Acting Lieutenant Charles Robbins commanded the small colonial schooner Cumberland to King Island in December 1802. Governor Philip Gidley King sent him because British officials feared that Nicolas Baudin’s French scientific expedition might establish a claim in Bass Strait.
An encounter shaped by imperial suspicion
Robbins carried a message to Baudin and staged a British assertion of possession near the French camp. Baudin’s expedition was conducting scientific and hydrographic work, and surviving French accounts treated the display with some amusement.
Survey work belonged to a team
Deputy surveyor Charles Grimes and James Flemming examined King Island while the Cumberland supported the party. Their reports, maps and journals are more substantial records of the journey than later stories about a flag.
The island was already Country
Neither British proclamations nor French charts began King Island’s history. Sea-level change connected and later separated Bass Strait Country, while later sealing and colonial activity caused profound disruption. Exploration accounts need that longer frame.
Compare the episode with Nicolas Baudin’s expedition and the wider Tasmanian exploration history.