Peron, in his history of the voyage, severely blamed the obstinacy of "notre chef"--mention of his name being carefully avoided--for the delay occasioned on the run down to the Cape of Good Hope. Captain Baudin, disregarding the advice of his officers, insisted on sailing fairly close to the African coast, instead of making a more westerly course. He argued, according to Peron, that the route which he favoured was nearer, and as a matter of mileage he was right. But winds and currents should have been considered rather than bare distance; and the simple result of bad seamanship was that Baudin's vessels occupied one hundred and forty-five days on the voyage from Havre to Mauritius, where they stayed to refit, whilst Flinders brought out the Investigator from Spithead the whole way to Cape Leeuwin, where he first made the Australian coast, in one hundred and forty-two days. The French vessels lay at Mauritius for the leisurely space of forty days, and did not reach Australia till May 27, two hundred and twenty days after their departure from France. Even then, had reasonable diligence been exercised in the pursuit of the exploratory work for which his ships had been commissioned, Baudin would have had the honour of discovering the unknown southern coast; for Flinders was not allowed to leave England till July 17, 1801, fifty-one days after the French actually arrived on the shores of Australia. The prize of discovery slipped from Baudin's reach in consequence of his "dawdling" methods, which brought about those "consequences facheuses et irreparables" deplored by the naturalist.