The remainder of our task, then, shall be devoted to examining the origins of Baudin's expedition. We will inquire into the instructions given to the commander; we will follow his vessels with a careful eye to any incidents that may point to ulterior political purposes; we will have regard to the suspicions engendered at the time, how far they were justifiable, and what consequences followed from them; we will search for motives; and we will look at what the expedition did, in case there should by any chance thereby be disclosed any hint of an aspiration towards territorial acquisition. We will try to regard the evidence as a whole, the object being--as the object of all honest historical inquiry must be--to ascertain the truth about it, freed from those jealousies and prejudices which, so freely deposited at the time, tend to consolidate and petrify until, as with the guano massed hard on islets in Australasian seas, it is difficult to get at the solid rock beneath for the accretions upon it, and sometimes not easy to discriminate rock from accretion. CHAPTER 7. GENESIS OF BAUDIN'S EXPEDITION. Baudin's one of a series of French expeditions. The building up of the map of Australia. Early map-makers. Terra Australis. Dutch navigators. Emmerie Mollineux's map. Tasman and Dampier. The Petites Lettres of Maupertuis. De Brosses and his Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes. French voyages that originated from it. Bougainville; Marion-Dufresne; La Perouse; Bruni Dentrecasteaux. Voyages subsequent to Baudin's. The object of the voyages scientific and exploratory. The Institute of France and its proposition. Received by Bonaparte with interest. Bonaparte's interest in geography and travel. His authorisation of the expedition. The Committee of the Institute and their instructions. Fitting out of the expedition. Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste. The staff. Francois Peron. Captain Nicolas Baudin. French interest in southern exploration did not commence nor did it cease with the expedition of 1800 to 1804. We fall into a radical error if we regard that as an isolated endeavour. It was, in truth, a link in a chain: one of a series of efforts made by the French to solve what was, during the eighteenth century, a problem with which the scientific intellect of Europe was much concerned.