Conclusion
Western navies’ cooperation and mutual dependence in the Asia-Pacific region had its limits. It did not, for example, prevent global war—which involved intense and costly naval warfare—from breaking out twice in the twentieth century.
Less dramatically, even in peacetime resentments and tensions persisted between nations, as the examples of nineteenth-century British responses to Russian and French warships in Sydney Harbour demonstrate. Warships did not stop being warships in a ‘friendly’ port. Nevertheless, what is striking about nineteenth-century western navies’ engagement in the Asia-Pacific is the degree to which essential cooperation and mutual dependence led to individual friendship and knowledge exchange. This suggests that nineteenth-century navies need to be understood as overlapping communities rather than as just static and separate assets which remained aloof except in war.Notes
1 Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Common Law (Boston, 1881), quoted in Robert Erwin Johnson, Far China Station: The U.S..Navy in Asian Waters, 1800--1898 (Annapolis, 1979), p. xi.
2 John Hay, quoted in Tom Frame, Pacific Partners: A History of Australian-American Naval Relations (Sydney, 1992), p. 4.
3 In fact Baudin’s visit coincided with the short-lived Peace of Amiens, but this was not known till the very end of the visit; Jean Fornasiero, Peter Monteath and John West-Sooby, Encountering Terra Australis: The Australian Voyages of Nicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders (Kent Town, 2004), pp. 202-213. Conversely, the Russian Neva expedition was welcomed to Sydney in 1807 by officials unaware of the Tilsit Treaty between Russia and France; Glynn Barratt, The Russians and Australia (Vancouver, 1988), p. 62.
4 O.H.K. Spate, The Pacific since Magellan, Vol. III (Canberra, 1988), p. 55.
5 Matt K. Matsuda, Pacific Worlds: A History of Seas, Peoples and Cultures (Cambridge, 2012), pp.
1-8.6 Titles such as Barry M. Gough’s The Royal Navy and the Northwest Coast of North America 1810-1914 (Vancouver, 1971) and Johnson’s Far China Station: The U.S. Navy in Asian Waters, 1800-1898 reflect this national approach.
7 For example, Frame, Pacific Partners.
8 Jane Samson, Imperial Benevolence: Making British Authority in the Pacific (Honolulu, 1997).
9 Jan Rüger, The Great.Naval Game: Britain and Germany in the Age of Empire (Cambridge, 2007). Frances Steel's Oceania under Steam: Sea Transport and the Cultures of Colonialism, c.1870-1914 (Manchester University Press, 2011), which focusses on commercial shipping, provides an excellent model of a cultural history approach.
10 Samson, Imperial Benevolence, p. 4. Clive Moore's chapter in this volume examines the Pacific labour trade.
11 Western navies, including the Spanish, also made scientific expeditions to the North Pacific. See Freeman M. Tovell, At the Far Reaches of Empire: The Life of Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra (Vancouver, 2008).
12 Helen Rosenman (trans. and ed.), Two Voyages to the South Seas by Captain... Jules S-C Dumont d’Urville, 2 vols (Melbourne, 1987 [Paris, 1830-1835]), Vol. I, p. xxx.
13 Fornasiero, Monteath and West-Sooby, Encountering Terra Australis, pp. 381-382.
14 Baudin to John Harris, quoted in Fornasiero, Monteath and West-Sooby, Encountering Terra Australis, p. 207.
15 Barratt, The Russians and Australia, p. 62; Robert Aldrich, The French Presence in the South Pacific, 1842-1940 (London, 1990), p. 73.
16 Barratt describes these officers as the cream of the Russian navy. In turn, the prestige and promotion they earned encouraged further applicants for Pacific expeditions. Encounters with British society (in Australia as well as Britain) may have also shaped the liberal views of the several officers who were later involved in the 1825 Decembrist revolt against the Tsar. Barratt, The Russians and Australia, pp. 62-63, 190.
17 Numerous French and Russian naval officers paid tribute to Piper's generous hospitality in their memoirs.
Hyacinthe de Bougainville even entrusted him with the construction of the Sydney monument to the lost French naval explorer La Perouse. Marc Serge Rivière (trans. and ed.), The Governor’s Noble Guest: Hyacinthe de Bougainville’s Account of Port Jackson, 1825 (Melbourne, 1999), p. 124.18 I.M. Simonov, in V.N. Semenotvskii (ed.), Russkie otkrytiia v Antarktika v 1819-1821 godakh. M. (Moscow, 1951), quoted in Barratt, The Russians and Australia, p. 120.
19 British, French and Russian naval officers frequently encountered their counterparts' sons, nephews and brothers throughout the Asia-Pacific region, and this may have furthered their sense of esprit de corps.
20 Aleksei P. Lazarev, Japiski o plavanii voennogo shliupa Blagonamerennogo v Beringov proliv 1819-1822 godakh (Moscow, 1950), p. 154, in Barratt, The Russians and Australia, p. 137.
21 Aleksei Rossiiskii, ‘Vypiska iz zhurnala shturmana Alekseia Rossiiskago', Sorevnovatel prosveshcheniia I blagodeianiia (St Petersburg, 1820), no. 11, pp. 134-35 (12-13 August, Old Style), in Barratt, The Russians and Australia, pp. 69-70.
22 Mitchell Library: Macquarie Journals, CY A774, p. 124; also PRO C.O. 201/95/609 (P.P. King to Goulburn, 9 November 1819, etc.) and Historical Records of Australia, 10: 283, in Barratt, The Russians and Australia, p. 109; Historical Records of Australia, 12: 699-703 (Darling to Bathurst, 24 November 1826) and 12: 729 (Darling to Hay, 4 December 1826), in Barratt, The Russians and Australia, pp. 195-196.
23 Nikolai D. Shishmarev's journal, 1819-22; Blagonamerennyi at Sydney, March 1820, ‘Putevoi zhurnal...,' TsGAVMF (Leningrad), fond 203, op. 1, delo 7306, pp. 44-45, quoted in Barratt, The Russians and Australia, p. 152.
24 Wed. 24 September 1825, Notebook 5, Rivière, The Governor’s Noble Guest, p. 133.
25 Rosenman, Two Voyages to the South Seas, Vol. I, p. xxxv.
26 Sydney Gazette, 24 May 1832, cited in Barratt, The Russians in Australia, p. 200.
27 Barratt, The Russians and Australia, pp. 199-201.
28 Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, during the Years 1838... 1842, 5 vols (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1970 [Philadelphia, 1845]), Vol. II, p. x.
29 See Cindy McCreery, ‘Defending Our Shores', Sea of Dreams: The Lure of Port Phillip Bay 1830-1914 (Mornington, Vic., 2011), pp. 33-39.
30 Henry Keppel, An Admiral under Four Sovereigns (London, 1904), pp. 182, 227, 294.
31 Ibid., pp. 173, 211, 218-219, 266, 271-273.
32 Johnson, Far China Station, pp. 146-147.
33 Ibid., pp. 149-152. Sixty-one sailors were rescued by two Japanese fishing boats.
34 New York Herald, 31 March 1889. I thank Steven Gray for this reference.
35 C. Hartley Grattan, The Southwest Pacific to 1900 (Ann Arbor, 1963), p. 504.
36 Johnson, Far China Station, p. 134.
37 Aldrich, The French Presence in the South Pacific, pp. 21-22, 51, 187.
38 ‘The People of the Island of Aotearoa', Etuera Patuone (Ngapuki) et al., Auckland 10th May 1869, VI, 4, Stadtarchiv Gotha, Germany.
39 Alfred was given honorary German military titles by German relations such as his brother-in-law, heir to the Prussian throne. McCrae, ‘A Saylor on Horse-backe, ye Adelaide Troopes are reviewed bye a Prussian Colonel', pen, ink and wash, 1868 (National Library of Australia 6330424).
40 For responses in Sydney to the attempted assassination see my ‘Rude Interruption: Colonial Manners, Gender, and Prince Alfred's Visit to New South Wales, 1868', in Forum for Modern Language Studies, Special Issue guest edited by David Culpin and Michael Titlestad issue 49:4 (October, 2013); ‘The Commanders of British and Colonial Ships in Sydney', L. Steffanoni [artist], Sydney, 1868, I, 206, Stadtarchiv Gotha, Germany.
41 ‘An Address from Masters of Vessels in the port of Hong Kong', Hong Kong, VII, 3, Stadtarchiv Gotha, Germany.
42 George Gordon McCrae, ‘H.I.R.M.S. Vestnik, Boat Race Russia v. Victoria', Feb. 15 1882, pen and ink (NLA 6304085); McCrae, ‘British Marine, American Marine, U.S.
Corvette Enterprise', [1885?] pen and ink (NLA 6335874).43 N. La Feuillade, ‘Flying Squadron Galop' (Melbourne: n.d, c. 1865-1870?) (NLA 6573180); Giuseppe D'Anna, ‘Flying Squadron Waltz' (Melbourne, n.d, c. 1867-1871) (NlA 10782520); F. Fiorani, ‘Tasmania romanza: Vanne o dolce mio sospiro' (Napoli, [c. 1873]) (Tasmanian Archives Online: http://stors.tas.gov.au/smu129750071); Penny Russell, A Wish of Distinction: Colonial Gentility and Femininity (Carlton, Vic., 1994), pp. 75-76.
44 See Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the Question of Racial Equality (Melbourne, 2008), pp. 194-199.
45 Robert A. Hart, The Great White Fleet: Its Voyage around the World 1907--1909 (Boston, 1965), pp. 198-199, 195, 190-193, 224.
Further reading
Aldrich, Robert, The French Presence in the South Pacific, 1842--1940 (London, 1990).
Bach, John, The Australia Station: A History of the Royal Navy in the South West Pacific, 1821--1913 (Kensington, NSW, 1986).
Barratt, Glynn, The Russians and Australia (Vancouver, 1988).
Fornasiero, Jean, Peter Monteath and John West-Sooby, Encountering Terra Australis: The Australian Voyages of Nicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders (Kent Town, 2004).
Frame, Tom, Pacific Partners: A History of Australian-American Naval Relations (Sydney, 1992).
Grattan, C. Hartley, The Southwest Pacific to 1900 (Ann Arbor, 1963).
Hart, Robert A., The Great White Fleet: Its Voyage around the World 1907-1909 (Boston, 1965).
Johnson, Robert Erwin, Thence round Cape Horn: The Story of United States Naval Forces on Pacific Station, 1818-1923 (Annapolis, 1963).
Johnson, Robert Erwin, Far China Station: The U.S. Navy in Asian Waters, 1800-1898 (Annapolis, 1979).
Matsuda, Matt K., Pacific Worlds: A History of Seas, Peoples, and Cultures (Cambridge, 2012).
Moses, John A., and Paul M. Kennedy (eds), Germany in the Pacific and Far East, 1870-1914 (St Lucia, 1977).
Rivière, Marc Serge (trans. and ed.), The Governor's Noble Guest: Hyacinthe de Bougainville's Account of Port Jackson, 1825 (Melbourne, 1999).
Rosenman, Helen (trans. and ed.), Two Voyages to the South Seas by Captain... Jules S-C Dumont d'Urville, 2 vols (Melbourne, 1987 [Paris, 1830-1835]).
Samson, Jane, Imperial Benevolence: Making British Authority in the Pacific (Honolulu, 1997).
Spate, O.H.K., The Pacific since Magellan, Vol. III (Canberra, 1988).