail.
These expeditions sought to identify locations for future settlements, and to find
suitable sites for northern ports which would help to build stronger trading links
between the Australian colonies and the rich markets of Asia (Bolton 1963). Phillip
Parker King took part in four hydrographical expeditions: three in the ship Mermaid
and one in the Bathurst. King's instructions included that he should make a detailed
investigation of rivers, and obtain information on climate, landforms, fauna, flora,
wood products, minerals and the 'character of coastal tribes' (Frawley 1982). His
instructions had been hurriedly compiled by the Admiralty in response to renewed
interest by the French in returning to the north-west coast to complete the
investigations begun by Baudin. King was directed to stake out England's claim on
the continent, particularly in harbours and river mouths (Hordern 1997).
On his third voyage in July 1820, King sailed north from Sydney, and passed through
the Torres Strait, before making for where his previous survey had ended: Montague
Sound, just west of Admiralty Gulf on the Kimberley coast. The Mermaid had
suffered damage earlier in the trip so, after charting Prince Frederick Harbour in
September 1820, King decided to careen the ship at nearby Port Nelson for repairs.
The damage was more extensive than he originally thought, and the men spent the
next 19 days at a place King named Careening Bay. While they were there, the crew
carved the words 'HMC Mermaid 1820' in large lettering into the bark of two stems of
a boab tree, a carving that remains clearly visible today. A copper plate, similarly
inscribed, was attached to a tree.
When repairs were complete, the Mermaid sailed out of Careening Bay and survey
work continued: King charted Brunswick Bay and its inlets, travelling from St George
Basin into the Prince Regent River, which he followed upstream in a boat for more
than 40 kilometres. At Hanover Bay, Aboriginal people confronted King's party,
spearing his surgeon. An Aboriginal man was shot, and the crew took what weapons
and boats they could in the melee. From here, King began the long return journey to
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