(* Fleurieu to Forfait, manuscripts, Bibliotheque Nationale, nouveaux acquisitions, France 9439 page 137.) "Your labours," wrote Forfait, "having for their sole object the perfecting of scientific knowledge, you should observe the most complete neutrality, allowing no doubt to be cast upon your exactitude in confining yourself to the object of your mission, as set forth in the passports which have been furnished.
In your relations with foreigners, the glorious success of our arms, the power and wisdom of your government, the grand and generous views of the First Consul for the pacification of Europe, the order that he has restored in the interior of France, furnish you with the means of giving to foreign peoples just ideas upon the real state of the Republic and upon the prosperity which is assured to it." The men of science who had promoted the voyage were anxious that not even a similitude of irregularity should be permitted.

Thus we find the Comte de Fleurieu, who drew up the itinerary, writing to the Minister urging him to include in the instructions a paragraph prohibiting the ships from taking on board, under any pretext, merchandise which could give to a scientific expedition the appearance of a commercial venture, "because if an English cruiser or man-of-war should visit them, and find on board other goods than articles of exchange for dealing with aboriginal peoples, this might serve as a pretext for arresting them, and Baudin's passport might be disregarded on the ground that it had been abused by being employed as a means of conducting without risk a traffic which the state of war would make very lucrative." The question of the origin and objects of the expedition is, however, an entirely different one from that of the use which Napoleon would have made of the information collected, had the opportunity been available of striking a blow at Great Britain through her southern colony.

It is also different from the question (as to which something will be said later) of the advantage taken by two members of Baudin's staff of the scope allowed them at Port Jackson, to "spy out the land" with a view of furnishing information valuable in a military sense to their Government.
The instructions to Baudin were very similar to those which had been given to Laperouse and Dentrecasteaux in previous years, being drafted by the same hand, and some paragraphs in an "instruction particuliere," show that the French were thoroughly up-to-date with their information, and knew in what parts of the coast fresh work required to be done.* (* "Projet d'itineraire pour le Commandant Baudin; memoire pour servir d'instruction particuliere." Manuscripts, Archives Nationales, Marine BB4 999.) Nicolas Baudin was not a French naval officer.

He had been in the merchant service, and, more recently, had had charge of an expedition despatched to Africa by the Austrian Government to collect specimens for the museum at Vienna.

War between France and Austria broke out before he returned; and Baudin, feeling less loyal to his Austrian employers than to his own country, handed over the whole collection to the Museum in Paris.