In 1772 Captain Alesne de Saint Allouran landed on Dirk Hartog Island in Shark Bay and claimed it in the name of the King of France. To validate Frances claim he buried a parchment and two French coins in a bottle that were discovered in 1998.
In 1801 Captain Hamelin on the Naturalist, a ship from a French expedition led by Nicholas Baudin, entered Shark Bay and a party was sent ashore. By chance the party found the Vlamingh memorial of Dirk Hartogs previous visit, though the plate was almost buried in the sand. When the party returned the plate to the ship, Hamelin ordered it to be returned, considering it somewhat sacrilegious to have removed it. One of Hamelins officers, Louis de Freycinet, felt that this action was inappropriate and that such a trophy should be taken and returned to Europe.
In 1818 Freycinet returned to Shark Bay, in command of his own vessel, and was able to find the plate still in place at Cape Inscription. He removed the plate and returned it to Europe where it was presented to the French Academy in Paris.
The Vlamingh plate then disappeared for more than a century until it was rediscovered in 1940 on the bottom shelf of a small room of the French Academy mixed up with old copper engraving plates.
The Hartog Plate sets the moment in time when the existence of the speculated south land was realised.
It tells of the early Dutch presence in the Indian Ocean, its trade with Java and the subsequent mapping
and exploration of the Australian west coast and Tasmania.