<p>A ship used by French military and political leader Napoleon Bonaparte to sneak back into France while he was in exile has been found in Australia, a media report said on Monday.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Australian filmmaker and shipwreck hunter Ben Cropp claimed that he found the final resting place of the "Swiftsure" in shallow waters off far north Queensland state, The Australian reported.<br /><br />Cropp had to risk a dive in crocodile-infested waters off Lockhart River, towards the tip of Cape York Peninsula, to be sure he'd really found what he'd spent several years searching for.<br /><br />A distinctive line of keel bolts, ballast and pottery shards made Cropp to confirm his finding.<br />Officials from the Queensland's Department of Environment and Heritage Protection are now in the process of verifying the claim.<br /><br />The significance of the find dates back to 1815 when Napoleon was living in exile on the island off Elba, off Italy, following a crushing military defeat during his march on Russia.<br /><br />Napoleon escaped the island by commandeering a 337-tonne brig named "L'Inconstant", later renamed the Swiftsure to retake his homeland, famously confronting the soldiers of King Louis XVIII and ultimately forcing the monarch into exile.<br /><br />England later seized the brig as a war prize after the battle of Waterloo, renamed her and used her on the England-Australia shipping route.<br /><br />The brig was believed to have sank after striking a coral reef on the great barrier reef while en route from Sydney to Mauritius in 1829.<br /><br />Cropp made the discovery in November 2014, however, kept it secret as plans were made to create a film of the discovery. Those plans were abandoned due to the site being highly decomposed and in crocodile infested waters.<br /><br />"I counted six crocodile tracks leading into the water a mile away and that's not funny. My dive there (in November 2014) was very brief," Cropp said.<br /><br />The film-maker said it took years of meticulous research to narrow the search area, with the final line of debris he found during a scuba- dive corroborating reports from a ships log in 1830 which noted wreckers stripping the vessel of it's valuables.<br /></p>
<p>A ship used by French military and political leader Napoleon Bonaparte to sneak back into France while he was in exile has been found in Australia, a media report said on Monday.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Australian filmmaker and shipwreck hunter Ben Cropp claimed that he found the final resting place of the "Swiftsure" in shallow waters off far north Queensland state, The Australian reported.<br /><br />Cropp had to risk a dive in crocodile-infested waters off Lockhart River, towards the tip of Cape York Peninsula, to be sure he'd really found what he'd spent several years searching for.<br /><br />A distinctive line of keel bolts, ballast and pottery shards made Cropp to confirm his finding.<br />Officials from the Queensland's Department of Environment and Heritage Protection are now in the process of verifying the claim.<br /><br />The significance of the find dates back to 1815 when Napoleon was living in exile on the island off Elba, off Italy, following a crushing military defeat during his march on Russia.<br /><br />Napoleon escaped the island by commandeering a 337-tonne brig named "L'Inconstant", later renamed the Swiftsure to retake his homeland, famously confronting the soldiers of King Louis XVIII and ultimately forcing the monarch into exile.<br /><br />England later seized the brig as a war prize after the battle of Waterloo, renamed her and used her on the England-Australia shipping route.<br /><br />The brig was believed to have sank after striking a coral reef on the great barrier reef while en route from Sydney to Mauritius in 1829.<br /><br />Cropp made the discovery in November 2014, however, kept it secret as plans were made to create a film of the discovery. Those plans were abandoned due to the site being highly decomposed and in crocodile infested waters.<br /><br />"I counted six crocodile tracks leading into the water a mile away and that's not funny. My dive there (in November 2014) was very brief," Cropp said.<br /><br />The film-maker said it took years of meticulous research to narrow the search area, with the final line of debris he found during a scuba- dive corroborating reports from a ships log in 1830 which noted wreckers stripping the vessel of it's valuables.<br /></p>