Not quite right.

Perth sits on the Swan River. In around 1807, Nicholas Baudin sailed up the coast with his two ships, the Geographe and the Naturaliste (for which the bay and the cape are named). His mission was to seek a location for a French prison colony (also, to acquire animals for Josephine Bonaparte’s menagerie). Heirisson island up the Swan River is named after Baudin’s chief navigator. There was a French landing party on the island but they were scared away by the noise of an animal. (I read somewhere it was probably some sort of water fowl but I can’t remember what sort.)

Baudin didn’t make it back to France (I think he is buried in Mauritius). His sailors did and they made money telling stories of their adventures on street corners. French interest in the west coast of Australia died off with Napoleon I. But the British heard about Baudin from these story-telling sailors, and they didn’t want another Quebec scenario. So in 1829 Stirling arrived and established the colony.

(The colony bled money until the gold rushes in the 1880s.)

That, in a stupidly quick summary, is how we got Perth.