Plate 30 from 'Voyage de decouvertes aux Terres Australes... : partie Navigation et Geographie. Atlas par Louis Freycinet' (1812), the official account of the Baudin expedition to Australia. The map gives a detailed plan of layout of Sydney with a key to 34 locations, from Sydney Cove to the "Village de Brick-field", and from Darling Harbour to "Palmer's Cove". Nicolas Baudin's exploration of Sydney and the surrounding area was not part of his original commission. However, the expedition's extended sojourn at Port Jackson began in May of 1801, where he replaced his ship, the 'Naturaliste', with the 'Casuarina', and then sent a number of his crew back to France. The 'Géographe' arrived in Port Jackson in mid-1802, and then the whole expedition departed northwards in November of 1802.

The Baudin Expedition
In 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte commissioned captain Nicolas Thomas Baudin (1754–1803) to complete the discovery of "Terra Australis". He duly set fort with two ships, 'Le Geographie' and 'Le Naturaliste' in order to find a strait which supposedly divided the Australian island in two halves. The French zoologist François Auguste Péron (1775–1810), who had studied under the anatomist George Cuvier in Paris, was the naturalist of the expedition, and Louis Claude de Saulses de Freycinet (1779–1842) served as cartographer.

Meanwhile, Matthew Flinders was also attempting a circumnavigation of the Australian Continent, and the explorers met each other in the consequently named "Encounter Bay". Although Flinders completed the task before Baudin's expedition, he had the misfortune to be captured and imprisoned for six years at Mauritius on his voyage home, and his charts and manuscripts also held hostage. This allowed the French explorers to print their account of the new discoveries before Flinders, and to produce the first complete chart of the Australian continent in 1807.

When Baudin died during the voyage in 1803, Freycinet took over command, much to the relief of all, and brought the expedition back to France. On the return of the expedition, Péron was charged with producing the narrative for publication. However, he died in 1810 before the second volume had been finished, with the result that the work had to be completed by Freycinet.