This chart from 1774. I have already posted about the ‘ancient channel’ on this chart.

But I had another look at it recently, and made an interesting observation.

Just for some context – this chart is by French cartographer De Vaugondy and the style of the chart is consistent with his other work. Alexander Dalrymple is credited as a source.

What are the sources for this chart? The obvious sources are Bougainville, Carteret, Dampier and Cook.

Below is an English Carteret/Dampier/Cook chart. Obviously post 1770 – because it shows the “Endeavour Streights”. The overall framing of the above chart appears to be taken from here. Carteret was the captain of the second ship in the British c.1766 two-ship Dolphin + Swallow voyage. The first ship (Dolphin) was more famous – led by Samuel Wallis and ‘discovered’ Tahiti. Carteret sailed the Swallow through a passage between New Britain and New Ireland.

And here is Bougainville’s chart of the Golphe de La Louisiade. This section of coastline appears in the bottom-right corner of the Dalrymple/Vaugondy chart.

Here is the main chart again with the Bougainville section circled in yellow;

I have also marked red numbers. This is interesting thing I found about this chart is this: it includes place-names from the Tovar/Torres voyage. The place-names on the chart are 1. Puerto de Monterey 2. C. de la Colta de St Bonaventura 3. L.S. Lorenzo. These place-names resemble places Torres/Tovar names as La Gran Baya de S Lorenco with it’s Port of Monterey, and San Buenaventura. Yes – there is a slight difference in spellings and a Francisation of ‘Bueno..’ to ‘Bona..’ but the resemblance is close enough to be the source. But on the Vaugondy chart the places are in the incorrect position. They are also in the wrong order that Torres/Tovar came across them, and places 1 and 2 are separated while in reality they are at the same location. Below is a chart showing the locations charted by Tovar; this is at the eastern-end of “mainland” PNG.

And it just so happens that Bougainville landed directly in the La Gran Baya de S Lorenco/Port of Monterey. AND he named the same place Golphe de La Louisiade. Here, Bouganville anchored and named the Cul du sac L’Orangerie. These appear on the Vaugondy chart in the ‘correct’ location.

What’s going on here?

How did those particular Spanish names end up on this Dalrymple/Vaugandy chart? British propagandists will try say that the only thing the British knew about Torres’s voyage from the Arias Memorial. The Torres/Tovar voyage is very obscure and unknown at this time c.1770. Even the Spanish seem to have forgotten these places.

There’s two (main/obvious) possibilities…

1. The French know about Tovar/Torres’s voyage – and this is why Bougainville dead-reckoned westwards along latitude 15 degrees south from the Great Cyclades (Vanuatu) until he hit the Great Barrier Reef, and then proceeded north to land and chart Tovar/Torres’s Baya de S Lorenco. But if Bougainville did so deliberately following in Tovar’s steps, why didn’t Bougainville actually follow through with passage through the Torres Strait?
2. The British had detailed knowledge about the Tovar/Torres Voyage. Dalrymple certainly knew of the Torres Strait – he marked it on his 1770 book before Cook sailed through it.

I’m going with option 2, because the more I think about, the more it makes sense. There’s a tonne of other circumstantial evidence to back #2. The British were the ones who went to make claims on New Holland, not the French.

So where is the ‘original’ Dalrymple chart in ENGLISH? It’s not in any of his books… There is only this Vaugondy French version (as far as I know).

This is what I think happened;

• Cook returned on his first voyage to receive the news of Bouganville’s expedition.
• The British looked at Bougainville’s voyage path and noticed immediately that he charted La Gran Baya de S Lorenco, and that he also possibly re-discovered Quiros’s La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu (Bougainville kind-of did, he just hit the south side of the island instead of the north). This is because the British secretly have Tovar’s charts.
• The British panicked with (justified) paranoia. They concluded that the French must also have detailed intelligence on Tovar/Torres’s voyage
• They got Dalrymple to bait the French. Dalrymple makes a special chart to muddy the waters, and to ‘test’ the French on their geographical knowledge. The chart was trafficked/leaked; to Vaugondy. The French either know nothing of Torres/Tovar, or don’t let on that they know. So Vaugondy just blindly translated it, recompiled and published it.

It is interesting to note that Tovar/Torres’s “4th chart” – Baya de S. Pedro de Arlanca place name does not appear on the Vaugondy chart. This fits with the #2 theory. The British are not revealing anything more than they have to in order to achieve their goal of baiting the French. There are a whole lot other names on there which seem to be pulled out of thin-air. There’s even a Brandenburg Volcano on the south coast of Papua! Someone has a wild imagination.

This all really makes me curious as to the dynamic between the rival colonial powers, the skullduggery, spying, planting information, propaganda that happens behind the scenes. It really sets the political scene for the later loss of La Perouse’s voyage – which I think is very suspicious.