Australian History: Marion DuFresne
The Expedition of Marion Dufresne
Marion was born in St Malo in 1724, and went to sea at eleven as an honorary enseigne in the service of the Compagnie des Indes.
In 1746 he was captain of the Prince de Conte which with the Heureux brought Bonnie Prince Charles to France.
In 1772 he sailed with two boats from Île de France (Mauritius), and on the 3rd of March 1772 the Mascarin and the Castries sighted Tasmania and sailed within five leagues of the coast. They had sailed across the Southern Indian Ocean with the Castries missing her foremast after the two ships collided near the Prince Edward Islands on Jan 14th 1772. They were looking for timber to remast the Castries which had collided with the Mascarin, and noted a lot of fires. They sailed South and on the 5th March rounded the most Southerly point of the island; they sailed on close to the coast until they rounded Cape Frederick Henry. At 1.00pm on the 6th March Marion ordered the ships to anchor off the cape very close to where Tasman’s ships had anchored 130 years before. Almost immediately they observed about 30 men on the shore.
On the next morning the long boats with heavily armed crew were sent to look for water.. Marion, with du Clesmeur, Jean Roux and eight soldiers made for beach in a yawl, accompanied by a long boat. Cautiously they sent two soldiers ashore. They both went naked and unarmed, “two tall lads, well built and very white” (Le Dez) and so some thirteen thousand years of isolation were broken, by two naked Frenchman. The first Europeans to make contact had landed.
Jean Roux writes:
“As soon as these men were ashore, the natives uttered loud cries, obviously of joy, as they put down their weapons and approached our two men. An old man came forward first. Holding a torch in his hand, he presented to them saying a few words, after which all the others came and surrounded our men; they looked with astonishment while communicating their joy after some kind of remark. They seemed to doubt that we were the same species as them; our colour was so strange that they could not stop staring and inspecting.”
Roux,P. “Journal du voyage fait le vaisseau du Roi Le Mascarin, commandé par M. Marion”, Archives Nationales, Marine, 4JJ/142/18 trans and quoted in Duyker p.129.
This was an historic moment, there on the beach on the 7th March 1772. And soon afterwards things began to go wrong. When a third long boat appeared the Tasmanians were alarmed, and threw stones from a small hillock. Marion ordered a retreat, but stones hit the yawl and hit himself. He ordered gunfire to frighten the Tasmanians and moved along the bay seeking another place to land. The Tasmanians followed the boat, and threw more stones and this time spears. One of the men was wounded in the leg, and Marion ordered his crew to fire. A chase followed, and at least one Aboriginal was killed. After the chase, the sailors returned and found ‘one of those unfortunate people who had stopped three balls in his body.”(Chevillard de Montesson, in Duyker p 131) Duyker goes on: ‘out of compassion or curiosity, they washed him and found' his natural colour was reddish, and that it was only smoke and dirt that made him look so dark.” (Crozet).
On the 9th March 1772 Marion and his men were the first Europeans to land on Maria Island. There was no good water supply and the trees were like those on the mainland, unsuitable for masts. So on the 10th March Marion set sail for New Zealand.
On 25th March 1772 the west coast of the North Island was sighted, and later near the Bay of Islands he established friendly relations with the Maori. He was also unaware of Cook’s recent visit. However the friendly relations did not last long. Probably the French unknowingly broke taboos and on the 12th June at 2.00pm when Marion and 26 men landed to go fishing they were all killed. The French later discovered that they had been cooked and eaten, and their punitive assault saw more than 200 Maori killed, the worst single massacre in New Zealand history.
Du Clesmeur and Crozet, eventually brought both ships back to the Isle de France.
Unlike the expedition of La Perouse and Bruny d’Entrecasteaux, Marion had no scientists or naturalists on board. All we have are the observations of officers, careful observers perhaps but untrained.
References:
E. Dukyer “An Officer of the Blue. Marc-Joseph Marion Dufresne, South Sea Explorer”, 1724-1772 M.U.P. 1994