Nicolas Thomas Baudin (; 17 February 175416 September 1803) was a French explorer, cartographer, naturalist and hydrographer best known for his explorations of Australia and the southern Pacific Ocean. He carried a few corms of Gros Michel banana from Southeast Asia, depositing them at a botanical garden on the French colony of Martinique.
Biography
Early career Born a commoner in Saint-Martin-de-Ré on the Île de Ré on 17 February 1754, Nicolas Baudin joined the merchant navy as an apprentice () at the age of 15; he was then "of average height with brown hair". He then joined the French East India Company at the age of 20 on Flamand. He returned from India on L'Étoile and arrived at Lorient.
At the beginning of 1778, he set sail from Nantes on Lion as second lieutenant. It was a ship equipped by his uncle, Jean Peltier Dudoyer, at the request of the Americans, which would become a privateer and be renamed Deane. At first the Minister for the Navy was against it, but he finally changed his mind and authorised the departure, as France had signed a treaty with the United States on 6 February. Since the atmosphere between the French and American crews on Lion became unbearable, Baudin was assigned by Lamotte-Picquet to Duc de Choiseul, a ship equipped by Jean Peltier Dudoyer. Officially it was heading for Saint-Domingue, but in fact the destination was Nova Scotia. However the vessel was shipwrecked at Liverpool, Nova Scotia.
Baudin was wounded, taken prisoner by the British on 24 April 1778 and interned in Halifax, Canada. After one month, he escaped with 10 other prisoners and hid among the friendly communities of Acadia. Appointed captain of the transport vessel Amphitrite, he was sunk by the English out to sea, rescued in a rowing boat and made his way to Cape Cod and then Boston. As captain of Revanche, 400 tons, equipped by Jeange and sons of Bordeaux, with 30 men and 12 cannon, he was retaken by the English outside Cap-Français, heading for Boston. He was taken to Jamaica as a prisoner, then exchanged at the request of the Comte d'Argout, the Governor of Saint-Domingue. He returned to France on board the frigate Minerve, under the command of Captain de Grimouard, who was later guillotined at Rochefort under the Convention.
Back in France, he was appointed captain at the admiralty of La Rochelle on 2 March 1780 and was to sail in merchant ships. At the age of 27 he was named captain of Apollon, a civilian frigate of 1,100 tons and 42 cannon, fitted out by Jean Peltier Dudoyer. He was to form part of the convoy which took the Legion of Luxembourg to strengthen the defence of the Dutch Cape Colony at the Cape of Good Hope. However, during a stopover in Brest, the Comte d'Hector decided he would appoint a man with more experience, Felix de Saint-Hilaire. Having returned to Nantes, and to the annoyance of Beaumarchais, the owner of the vessel, Baudin's uncle entrusted him with the command of Aimable Eugenie, a ship of 600 tons, to go to Saint-Domingue and then to the US. He went back to Bordeaux and left the Gironde on 9 December 1782 as part of a convoy of five merchant vessels. Three days later, in the Action of 12 December 1782, the convoy was attacked by an English ship, . After a hard battle, Baudin escaped, but two other ships owned by Beaumarchais were captured.
Reaching Saint-Domingue, the ship sank on 23 March 1783 at Puerto Plata, but the freight was saved. He negotiated for it and set off once again for Nantes on 23 April on Prince Royal, which he had bought on the spot. On 30 August he resold the boat, which in the meantime had become Union des 6 Frères, to Robert Pitot, a shipbuilder from the Isle de France who had just been freed from an English prison, and established himself as a trader in Bordeaux. The insurance company reimbursed Beaumarchais through his shipbuilder Peltier Dudoyer.
On 16 April 1784, Baudin left once more for Saint-Domingue on Comte d'Angevillier, 1,000 tons with eight cannon, and built by Jean Peltier. He was still accompanied by his brother Alexandre Baudin as first mate. They were now 29 and 27 years old. Baudin had a 25% stake in the voyage and they returned to Nantes on 8 December 1784.
On 21 April 1785, he wrote to Benjamin Franklin requesting a recommendation to be accepted as a member of the Society of the Cincinnati. He signed his letter 'Commander of the private frigate Comte d'Angevilliers, Maison Peltier du Doyer quai de l'hôpital'.
On 22 July 1785, the Baudin brothers bought Caroline, a ship of 200 tons, built by the Thébaudière brothers. He was to take the last Acadians to Louisiana. He was a few months behind his brother Alexandre who was captain of Saint Remy, built by Jean Peltier Dudoyer. In La Nouvelle OrléansCarl A. Brasseaux, The Founding of New Acadia: The Beginnings of Acadian Life in Louisiana, 1765–1803, Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1987, p109; William Dawson Gerrior, Acadian Awakenings: Louisiana, Port Royal Pub., 2003, pp.73, 104; Madeleine Ly-Tio-Fane, Le Géographe et le Naturaliste à l'île-de-France: ultime escale du capitaine Baudin, Port-Louis, Ile Maurice, 2003, p.33. local merchants contracted him to take a cargo of wood, salted meat, cod and flour to Isle de France (now Mauritius), which he did in Josephine (also called Pepita), departing New Orleans on 14 July 1786 and arriving at Isle de France on 27 March 1787.
In the course of the voyage, Josephine had called at Cap‑Français in Haiti to make a contract to transport slaves there from Madagascar; while in Haiti he also encountered the Austrian botanist who apparently informed him that another Austrian botanist, Franz Boos, was at the Cape of Good Hope awaiting a ship to take him to Mauritius. Josephine called at the Cape and took Boos on board.David K. Wetherbee, Further Contributions to the History of Zoology in Hispaniola, Shelburne, Massachusetts, 1987. At Mauritius, Boos chartered Baudin to transport him and the collection of plant specimens he had gathered there and at the Cape back to Europe, which Baudin did, with Josephine arriving at Trieste on 18 June 1788.Sébastien Brunner (ed.), Correspondances intimes de l'Empereur Joseph II avec son ami le comte de Cobenzl et son premier ministre le prince de Kaunitz, Mainz, Kirchheim, 1871, p.75.Wiener Zeitung, 18 Juni 1788, p.1494 The Imperial government in Vienna was contemplating organizing another natural-history expedition, to which Boos would be appointed, in which two ships would be sent to the Malabar and Coromandel coasts of India, the Persian Gulf, Bengal, Ceylon, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Cochin China, Tongking, Japan, and China. Baudin had been given reason to hope that he would be given command of the ships of this expedition.Madeleine Ly-Tio-Fane, Le Géographe et le Naturaliste à l'île-de-France 1801, 1803 : ultime escale du capitaine Baudin, Port-Louis, Ile Maurice, 2003, pp.50–51; Sébastien Brunner (ed.), Correspondances intimes de l'Empereur Joseph II avec son Ami le Comte de Cobenzl et son Premier Ministre le Prince de Kaunitz, Mainz, Kirchheim, 1871, p.75.
Austrian expeditions Later in 1788, Baudin sailed on a commercial voyage from Trieste to Canton in Jardinière. He apparently arrived at Canton from Mauritius under the flag of the US, probably to avoid the possibility of having his ship seized by the Chinese for payment of the debts owed them by the Imperial Asiatic Company of Trieste.Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635–1834, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1926, Vol.II, p.174. From there, he sent Jardinière under her second captain on a fur-trading venture to the north-west coast of America, but the ship foundered off Asuncion Island in the Northern Marianas Islands in late 1789.Madeleine Ly-Tio-Fane, "Contacts between Schönbrunn and the Jardin du Roi at Isle de France (Mauritius) in the 18th Century", Mitteilungen des Oesterreichischen Staatsarchiv, No.35, 1982, pp.85–109, p.102; Frank Horner, The French reconnaissance: Baudin in Australia, 1801–1803, Melbourne University Press, 1987, p.26.
Baudin made his way to Mauritius, where he purchased a replacement ship, Jardinière II, but this vessel was wrecked in a cyclone that struck Port Louis on 15 December 1789. Baudin embarked on the Spanish Royal Philippines Company ship, Placeres, which sailed from Port Louis for Cadiz in August 1790. Placeres called at the Cape of Good Hope where it took on board the large number of plant and animal specimens collected in South Africa for the Imperial palace at Schönbrunn by Georg Scholl, the assistant of Franz Boos. Because of the poor condition of the ship, Placeres had to put in at the island of Trinidad in the West Indies, where Scholl's collection of specimens was deposited.Gazeta de Madrid, 19 de Julio de 1791, p.501.
Baudin proceeded to Martinique, from where he addressed an offer to the Imperial government in Vienna to conduct to Canton commissioners who would be empowered to negotiate with the Chinese merchants there a settlement of the debts incurred by the Imperial Asiatic Company, which would enable the company to renew its trade with China. On its return voyage from Canton, the proposed expedition would call at the Cape of Good Hope to pick up Scholl and the remainder of his natural-history collection for conveyance to Schönbrunn.
After returning to Vienna in September 1791, Baudin continued to press his case for an expedition under the Imperial flag to the Indian Ocean and China, and in January 1792 he was granted a commission of captain in the Imperial navy for this purpose. A ship, called Jardinière, was acquired and the botanists Franz Bredemeyer and Joseph van der Schot appointed to the expedition.Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv Wien: Obersthofmeisteramt (OmeA), Sonderreihe (SR) 176, Vorträge und Rapporte die Absendung der Gärtner nach Ost und West Indien betreffend vom Jahr 1782 bis incl. 1799, Vortrag Cobenzl an Kaiser Leopold, Wien 12. 1. 1792, fol. 127 und Vortrag Cobenzl an Kaiser Leopold, Prag, 4. 8. 1792, fol. 139. Cod. Ser. Nova 3793, Handschriftensammlung, Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek; Elisabeth Zeilinger, Osterreich und die Neue Welt: Symposion in der Osterreichischen Nationalbibliothek, Wien, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, 1993, p.112. Robert J. King, “The Expedition of the Jardinière to New Holland at the Command of the Emperor Leopold II”, Map Matters, Issue 46, Summer 2024, pp.3-12. After delays caused by the outbreak of war between France and Austria (April 1792), Jardinière departed from the Spanish port of Málaga on 1 October 1792.Madeleine Ly-Tio-Fane, "Contacts between Schönbrunn and the Jardin du Roi at Isle de France (Mauritius) in the 18th Century", Mitteilungen des Oesterreichischen Staatsarchiv, No.35, 1982, pp.85–109. From the Cape of Good Hope Jardinière sailed across the Indian Ocean to the coast of New Holland (Australia), but two consecutive cyclones prevented the expedition from doing any work there and forced Baudin to take the ship to Bombay for repairs.Robert J. King, “The Expedition of the Jardinière to New Holland at the Command of the Emperor Leopold II”, Map Matters, Issue 46, Summer 2024, pp.3-12.