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The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders

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Title: The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders

Author: Sir Ernest Scott


        
Release date: August 29, 2004 [eBook #7304]
                Most recently updated: December 30, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7304

Credits: Produced by Sue Asscher


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF CAPTAIN MATTHEW FLINDERS ***




Produced by Sue Asscher





THE LIFE OF

CAPTAIN MATTHEW FLINDERS, R.N.


BY

ERNEST SCOTT

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

AUTHOR OF "TERRE NAPOLEON" AND "LIFE OF LAPEROUSE"

WITH PORTRAITS, MAPS, AND FACSIMILES.


SYDNEY
ANGUS & ROBERTSON LTD.
89 CASTLEREAGH STREET
1914.



PREFACE.

The subject of this book died one hundred years ago. Within his forty
years of life, he discovered a very large area of what is now an
important region of the earth; he participated in stirring events which
are memorable in modern history; he applied a vigorous and original mind
to the advancement of knowledge, with useful results; and he was the
victim of circumstances which, however stated, were peculiarly
unfortunate, and must evoke the sympathy of everyone who takes the
trouble to understand them. His career was crowded with adventures: war,
perilous voyages, explorations of unknown coasts, encounters with
savages, shipwreck and imprisonment are the elements which go to make up
his story. He was, withal, a downright Englishman of exceptionally high
character, proud of his service and unsparing of himself in the pursuit
of his duty.

Yet up to this time his biography has not been written. There are, it is
true, outlines of his career in various works of reference, notably that
contributed by Sir J.K. Laughton to the Dictionary of National Biography.
But there is no book to which a reader can turn for a fairly full account
of his achievements, and an estimate of his personality. Of all
discoverers of leading rank Matthew Flinders is the only one about whom
there is no ample and convenient record.

This book endeavours to fill the gap.

The material upon which it is founded is set forth in the footnotes and
the bibliography. Here the author takes pleasure in acknowledging the
assistance he has received from several quarters. A previous book brought
him the acquaintance of the grand-nephew of that Comte de Fleurieu who
largely inspired three famous French voyages to Australia--those of
Laperouse, Dentrecasteaux and Baudin--all of which have an important
bearing upon the subject. The Comte A. de Fleurieu had long been engaged
in collecting material relative to the work and influence of his
distinguished grand-uncle, and in the most generous manner he handed over
to the author his very large collection of manuscripts and note-books to
be read, noted, and used at discretion. Even when a historian does not
actually quote or directly use matter bearing upon his subject, it is of
immense advantage to have access to documents which throw light upon it,
and which enable an in-and-out knowledge of a period and persons to be
obtained. This book owes much of whatever value it may possess to
monsieur de Fleurieu's assistance in this respect, and the author thanks
him most warmly.

The Flinders papers, of which free use has been made, were presented to
the Melbourne Public Library by Professor W.M. Flinders Petrie. They are
described in the bibliography. The transcripts of family and personal
documents were especially valuable. Although they were not supplied for
this book, Professor Flinders Petrie gave them in order that they might
be of use to some biographer of his grandfather, and the author begs to
thank him, and also Mr. E La Touche Armstrong, the chief librarian, in
whose custody they are, and who has given frequent access to them.

The rich stores of manuscripts in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, have been
thoroughly examined, with the assistance of Mr. W.H. Ifould, principal
librarian, Mr. Hugh Wright, and the staff of that institution. Help from
this quarter was accorded with such grace that one came to think giving
trouble was almost like conferring a favour.

All copies of documents from Paris and Caen cited in this book have been
made by Madame Robert Helouis. The author was able to indicate the
whereabouts of the principal papers, but Madame Helouis, developing an
interest in the subject as she pursued her task, was enabled, owing to
her extensive knowledge of the resources of the French archives, to find
and transcribe many new and valuable papers. The author also wishes to
thank Captain Francis Bayldon, of Sydney, who has kindly given help on
several technical points; Miss Alma Hansen, University of Melbourne, who
was generous enough to make a study of the Dutch Generale Beschrijvinge
van Indien--no light task--to verify a point of some importance for the
purpose of the chapter on "The Naming of Australia"; and Mr. E.A.
Petherick, whose manuscript bibliography, containing an immense quantity
of material, the fruit of a long life's labour, has always been
cheerfully made available.

Professor Flinders Petrie has been kind enough to read and make some
useful suggestions upon the personal and family passages of the book,
which has consequently benefited greatly.

The whole work has been read through by Mr. A.W. Jose, author of The
History of Australasia, whose criticism on a multitude of points, some
minute, but all important, has been of the utmost value. The help given
by Mr. Jose has been more than friendly; it has been informed by a keen
enthusiasm for the subject, and great knowledge of the original
authorities. The author's obligations to him are gratefully acknowledged.

It is hoped that these pages will enable the reader to know Matthew
Flinders the man, as well as the navigator; for the study of the
manuscript and printed material about him has convinced the author that
he was not only remarkable for what he did and endured, but for his own
sake as an Englishman of the very best type.

Melbourne, June 1914.



CONTENTS.


CHAPTER 1. BIRTH AND ORIGINS.

Place of Flinders among Australian navigators.
Birth.
Flemish origins.
Pedigree.
Connection with the Tennysons.
Possible relationship with Bass.
Flinders' father.
Donington.


CHAPTER 2. AT SCHOOL AND AT SEA.

Education.
Robinson Crusoe.
Aspirations for a naval career.
His father's wish.
John Flinders' advice.
Study of navigation.
Introduction to Pasley.
Lieutenant's servant.
Midshipman on the Bellerophon.
Bligh and the Bounty mutiny.


CHAPTER 3. A VOYAGE UNDER BLIGH.

The second breadfruit expedition.
Flinders in the Providence.
Notes from Santa Cruz.
At the Cape.
Tahiti.
In Torres Strait.
Encounter with Papuans.
Return to England.


CHAPTER 4. THE BATTLE OFF BREST.

The naval war with France.
The battle of June 1st, 1794.
Flinders as gunner.
Pasley wounded.
Flinders' journal of the engagement.
Effect of Pasley's wound on the career of Flinders.


CHAPTER 5. AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHY BEFORE FLINDERS.

The predecessors of Flinders.
How Australia grew on the map.
Mediaeval controversies on antipodes.
Period of vague speculation.
Sixteenth century maps.
The Dutch voyagers.
The Batavia on the Abrolhos Reef.
The Duyfhen in the Gulf.
Torres.
The three periods of Australian maritime discovery.
Geographers and their views of Australia.
The theory of the dividing strait.
Cook and Furneaux.
The untraced southern coast.


CHAPTER 6. THE RELIANCE AND THE TOM THUMB.

Governor Hunter.
Captain Waterhouse.
Flinders' passion for exploring new countries.
Joins the Reliance.
Hunter on the strategic importance of the Cape.
Sailing of Reliance and Supply for New South Wales.
Flinders' observations.
Arrival at Port Jackson.
George Bass.
The Tom Thumb.
Exploration of George's River.
A perilous cruise.
Meeting with aboriginals.
The midshipman as valet.
Port Hacking.
Patching up the Reliance.
Voyage to South Africa.


CHAPTER 7. THE DISCOVERY OF BASS STRAIT.

Bass in the Blue Mountains.
Supposed strait isolating Van Diemen's Land.
Bass's whaleboat voyage.
Wilson's Promontory.
Escaped convicts.
Discovery of Westernport.
Return to Port Jackson.


CHAPTER 8. THE VOYAGE OF THE FRANCIS.

The wreck of the Sydney Cove.
Discovery of Kent's Islands.
Biological notes.
Seals.
Sooty petrels.
The wombat.
Point Hicks.


CHAPTER 9. CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF TASMANIA.

Flinders in command of the Norfolk.
Bass's association with him.
Twofold Bay.
Discovery of Port Dalrymple.
Bass Strait demonstrated.
Black swans.
Albatross Island.
Tasmanian aboriginals.


CHAPTER 10. THE FATE OF GEORGE BASS.

Bass's marriage.
Part owner of the Venus.
Voyages after pork.
A fishing concession.
South American enterprise.
Unsaleable goods.
A "diplomatic-looking certificate."
Bass's last voyage.
Probable fate in Peru.
His missing letters.


CHAPTER 11. ON THE QUEENSLAND COAST.

Flinders and the Isaac Nicholls case.
Exploration on the Queensland coast.
Moreton Bay.


CHAPTER 12. THE INVESTIGATOR.

Return to England in the Reliance.
Sir Joseph Banks.
Marriage of Flinders.
Ann Chappell and Chappell Island.
The Franklins.
Publication of Observations on the Coasts of Van Diemen's Land, on Bass
Strait and its Islands.
Anxiety about French expedition.
The Investigator commissioned.
Equipment of ship.
The staff and crew.
East India Company's interest.
Instructions for the voyage.
The case of Mrs. Flinders.
Sailing orders delayed.
The incident at the Roar.
Life on board.
Crossing the Line.
Australia reached.


CHAPTER 13. THE FRENCH EXPEDITION.

Origin of Baudin's expedition.
His instructions.
Baudin's dilatoriness.
In Tasmanian waters.
Waterhouse Island.


CHAPTER 14. SOUTH COAST DISCOVERY.

The south coast of Australia.
Method of research.
Aboriginals at King George's Sound.
Discovery of Spencer's Gulf.
Loss of Thistle and a boat's crew.
Memory Cove.
Port Lincoln.
Kangaroo Island.
St. Vincent's Gulf.
Pelicans.
Speculations on the fate of Laperouse.


CHAPTER 15. FLINDERS AND BAUDIN IN ENCOUNTER BAY.

The sighting of Le Geographe.
Flinders visits Baudin.
Their conversations.
Flinders invites Baudin to visit Port Jackson.


CHAPTER 16. FLINDERS IN PORT PHILLIP.

Grant's discoveries.
Murray discovers Port Phillip.
King Island.
Flinders enters Port Phillip.
Ascends Arthur's Seat.
The Investigator aground.
Cruise in a boat.
Ascends Station Peak.
Flinders' impression of the port.
Arrival in Port Jackson.
Healthiness of his crew.


CHAPTER 17. THE FRENCH AT PORT JACKSON: PERON THE SPY.

Arrival of Le Geographe at Port Jackson.
State of the crew.
Hospitality of Governor King.
Rumours as to French designs.
Baudin's gratitude.
Peron's report on Port Jackson.
His espionage.
Freycinet's plan of invasion.
Scientific work of the expedition.


CHAPTER 18. AUSTRALIA CIRCUMNAVIGATED.

Overhaul of the ship.
The Lady Nelson.
Flinders sails north.
Discovery of Port Curtis and Port Bowen.
Through the Barrier Reef.
Torres Strait.
Remarks on Coral Reefs.
The Gulf of Carpentaria.
Rotten condition of the ship.
Melville Bay discovered.
Sails for Timor.
Australia circumnavigated.
The Investigator condemned.
Illness of Flinders.
News of father's death.
Letter to step-mother.
Letters to Mrs. Flinders.
Letter to Bass.
The end of the Investigator.


CHAPTER 19. WRECKED ON THE BARRIER REEF.

New plans.
Flinders sails in the Porpoise.
Remarks on Sydney.
Wrecked.
Conduct of the Bridgewater.
Plans for relief.
Stores available.
Voyage in the Hope to Sydney.
Franklin's description of the wreck.


CHAPTER 20. TO ILE-DE-FRANCE IN THE CUMBERLAND.

King receives news of the wreck.
The Cumberland.
Wreck Reef reached.
Voyage to Timor.
Determination to sail to Ile-de-France.
Flinders' reasons.
Arrival at Baye du Cap.
Arrival at Port Louis.


CHAPTER 21. GENERAL DECAEN.

Decaen's early career.
His baptism of fire.
War in the Vendee.
The Army of the Rhine.
Moreau.
Battle of Hohenlinden.
Moreau and Napoleon.
The peace of Amiens.
Decaen's arrival at Pondicherry.
His reception.
Leaves for Ile-de-France.
His character and abilities.


CHAPTER 22. THE CAPTIVITY.

Flinders' reception by Decaen.
His anger.
Imprisoned at the Cafe Marengo.
His papers and books.
His examination.
Refusal of invitation to dinner.
Decaen's anger.
His determination to detain Flinders.
King's despatches.
Decaen's statement of motives.
Flinders asks to be sent to France.


CHAPTER 23. THE CAPTIVITY PROLONGED.

Decaen's despatch.
A delayed reply.
Flinders' occupations.
His health.
The sword incident.
Anniversary of the imprisonment.
Aken's liberation.
The faithful Elder.


CHAPTER 24. THE CAPTIVITY MODIFIED.

Thomas Pitot.
Removal to Wilhelm's Plains.
The parole.
Madame D'Arifat's house.
Hospitalities.
Flinders studies French and Malay.
Further exploration schemes.
The residence of Laperouse.
Work upon the charts.
King's protest and Decaen's anger.
Elder's departure.


CHAPTER 25. THE ORDER OF RELEASE.

Influences to secure release.
The order of release.
Receipt of the despatch.
Decaen's reply.
Flinders a dangerous man.
Reason for Decaen's refusal.
State of Ile-de-France.
Project for escape.
Flinders' reasons for declining.


CHAPTER 26. THE RELEASE.

Blockade of Ile-de-France.
Decaen at the end of his tether.
Release of Flinders.
Return to England.
The plagiarism charge.
Flinders' papers.
Work of Peron and Freycinet.


CHAPTER 27. LAST YEARS AND DEATH OF FLINDERS.

Flinders in London.
Prolonged and severe work.
His illness.
Death of Flinders.
His last words.
Treatment of his widow by the Admiralty.


CHAPTER 28. CHARACTERISTICS.

Personality.
Portraits.
Flinders' commanding look.
Geniality.
Conversational powers.
Gentleness.
Kindness to wounded French officer.
Advice to young officers.
An eager student.
The husband.


CHAPTER 29. THE NAVIGATOR.

Technical writings.
The marine barometer.
Variations in the compass.
Praise of other navigators.
Love for his work.


CHAPTER 30. THE NAMING OF AUSTRALIA.

The name Australia given to the continent by Flinders.
The "Austrialia del Espiritu Santo" of Quiros.
De Brosses and "Australasia."
Dalrymple and "Australia."
Flinders' use of the word in 1804.
His use of it in a French essay in 1810.
Persistent employment of the word in letters.
Proposes the word "Australia" to Banks.
His fight for his word.
"Terra Australis."
The footnote of 1814.


APPENDIX A. BAUDIN'S NARRATIVE OF THE MEETING IN ENCOUNTER BAY.


APPENDIX B. PERON'S REPORT ON PORT JACKSON.


APPENDIX C. NAMES GIVEN BY FLINDERS TO AUSTRALIAN COASTAL FEATURES.


BIBLIOGRAPHY.


INDEX.


MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.


1. PORTRAIT OF MATTHEW FLINDERS, AGED 27.

From the engraving in the "Naval Chronicle," 1814, after a miniature in
the possession of Mrs. Flinders.


2. FLINDERS' BIRTHPLACE, DONINGTON, LINCOLNSHIRE.

(From photograph lent by Mr. George Gordon McCrae.)


3. FACSIMILE OF LETTER TO SIR JOSEPH BANKS, 1794.

(Mitchell Library.)

H.M.S Bellerophon

Spithead March 20th 1794.

Sir Joseph,

Yesterdays Post brought me a Letter from Mr. Miles, in Answer to the one
I wrote him for his Power of Attorney, after I had the Honour of waiting
upon you in the Country, at which Time you were pleased to express a
Desire to be informed when it should arrive; in Compliance with which, I
now take the Liberty of addressing you. It seems he has not sent the
Power, but says he enclosd something like one to you by which it appears
he is not exactly acquainted with the Business in Question, he tells me
he has explained his Sense of the Matter in your Letter and begd that the
remaining Sum might be paid to Mr. Dixon or Mr. Lee, from whom he wishes
me to receive it. When I wrote for the Power, I explaind to him (as far
as my Knowledge of the Subject extended) the Necessity of his sending it,
that he was to consider himself as employd by Government, that it was
from the Treasury his Salary was to be got and that they would require
some Authority for paying it to me--at present Sir, I am at a Loss how
to proceed; whether what he has sent will be sufficient, or whether it
will still be necessary to get a regular Power is what I must trespass
upon your Generosity for a Knowledge of the doing which will add to the
Obligation your Goodness before conferd upon me; with a gratefull Sense
of which I beg leave to subscribe myself, Sir Joseph

your much obligd and

most humble Servant

Mattw. Flinders.

To Sir Jos Banks Bart.


4. TABLET ON MEMORIAL ERECTED BY SIR JOHN FRANKLIN AT PORT LINCOLN, SOUTH
AUSTRALIA.

THIS PLACE

from which the Gulf and its
Shores were first surveyed
on 26. Feb, 1802 by
MATTHEW FLINDERS, R.N.
Commander of H.M.S. Investigator
the Discoverer of the Country
now called South Australia
was set apart
on 12. Jan. 1841
with the sanction of
LT. COL. GAWLER. K.H.
then Governor of the Colony
and in the first year of the
government of CAPT. G. GREY
adorned with this Monument
to the perpetual Memory
of the illustrious Navigator
his honored Commander
by
JOHN FRANKLIN. CAPT. R.N.
K.C.H. K.R.
LT. GOVERNOR OF
VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.


5. MEMORIAL ON MOUNT LOFTY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

FLINDERS COLUMN

IN HONOUR OF MATTHEW FLINDERS

COMMANDER OF THE INVESTIGATOR

WHO FROM KANGAROO HEAD, KANGAROO ISLAND

DISCOVERED AND NAMED MOUNT LOFTY

ON TUESDAY 23RD. MARCH 1802

THIS TABLET WAS UNVEILED AND THE COLUMN NAMED

BY HIS EXCELLENCY LORD TENNYSON. 22ND. MARCH 1902.


6. MAP OF FLINDERS' VOYAGES IN BASS STRAIT.

FLINDERS' VOYAGES IN BASS STRAIT IN THE FRANCIS, NORFOLK, AND
INVESTIGATOR.


7. BASS'S EYE-SKETCH OF WESTERNPORT.

Western Port
on the South Coast of
NW. SOUTH WALES
from Mr. Bass's Eye-sketch.
1798.


8. PORTRAIT OF GEORGE BASS.


9. PAGE FROM FLINDERS' MANUSCRIPT NARRATIVE OF THE VOYAGE OF THE FRANCIS,
1798.

(Melbourne Public Library.)

(12)

1798

FEBRUARY SATURDAY 10 close round the rock. At 8, when off a rocky point
on which are two eminences of white stone in the form of oblique cones
inclining inwards, we stood to the southward, and off and on during the
night, keeping the peak and high land of Cape Barren in sight, the wind,
from the westward.
SUNDAY 11 At the following noon, the observed latitude was 40 degrees 41
1/2, Cape Barren bearing north-by-west. The wind being strong at
west-south-west we continued standing off and on, and lying to
occasionally, till day light next morning, when we made sail
MONDAY 12 west-north-west for the south end of Clarkes Island, having the
wind now at north by east. A little to the westward of the rocky point,
which has the inclining cones upon it, lies an island, between which and
the point, is a deep channel of between half and three-quarters of a mile
wide; and about the same distance to the westward of this island, is
another of nearly the same size: they are rather low and covered with
brush and grass. Between these islands and Clarkes Island, we observed
two low islets, and two rocks above water, the latter not more than three
or four miles from us. To the southward also, we saw the land extending a
great distance; but the whole are better seen in the sketch.

About ten o'clock, the ebb tide was running with such violence, that
although the schooner was going one knot and a half through the water,
yet by the land we were evidently going retrograde almost as much, and
towards the land withal: but the light air that remained enabled us to
draw the ???


10. MEMORIAL ON THE SUMMIT OF STATION PEAK, PORT PHILLIP.

MATTHEW FLINDERS, R.N.,

STOOD ON THIS ROCK TO SURVEY THE BAY.

MAY 1, 1802.

NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION,

1912.


11. PORT DALRYMPLE, DISCOVERED IN THE NORFOLK, 1798.

PORT DALRYMPLE.

DISCOVERED 1798 IN THE NORFOLK SLOOP BY

M. FLINDERS.


12. PAGE FROM BASS'S MANUSCRIPT ACCOUNT OF THE VOYAGE OF THE NORFOLK.

(Mitchell Library.)

New South Wales; Western Port, excepted. Notwithstanding this evident
superiority, the vegetable Mould, is frequently, of nor great depth, and
is sometimes, (perhaps advantageously) mixed with small quantities of
sand.

The best of the soil, lies upon the sides of sloping hills, and in the
broad vallies between them. Some parts that are low and level, have a
wet, peaty, surface, bounded by small tracts of flowering heath and
oderiferous plants, that perfume the air with the fragrance of their
oils.

The Plants, retain in general, the air of those of New South Wales,
while, they are in reality, different. The rich & vivid colouring of the
more northern flowers, and that soft & exquisite graduation of their
tints, for which they are so singularly distinguished, hold with them
here, but in a less eminent degree. The two countries present a perfect
similarity in this, that the more barren spots are the most adorned.

Except in these useless places, the grass does not grow in tufts, but
covers the land equally, with a short, nutritious herbage, better adapted
possibly, to the bite of small, than of large cattle. The food for the
latter, is grown in the bottoms of the vallies & upon the damp flats. A
large proportion of the soil, promises a fair return, for the labours of
the cultivator, and a smaller, insures an ample reward: but the greater
part, would perhaps turn to more advantage, if left for pasturage, than
if thrown into cultivation; it would be rich as the one, but poor as the
other. Water is found in runs, more than in Ponds, and the not


13. CAIRN ERECTED ON FLINDERS' LANDING-PLACE, KANGAROO ISLAND, SOUTH
AUSTRALIA.


14. PORTRAIT OF EARL SPENCER.

GEORGE JOHN, SECOND EARL SPENCER, K.G.

Who, as First Lord of the Admiralty, despatched Flinders on his discovery
voyage in the Investigator.

(Photographed, by permission of Lord Spencer, from the painting by
Copley, at Althorp, Northamptonshire.)


15. TABLET AT MEMORY COVE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA.


16. VIEW ON KANGAROO ISLAND, BY WESTALL.

(Reproduced from the engraving in Flinders' Journal, after Westall's
drawing.)


17. FLINDERS'S CHART OF SPENCER'S GULF, ST. VINCENT'S GULF, AND ENCOUNTER
BAY.


18. TABLET AT ENCOUNTER BAY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA, COMMEMORATING THE MEETING
OF FLINDERS AND BAUDIN.

IN COMMEMORATION OF THE MEETING NEAR THIS BLUFF

BETWEEN H.M.S. 'INVESTIGATOR'--MATTHEW FLINDERS

WHO EXPLORED THE COAST OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

AND M.F. 'LE GEOGRAPHE'--NICOLAS BAUDIN, APRIL 8, 1802.

ON BOARD THE 'INVESTIGATOR' WAS JOHN FRANKLIN
THE ARCTIC DISCOVERER: THESE ENGLISH AND FRENCH EXPLORERS
HELD FRIENDLY CONFERENCE. AND FLINDERS NAMED
THE PLACE OF MEETING 'ENCOUNTER BAY.'

UNVEILED BY HIS EXCELLENCY LORD TENNYSON.

APRIL 8, 1902.


19. VIEW OF THE WESTERN ARM OF PORT PHILLIP, BY WESTALL.

From the copy (in the Mitchell Library) of Westall's original drawing in
the Royal Colonial Institute, London.

22

Port Phillip.

Distant view of the West arm of the Western Port.

Looking to south-west.

April 30th 1802.

The view appears to be one of Indented Head. On April 30, 1802, the date
of the sketch, Flinders was "nearly at the northern extremity of Indented
Head" and took some bearings "from the brow of a hill a little way back."


20. FLINDERS' MAP OF PORT PHILLIP AND WESTERNPORT.


21. VIEW OF SYDNEY HARBOUR, FROM VAUCLUSE, BY WESTALL.

(Reproduced from the engraving in Flinders' Journal, after Westall's
drawing.)


22. FLINDERS' CHART OF TORRES STRAIT, ALSO SHOWING COOK'S AND BLIGH'S
TRACKS.


23. FLINDERS' MAP OF THE GULF OF CARPENTARIA.


24. FLINDERS' MAP OF AUSTRALIA, SHOWING HIS PRINCIPAL VOYAGES.


25. VIEW ON THE HAWKESBURY RIVER, BY WESTALL.

From the copy (in the Mitchell Library) of Westall's original drawing in
the Royal Colonial Institute, London.


26. WRECK REEF ISLAND, BY WESTALL.

(Reproduced from the engraving in Flinders' Journal, after Westall's
drawing.)


27. FLINDERS' MAP OF WRECK REEF.

FLINDERS' TRACKS IN THE VICINITY OF WRECK REEF.


28. PORTRAIT OF GENERAL DECAEN.


29. VIEW OF PORT LOUIS. ILE-DE-FRANCE.


30. MAP OF ILE-DE-FRANCE.

(From the Atlas of Milbert, 1812.)


31. PAGE FROM FLINDERS' COPY OF HIS MEMORIAL TO THE FRENCH MINISTER OF
MARINE (WRITTEN IN ILE-DE-FRANCE).

(Melbourne Public Library.)

To his Excellency the

Minister of the marine and colonies

of France.

The memorial of Matthew Flinders Esq.

Prisoner in the Isle of France.

May it please Your Excellency

Your memorialist was commander of His Britannic Majesty's ship the
Investigator, despatched by the Admiralty of England to complete the
discovery of New Holland and New South Wales, which had been begun by the
early Dutch navigators, and continued at different periods by Cook,
D'Entrecasteaux, Vancouver, and your memorialist. He was furnished with a
passport by order of His Imperial and Royal Majesty, then first Consul of
France; and signed by the marine minister Forfait the 4th Prarial, year
9; which passport permitted the Investigator to touch at French ports in
any part of the world, in cases of distress, and promised assistance and
protection to the commander and company, provided they should not have
unnecessarily deviated from their route, or have done, or announced the
intention of doing any thing injurious to the French nation or its
allies: Your memorialist sailed from England in July 1801, and in April
1802, whilst pursuing the discovery of the unknown part of the south
coast of New South Wales, he met with the commandant Baudin, who being
furnished with a passport by the Admiralty of Great Britain, had been
sent by the French government with the ships Geographe and Naturaliste
upon a nearly similar expedition some months before. From Port Jackson,
where the commandant was again met with, your memorialist, accompanied by
the brig Lady Nelson, continued his examinations and discoveries
northward, through many difficulties and dangers, but with success, until
December 1802, when, in the Gulf of Carpentaria


32. PORTRAIT OF FLINDERS IN 1808.

(From portrait drawn by Chazal at Ile-de-France.)


33. SILHOUETTE OF FLINDERS, MADE AFTER HIS RETURN FROM ILE-DE-FRANCE.

(By permission of Professor Flinders Petrie.)


34. REDUCED FACSIMILE OF ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT DEDICATION OF FLINDERS'
JOURNAL.

(Mitchell Library.)

To

the right hon. George John, Earl Spencer,
the right hon. John, Earl of St. Vincent,
the right hon. Charles Phillip Yorke,
and
the right hon. Robert Saunders, Viscount Melville,
who,
as first Lords Commissioners of the
Admiralty,
successively honoured the Investigator's voyage
with their patronage,
this account of it is respectfully dedicated,
by Their Lordships
most obliged, and
most obedient
humble servant
Matthew Flinders


35. PAGE FROM MANUSCRIPT OF FLINDERS' ABRIDGED NARRATIVE (UNPUBLISHED).

(Melbourne Public Library.)

from the general's conduct, that he has sought to impose upon him, and
this for the purpose, perhaps for the pleasure, of prolonging to the
utmost my unjust detention.

But if apprehensions for the safety of this land are not the cause of the
order of the French government remaining unexecuted, what reason can
there be, sufficiently strong to have induced the captain-general to
incur the risk of misobedience, first to the passport, and afterwards to
the order for my liberation. This I shall endeavour to explain in the
following and last chapter of this discussion; promising, however, that
what I shall have to offer upon this part of the subject, can only be
what a consideration of the captain-general's conduct has furnished me,
as being the most probable. I am not conscious of having omitted any
material circumstance, either here or in the narration, or of having
misrepresented any; as if after an attentive perusal, the reader thinks
my explanation not borne out by the facts, I submit it to his judgment to
deduce a better; and should esteem myself obliged by his making it
public, so that it may reach so far as even to me.

Chapter XII. Probable causes of my imprisonment, and of the marine
minister's order for my liberation being suspended by the captain-general

Before explaining what I conceive to have been the true causes which led
the captain-general to act so contrary to my passport, as to imprison me
and seize my vessel, charts, and papers; it will be proper to give the
reader a knowledge of some points in His Excellency's character, in
addition to those he will have extracted from the abridged narrative. At
the time of my arrival, he entertained, and does I believe still
entertain, an indiscriminate animosity against Englishmen, whether this
arose from his having been deprived of the advantage of fixing the seat
of his government at Pondicherry, by the renewal of war in 1803, or from
any antecedent circumstance, I cannot pretend to say; but that he did
harbour such animosity, and that in an uncommon degree, is averred by his
keeping in irons, contrary to the usages of war, the first English seamen
that were brought to the island (Narrative page 58 and 70); by the
surprise he testified at the proceeding of a French gentleman, who
interceded with him for the liberty on parole of a sick English officer;
on which occasion he said amongst other things, that had he his own will,
he would send all the English prisoners to the Marquis Wellesley without
their ears: this animosity is, besides, as well known at the Isle of
France, as the existence of the island.

It is probably owing to an original want of education, and to having
passed the greater part of his life in the tumult of camps during the
French revolution, that arises his indifference for the arts and
sciences, other than those which have an immediate relation to war. His
Excellency's ideas seem even to be so strictly military, that the
profession of a seaman has very little share in his  estimation; and his
ignorance of nautical affairs has been shewn by various circumstances to
be greater than would be supposed in a moderately well informed man, who
had made a voyage from Europe to India.


36. EXTRACT FROM FLINDERS' LETTER-BOOK, REFERRING TO OXLEY'S APPOINTMENT
AS SURVEYOR-GENERAL.

(Melbourne Public Library.)

To Captain Thos. Hurd, Hydrographer, Admiralty Office.

London April 2, 1812.

My dear Sir

Understanding that Lieut. John Oxley of the Navy is going out
surveyor-general of Lands in New South Wales, I wish to point out to you,
that if he should be enabled, in intervals of his land duty, to
accomplish the following nautical objects, in the vicinity of Port
Jackson, and of the settlements in Van Diemen's Land, our knowledge of
those coasts would be thereby improved, and some material advantages to
the colonies probably obtained.

1st. Jervis Bay, a large piece of water whose entrance is in 35.5 south,
and not from than 75 miles from Port Jackson, has never yet, to my
knowledge been surveyed. There have been two or three eye sketches made
of it; but it would be desirable to have it surveyed, with the streams
which are said to fall into its North and western sides; and also the
corresponding line of the sea coast, in which there are thought to be
strata of coal.

The great semicircular range of mountains which has hitherto resisted all
attempts to penetrate into the interior country behind Port Jackson,
appears to terminate at Point Bass in latitude about 34.43; and the land
behind Jervis Bay is represented to be low and flat. It is, therefore,
probable, that a well conducted effort to obtain some knowledge of the
interior of that vast country, would be attended with success if made by
steering a West or N.N.W. course from the head of Jervis Bay.

37. FLINDERS' MEMORIAL IN PARISH CHURCH, AT HIS BIRTHPLACE, DONINGTON,
LINCOLNSHIRE.

IN MEMORY OF
CAPTAIN MATTHEW FLINDERS, R.N.
WHO DIED JULY 19TH 1814,
AGED 40 YEARS.

AFTER HAVING TWICE CIRCUMNAVIGATED THE GLOBE, HE WAS
SENT BY THE ADMIRALTY IN THE YEAR 1801, TO MAKE
DISCOVERIES ON THE COAST OF TERRA AUSTRALIS.
RETURNING FROM THIS VOYAGE HE SUFFERED SHIPWRECK,
AND BY THE INJUSTICE OF THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT
WAS IMPRISONED SIX YEARS IN THE
ISLAND OF MAURITIUS.

IN 1810, HE WAS RESTORED TO HIS NATIVE LAND, AND NOT
LONG AFTER WAS ATTACKED BY AN EXCRUCIATING DISEASE,
THE ANGUISH OF WHICH HE BORE UNTIL DEATH
WITH UNDEVIATING FORTITUDE.

HIS COUNTRY WILL LONG REGRET THE LOSS OF ONE WHOSE
EXERTIONS IN HER CAUSE WERE ONLY EQUALLED BY
HIS PERSEVERANCE:
BUT HIS FAMILY WILL MOST DEEPLY FEEL THE
IRREPARABLE DEPRIVATION.

THEY DO NOT MERELY LAMENT A MAN OF SUPERIOR INTELLECT.
THEY MOURN AN AFFECTIONATE HUSBAND,
A TENDER FATHER, A KIND BROTHER,
AND A FAITHFUL FRIEND.


38. MEMORIAL TO BASS AND FLINDERS AT THE COMMONWEALTH NAVAL BASE,
WESTERNPORT, VICTORIA.)


The maps have been copied from Flinders' Atlas, with the omission of a
few details, which, on the small scale necessarily adopted, would have
caused confusion; it has been thought better to make what is given quite
legible to the unassisted eye. All names on the maps are as Flinders
spelt them, but in the body of the book modern spellings have been
adopted. In the case of the Duyfhen the usual spelling, which is also
that of Flinders, is retained; but the late J. Backhouse Walker has shown
reason to believe that the real name of the vessel was Duyfken.


CHRONOLOGY.

1774 (March 16) : Born at Donington.

1789 (October 23) : Enters the Royal Navy.

1790 (July 31) : Midshipman on the Bellerophon.

1791 to 1793 : Voyage in the Providence.

1793 (September) : Rejoins the Bellerophon.

1794 (June) : Participates in the battle off Brest.

1795 (February) : Sails for Australia in the Reliance. Meets George Bass.

1796 (March) : Cruise of the Tom Thumb.

1797 (December) : Bass's whaleboat voyage.

1798 (January) : Discovery of Westernport.

1798 (January) : Flinders' voyage in the Francis.

1798 (January 31) : Flinders obtains lieutenant's commission.

1798 (October) : Voyage of the Norfolk.

1798 (November) : Discovery of Port Dalrymple.

1798 (December) : Bass Strait demonstrated.

1799 : Return to Port Jackson.

1799 (July) : Exploration on Queensland coast.

1800 (March) : Return to England in the Reliance.

1800 (October) : Arrival in England.
Plan of Australian Exploration.

1800 (December) : The Investigator commissioned.

1801 (January 17) : Publication of Observations.

1801 (February 16) : Obtains commander's rank.

1801 (April) : Marriage of Flinders.

1801 (July 18) : Sailing of the Investigator.

1801 (December) : Australia reached.

1802 (February) : Discovery of Spencer's Gulf.

1802 (March) : Discovery of Kangaroo Island and St. Vincent's Gulf.

1802 (April) : Meeting of Flinders and Baudin in Encounter Bay.

1802 (May) : Flinders in Port Phillip.

1802 (July) : Voyage to Northern Australia.

1802 (August) : Discovery of Port Curtis and Port Bowen.

1802 (November) : In the Gulf of Carpentaria.

1803 (April) : Return voyage; Australia circumnavigated.

1803 (June) : Sydney reached; the Investigator condemned.

1803 (July 10) : Sails in the Porpoise.

1803 (August 17) : Wrecked on the Barrier Reef.
Voyage in the Hope to Sydney.

1803 (September 8) : Arrival in Port Jackson.

1803 (September 21) : Sails in the Cumberland.

1803 (November) : Timor reached.

1803 (December 17) : Arrival at Ile-de-France; made a prisoner.

1804 (April) : Removal to the Garden Prison (Maison Despeaux).

1805 : Removal to Wilhelm's Plains.

1806 (March 21) : French Government orders release of Flinders.

1810 (June 13) : Release of Flinders.

1810 (October 24) : Return to England.

1814 (July 19) : Death of Flinders.

***


THE LIFE OF MATTHEW FLINDERS.


CHAPTER 1. BIRTH AND ORIGINS.

Matthew Flinders was the third of the triad of great English sailors by
whom the principal part of Australia was revealed. A poet of our own
time, in a line of singular felicity, has described it as the "last
sea-thing dredged by sailor Time from Space; "* (* Bernard O'Dowd,
Dawnward, 1903.) and the piecemeal, partly mysterious, largely accidental
dragging from the depths of the unknown of a land so immense and
bountiful makes a romantic chapter in geographical history. All the great
seafaring peoples contributed something towards the result. The Dutch
especially evinced their enterprise in the pursuit of precise information
about the southern Terra Incognita, and the nineteenth century was well
within its second quarter before the name New Holland, which for over a
hundred years had borne testimony to their adventurous pioneering, gave
place in general and geographical literature to the more convenient and
euphonious designation suggested by Flinders himself, Australia.* (* Not
universally, however, even in official documents. In the Report of the
Committee of the Privy Council, dated May 1, 1849, "New Holland" is used
to designate the continent, but "Australia" is employed as including both
the continent and Tasmania. See Grey's Colonial Policy 1 424 and 439.)

But, important as was the work of the Dutch, and though the contributions
made by French navigators (possibly also by Spanish) are of much
consequence, it remains true that the broad outlines of the continent
were laid down by Dampier, Cook and Flinders. These are the principal
names in the story. A map of Australia which left out the parts
discovered by other sailors would be seriously defective in particular
features; but a map which left out the parts discovered by these three
Englishmen would gape out of all resemblance to the reality.

Dampier died about the year 1712; nobody knows precisely when. Matthew
Flinders came into the world in time to hear, as he may well have done as
a boy, of the murder of his illustrious predecessor in 1779. The news of
Cook's fate did not reach England till 1781. The lad was then seven years
of age, having been born on March 16th, 1774.

His father, also named Matthew, was a surgeon practising his profession
at Donington, Lincolnshire, where the boy was born. The Flinders family
had been settled in the same town for several generations. Three in
succession had been surgeons. The patronymic indicates a Flemish origin,
and the work on English surnames* that bids the reader looking for
information under "Flinders" to "see Flanders," sends him on a reasonable
quest, if to no great resulting advantage. (* Barker, Family Surnames
1903 page 143.)

The English middle-eastern counties received frequent large migrations of
Flemings during several centuries. Sometimes calamities due to the
harshness of nature, sometimes persecutions and wars, sometimes adverse
economic conditions, impelled companies of people from the Low Countries
to cross the North Sea and try to make homes for themselves in a land
which, despite intervals of distraction, offered greater security and a
better reward than did the place whence they came. England derived much
advantage from the infusion of this industrious, solid and dependable
Flemish stock; though the temporary difficulty of absorption gave rise to
local protests on more than one occasion.

As early as 1108, a great part of Flanders "being drowned by an exudation
or breaking in of the sea, a great number of Flemings came into the
country, beseeching the King to have some void place assigned them,
wherein they might inhabit."* (* Holinshed's Chronicle edition of 1807 2
58.) Again in the reign of Edward I we find Flemish merchants carrying on
a very large and important trade in Boston, and representatives of houses
from Ypres and Ostend acquired property in the town.* (* Pishey Thompson
Collections for a Topographical and Historical Account of Boston and the
Hundred of Skirbeck 1820 page 31.) In the middle of the sixteenth
century, when Flanders was boiling on the fire of the Reformation,
Lincolnshire and Norfolk provided an asylum for crowds of harassed
refugees. In 1569 two persons were deputed to ride from Boston to Norwich
to ascertain what means that city adopted to find employment for them;
and in the same year Mr. William Derby was directed to move Mr. Secretary
Cecil, Queen Elizabeth's great minister, to "know his pleasure whether
certain strangers may be allowed to dwell within the borough without
damage of the Queen's laws."* (*Boston Corporation manuscripts quoted in
Thompson, History and Antiquities of Boston 1856.)

During one of these peaceful and useful Flemish invasions the ancestors
of Matthew Flinders entered Lincolnshire. In the later years of his life
he devoted some attention to the history of his family, and found record
of a Flinders as early as the tenth century. He believed, also, that his
people had some connection with two men named Flinders or Flanders, who
fled from Holland during the religious persecutions, and settled, in
Queen Elizabeth's reign, in Nottinghamshire as silk stocking weavers. It
would be very interesting if it were clear that there was a link between
the family and the origins of the great Nottingham hosiery trade. A
Flinders may in that case have woven silk stockings for the Royal
termagant, and Lord Coke's pair, which were darned so often that none of
the original fabric remained, may have come from their loom.

Matthew Flinders himself wrote the note: "Ruddington near Nottingham (it
is four miles south of the town) is the place whence the Flinders came;"
and he ascertained that an ancestor was Robert Flinders, a Nottingham
stocking-weaver.

A family tradition relates that the Lincolnshire Flinders were amongst
the people taken over to England by Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutch
engineer of celebrity in his day, who undertook in 1621 to drain 360,000
acres of fen in Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. He was financed
by English and Dutch capitalists, and took his reward in large grants of
land which he made fit for habitation and cultivation. Vermuyden and his
Flemings were not allowed to accomplish their work of reclamation without
incurring the enmity of the natives. In a petition to the King in 1637 he
stated that he had spent 150,000 pounds, but that 60,000 pounds of damage
had been done "by reason of the opposition of the commoners," who cut the
banks of his channels in the night and during floods. The peasantry,
indeed, resisted the improvements that have proved so beneficent to that
part of England, because the draining and cultivation of so many miles of
swamp would deprive them of fishing and fowling privileges enjoyed from
time immemorial. Hardly any reform or improvement can be effected without
some disruption of existing interests; and a people deeply sunk in
poverty and toil could hardly be expected to contemplate with
philosophical calm projects which, however advantageous to fortunate
individuals and to posterity, were calculated to diminish their own means
of living and their pleasant diversions. The dislike of the "commoners"
to the work of the "participants" led to frequent riots, and many of
Vermuyden's Flemings were maltreated. He endeavoured to allay discontent
by employing local labour at high wages; and was courageous enough to
pursue his task despite loss of money, wanton destruction, and many other
discouragements.* (* See Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, for
1619, 1623, 1625, 1638, 1639 et seq; and White's Lincolnshire page 542.)
Ebullitions of discontent on the part of fractious Fenlanders did not
cease till the beginning of the eighteenth century.

A very simple calculation shows that the great-grandfather of the first
Matthew Flinders would probably have been contemporary with Sir Cornelius
Vermuyden's reclamation works. He may have been one of the "participants"
who benefited from them. The fact is significant as bearing upon this
conjecture, that no person named Flinders made a will in Lincolnshire
before 1600.* (* See C.W. Foster, Calendar of Lincoln Wills 1320 to 1600,
1902.)

It is, too, an interesting circumstance that there was a Flinders among
the early settlers in New England, Richard Flinders of Salem, born 1637.*
(* Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England,
Boston U.S.A. 1860.) He may have been of the same family as the
navigator, for the Lincolnshire element among the fathers of New England
was pronounced.

The name Flinders survived at Donington certainly for thirty years after
the death of the sailor who gave lustre to it; for in a directory
published in 1842 occur the names of "Flinders, Mrs. Eliz., Market
Place," and "Flinders, Mrs. Mary, Church Street."* (* William White,
History, Gazetteer and Directory of the City and Diocese of Lincoln, 1842
page 193.)

The Flinders papers, mentioned in the preface, contain material which
enables the family and connections of the navigator to be traced with
certainty for seven generations. The genealogy is shown by the following
table:--

John Flinders, born 1682, died 1741, settled at Donington as a farmer,
married Mary Obray or Aubrey in 1702 and had at least 1 child:

John Flinders, surgeon at Spalding, born 1737, still living in 1810, had
at least two children:

1. John Flinders, Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, born 1766, died 1793.

2. Matthew Flinders, surgeon at Donington, born 1750, died 1802, married
Susannah Ward, 1752 to 1783, in 1773 and had at least two children:

2. Samuel Ward Flinders, born 1782, died 1842, Lieutenant in the Royal
Navy, married and left several children.

1. Matthew Flinders the Navigator, born March 16, 1774, died July 19,
1814, married Ann Chappell, born 1770, died 1852, in 1801 and had one
daughter:

Ann Flinders, born 1812, died 1892, married William Petrie, born 1821,
died 1908, in 1851 and had one son:

Professor W.M. Flinders Petrie, eminent scholar and Egyptian
archaeologist, born 1853, married Hilda Urlin in 1897 and had at least
two children:

1. John Flinders Petrie.

2. Ann Flinders Petrie.

There is also an interesting connection between Flinders and the
Tennysons, through the Franklin family. The present Lord Tennyson, when
Governor of South Australia, in the course of his official duties, in
March, 1902, unveiled a memorial to his kinsman on Mount Lofty, and in
April of the same year a second one in Encounter Bay. The following table
illustrates the relationship between him who wrote of "the long wash of
Australasian seas" and him who knew them as discoverer:

Matthew Flinders (father of Matthew Flinders the navigator) married as
his second wife Elizabeth Weekes, whose sister, Hannah Weekes, married
Willingham Franklin of Spilsby and had at least two children:

1. Sir John Franklin, born 1786, midshipman of the Investigator, Arctic
explorer, Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) 1837 to
1844, died 1847.

2. Sarah Franklin, married Henry Sellwood, solicitor, of Horncastle, in
1812 and had at least two children:

2. Louisa Sellwood married Charles Tennyson-Turner, poet, brother of
Alfred Tennyson.

1. Emily Sarah Sellwood, born 1813, died 1896, married Alfred Tennyson,
Poet Laureate, born 1809, died 1892, in 1850 and had at least one son:

Hallam, Lord Tennyson, born 1852; Governor of South Australia 1899 to
1902; Governor-General of Australia, 1902 to 1904.

The Flinders papers also contain a note suggesting a distant connection
between Matthew Flinders and the man who above all others was his choice
friend, George Bass, the companion of his earliest explorations. Positive
proof is lacking, but Flinders' daughter, Mrs. Petrie, wrote "we have
reason to think that Bass was a connection of the family," and the point
is too interesting to be left unstated. The following table shows the
possible kinship:

John Flinders of Donington, born 1682, died 1741 (great-grandfather of
the navigator) had:

Mary Flinders, third and youngest daughter, born 1734, married as her
third husband, Bass, and had:

George Bass, who had three daughters, and is believed to have been an
uncle or cousin of George Bass, Matthew Flinders' companion in
exploration.

It is clear from the particulars stated above that the tree of which
Matthew Flinders was the fruit had its roots deep down in the soil of the
little Lincolnshire market town where he was born; and Matthew himself
would have continued the family tradition, inheriting the practice built
up by his father and grandfather (as it was hoped he would do), had there
not been within him an irresistible longing for the sea, and a bent of
scientific curiosity directed to maritime exploration, which led him on a
path of discovery to achievements that won him honourable rank in the
noble roll of British naval pioneers.

His father earned an excellent reputation, both professional and
personal. The career of a country practitioner rarely affords an
opportunity for distinction. It was even less so then than today, when at
all events careful records of interesting cases are printed in a score or
more of professional publications. But once we find the elder Matthew
Flinders in print. The Memoirs of the Medical Society of London* (* 1779
Volume 4 page 330.) contain a paper read before that body on October
30th, 1797: "Case of a child born with variolar pustules, by Matthew
Flinders, surgeon, Donington, Lincolnshire." The essay occupies three
pages, and is a clear, succinct record of symptoms, treatment and
results, for medical readers. The child died; whereupon the surgeon
expresses his regret, not on account of infant or parents, but, with true
scientific zest, because it deprived him of the opportunity of watching
the development of an uncommon case.

Donington is a small town in the heart of the fen country, lying ten
miles south-west of Boston, and about the same distance, as the crow
flies, from the black, muddy, western fringe of the Wash. It is a very
old town. Formerly it was an important Lincolnshire centre, enjoying its
weekly Saturday market, and its four annual fairs for the sale of horses,
cattle, flax and hemp. During Flinders' youth and early manhood the
district grew large quantities of hemp, principally for the Royal Navy.
In the days of its prosperity Donington drew to itself the business of an
agricultural neighbourhood which was so far cultivable as it rose above
the level of desolate and foggy swamps. But the drainage of the fens and
the making of good roads over what had once been an area of amphibious
uncertainty, neither wholly land nor wholly water, had the effect of
largely diverting business to Boston. Trade that came to Donington when
it stood over its own tract of fen, like the elderly and respectable
capital of some small island, now went to the thriving and historic port
on the Witham. Donington stopped growing, stagnated, declined. On the map
of Lincolnshire included in Camden's Britannia (1637) it is marked
"Dunington," in letters as large as those given to Boston, Spalding and
Lincoln. On modern maps the name is printed in small letters; on some in
the smallest, or not at all. That fact is fairly indicative of its change
of fortunes. Figures tell the tale with precision. In 1801 it contained
1321 inhabitants; in 1821, 1638; in 1841 it reached its maximum, 2026; by
1891 it had gone down to 1547; in 1901 to 1484; at the census of 1911 it
had struggled up to 1564.* (* Allen, History of Lincolnshire, 1833 Volume
1 342; Victoria History of Lincolnshire Volume 2 359; Census Returns for
1911.)

The fame conferred by a distinguished son is hardly a recompense for
faded prosperity, but certain it is that Donington commands a wider
interest as the birthplace of Flinders than it ever did in any other
respect during its long, uneventful history. The parish church, a fine
Gothic building with a lofty, graceful spire, contains a monument to the
memory of the navigator, with an inscription in praise of his character
and life, and recording that he "twice circumnavigated the globe." Many
men have encircled the earth, but few have been so distinguished as
discoverers of important portions of it. Apart from this monument, the
church contains marble ovals to the memory of Matthew Flinders' father,
grandfather, and great-grandfather. They were provided from a sum of 100
pounds left by the navigator, in his will, for the purpose.

It is interesting to notice that three of the early Australian explorers
came from Lincolnshire, and were all born at places visible in clear
weather from the tower of St. Botolph's Church at Boston. While Flinders
sprang from Donington, George Bass, who co-operated with him in his first
discoveries, was born at Aswarby, near Sleaford, and Sir John Franklin,
who sailed with him in the Investigator, and was subsequently to become
an Australian Governor and to achieve a pathetic immortality in another
field of exploration, entered the world at Spilsby. Sir Joseph Banks, the
botanist of Cook's first voyage, Flinders' steadfast friend, and the
earliest potent advocate of Australian colonisation, though not actually
born in Lincolnshire, was the son of a squire who at the time of his
birth owned Revesby Abbey, which is within a short ride of each of the
places just named.


CHAPTER 2. AT SCHOOL AND AT SEA.

Young Flinders received his preparatory education at the Donington free
school. This was an institution founded and endowed in 1718 by Thomas
Cowley, who bequeathed property producing nowadays about 1200 pounds a
year for the maintenance of a school and almshouses. It was to be open to
the children of all the residents of Donington parish free of expense,
and in addition there was a fund for paying premiums on the
apprenticeship of boys.

At the age of twelve the lad was sent to the Horbling Grammar School, not
many miles from his own home. It was under the direction of the Reverend
John Shinglar. Here he remained three years. He was introduced to the
Latin and Greek classics, and received the grounding of that mathematical
knowledge which subsequently enabled him to master the science of
navigation without a tutor. If to Mr. Shinglar's instruction was likewise
due his ability to write good, sound, clear English, we who read his
letters and published writings have cause to speak his schoolmaster's
name with respect.

During his school days another book besides those prescribed in the
curriculum came into his hands. He read Robinson Crusoe. It was to
Defoe's undying tale of the stranded mariner that he attributed the
awaking in his own mind of a passionate desire to sail in uncharted seas.
This anecdote happens to be better authenticated than are many of those
quoted to illustrate the youth of men of mark. Towards the end of
Flinders' life the editor of the Naval Chronicle sent to him a series of
questions, intending to found upon the answers a biographical sketch. One
question was: "Juvenile or miscellaneous anecdotes illustrative of
individual character?" The reply was: "Induced to go to sea against the
wishes of friends from reading Robinson Crusoe."

The case, interesting as it is, has an exact parallel in the life of a
famous French traveller, Rene Caille, who in 1828, after years of
extraordinary effort and endurance, crossed Senegal, penetrated Central
Africa, and was the first European to visit Timbuctoo. He also had read
Defoe's masterpiece as a lad, and attributed to it the awaking in his
breast of a yearning for adventure and discovery. "The reading of
Robinson Crusoe," says a French historian, "made upon him a profound
impression." "I burned to have adventures of my own," he wrote later; "I
felt as I read that there was born within my heart the ambition to
distinguish myself by some important discovery."* (* Gaffarel, La
Politique coloniale en France, 1908 page 34.)

Here were astonishing results to follow from the vivid fiction of a gouty
pamphleteer who wrote to catch the market and was hoisted into immortal
fame by the effort: that his book should, like a spark falling on straw,
fire the brains of a French shoemaker's apprentice and a Lincolnshire
schoolboy, impelling each to a career crowded with adventure, and crowned
with memorable achievements. There could hardly be better examples of the
vitalising efficacy of fine literature.

A love of Robinson Crusoe remained with Flinders to the end. Only a
fortnight before his death he wrote a note subscribing for a copy of a
new edition of the book, with notes, then announced for publication. It
must have been one of the last letters from his hand. Though out of its
chronological order, it may be appropriately quoted here to connect it
with the other references to the book which so profoundly influenced his
life:

"Captain Flinders presents his compliments to the Hydrographer of the
Naval Chronicle, and will thank him to insert his home in the list of
subscribers in his new edition of Robinson Crusoe; he wishes also that
the volume on delivery should have a neat, common binding, and be
lettered.--London Street, July 5, 1814."

It seems clear that Flinders had promised himself the pleasure of
re-reading in maturity the tale that had so delighted his youth. Had he
lived to do so, he might well have underlined, as applicable to himself,
a pair of those sententious observations with which Defoe essayed to give
a sober purpose to his narrative. The first is his counsel of "invincible
patience under the worst of misery, indefatigable application, and
undaunted resolution under the greatest and most discouraging
circumstances." The second is his wise remark that "the height of human
wisdom is to bring our tempers down to our circumstances, and to make a
great calm within under the weight of the greatest storm without." They
were words which Flinders during strenuous years had good cause to
translate into conduct.

The edition of the book to which he thus subscribed was undertaken
largely on account of his acknowledgment of its effect upon his life. The
author of the Naval Chronicle sketch of his career* (* 1814 Volume 32.)
wrote in a footnote: "The biographer, also happening to understand that
to the same cause the Navy is indebted for another of its ornaments,
Admiral Sir Sydney Smythe, was in a great measure thereby led to give
another studious reading to that charming story, and hence to adopt a
plan for its republication, now almost at maturity;" and he commended the
new issue especially "to all those engaged in the tuition of youth."

One other anecdote of Flinders' boyhood has been preserved as a family
tradition. It is that, while still a child, he was one day lost for some
hours. He was ultimately found in the middle of one of the sea marshes,
his pockets stuffed with pebbles, tracing the runlets of water, so that
by following them up he might find out whence they came. Many boys might
have done the same; but this particular boy, in that act of enquiry
concerning geographical phenomena on a small scale, showed himself father
to the man.

"Against the wish of friends," Flinders wrote, was his selection of a
naval career. His father steadily but kindly opposed his desire, hoping
that his son would adopt the medical profession. But young Matthew was
not easily thwarted. The call of the sea was strong within him, and
persistency was always a fibrous element in his character.

The surgeon's house at Donington stood in the market square. It remained
in existence till 1908, when it was demolished to give place to what is
described as "a hideous new villa." It was a plain, square, one-story
building with a small, low surgery built on to one side of it. Behind the
door of the surgery hung a slate, upon which the elder Flinders was
accustomed to write memoranda concerning appointments and cases. The lad,
wishing to let his father know how keen was his desire to enter the Navy,
and dreading a conversation on the subject--with probable reproaches,
admonitions, warnings, and a general outburst of parental
displeasure--made use of the surgeon's slate. He wrote upon it what he
wanted his father to know, hung it on the nail, and left it there to tell
its quiet story.

He got his way in the end, but not without discouragement from other
quarters also. He had an uncle in the Navy, John Flinders, to whom he
wrote asking for counsel. John's experience had not made him enamoured of
his profession, and his reply was chilling. He pointed out that there was
little chance of success without powerful interest. Promotion was slow
and favouritism was rampant. He himself had served eleven years, and had
not yet attained the rank of lieutenant, nor were his hopes of rising
better than slender.

From the strictly professional point of view it was not unreasonable
advice for the uncle to give. A student of the naval history of the
period finds much to justify a discouraging attitude. Even the dazzling
career of Nelson might have been frustrated by a long protracted minority
had he not had a powerful hand to help him up the lower rungs of the
ladder--the "interest" of Captain Suckling, his uncle, who in 1775 became
Comptroller of the Navy, "a civil position, but one that carried with it
power and consequently influence." Nelson became lieutenant after seven
years' service, in 1777; but he owed his promotion to Suckling, who "was
able to exert his influence in behalf of his relative by promptly
securing for him not only his promotion to lieutenant, which many waited
for long, but with it his commission, dated April 10, to the Lowestofte,
a frigate of thirty-two guns."* (* Mahan, Life of Nelson edition of 1899
pages 13 and 14.)

That even conduct of singular merit, performed in the crisis of action,
was not sufficient to secure advancement, is illustrated by a striking
fact in the life of Sir John Hindmarsh, the first Governor of South
Australia (1836). At the battle of the Nile, Hindmarsh, a midshipman of
fourteen, was left in charge of the Bellerophon, all the other officers
being killed or wounded. (It was upon this same vessel, as we shall see
later, that Flinders had a taste of sea fighting). When the French
line-of-battle ship L'Orient took fire she endangered the Bellerophon.
The boy, with wonderful presence of mind, called up some hands, cut the
cables, and was running the ship out of danger under a sprit sail, when
Captain Darby came on deck from having his wounds dressed. Nelson,
hearing of the incident, thanked young Hindmarsh before the ship's
company, and afterwards gave him his commission in front of all hands,
relating the story to them. "The sequel," writes Admiral Sir T.S. Pasley,
who relates the facts in his Journal, "does not sound so well. Lord
Nelson died in 1805, and Hindmarsh is a commander still, in 1830, not
having been made one till June, 1814." A man with such a record certainly
had to wait long before the sun of official favour shone upon him; and
his later success was won, not in the navy, but as a colonial governor.

There was, then, much to make John Flinders believe that influence was a
surer way to advancement than assiduous application or natural capacity.
His own naval career did not turn out happily. A very few years
afterwards he received his long-delayed promotion, served as lieutenant
in the Cygnet, on the West Indies station, under Admiral Affleck, and
died of yellow fever on board his ship in 1793.

John Flinders' letter, however, concluded with a piece of practical
advice, in case his nephew should be undeterred by his opinion. He
recommended the study of three works as a preparation for entering the
Navy: Euclid, John Robertson's Elements of Navigation (first edition
published in 1754) and Hamilton Moore's book on Navigation. Matthew
disregarded the warning and took the practical advice. The books were
procured and the young student plunged into their problems eagerly. The
year devoted to their study in that quiet little fen town made him master
of rather more than the elements of a science which enabled him to become
one of the foremost discoverers and cartograhers of a continent. He
probably also practised map-making with assiduity, for his charts are not
only excellent as charts, but also singularly beautiful examples of
scientific drawing.

After a year of book-work Flinders felt capable of acquitting himself
creditably at sea, if he could secure an opportunity. In those days
entrance to the Royal Navy was generally secured by the nomination of a
senior officer. There was no indispensable examination; no naval college
course was necessary. The captain of a ship could take a youth on board
to oblige his relatives, "or in return for the cancelling of a
tradesman's bill."* (* Masefield's Sea Life in Nelson's Time 1905 gives a
good account of the practice.) It so happened that a cousin of Flinders
occupied the position of governess in the family of Captain Pasley
(afterwards Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley) who at that time commanded H.M.S.
Scipio. One of her pupils, Maria Pasley, developed into a young lady of
decidedly vigorous character, as the following incident sufficiently
shows. While her father was commander-in-chief at Plymouth, she was one
day out in the Channel, beyond the Eddystone, in the Admiral's cutter. As
the country was at war, she was courting danger; and in fact, the cutter
was sighted by a French cruiser, which gave chase. But Miss Pasley
declined to run away. She "popped at the Frenchman with the cutter's two
brass guns." It was like blowing peas at an elephant; and she would
undoubtedly have been captured, had not an English frigate seen the
danger and put out to the rescue.

Flinders' cousin had interested herself in his studies and ambitions, and
gave him some encouragement. She also spoke about him to Captain Pasley,
who seems to have listened sympathetically. It interested him to hear of
this boy studying navigation without a tutor up among the fens. "Send for
him," said Pasley, "I should like to see what stuff he is made of, and
whether he is worth making into a sailor."

Young Matthew, then in his fifteenth year, was accordingly invited to
visit the Pasleys. In the later part of his life he used to relate with
merriment, how he went, was asked to dine, and then pressed to stay till
next day under the captain's roof. He had brought no night attire with
him, not having expected to sleep at the house. When he was shown into
his bedroom, his needs had apparently been anticipated; for there, folded
up neatly upon the pillow, was a sleeping garment ready for use. He
appreciated the consideration; but having attired himself for bed, he
found himself enveloped in a frothy abundance of frills and fal-lals,
lace at the wrists, lace round the neck, with flutters of ribbon here and
there. When, at the breakfast table in the morning, he related how he had
been rigged, there was a shriek of laughter from the young ladies; the
simple explanation being that one of them had vacated her room to
accommodate the visitor, and had forgotten to remove her nightdress.

The visit had more important consequences. Captain Pasley very soon saw
that he had an exceptional lad before him, and at once put him on the
Alert. He was entered as "lieutenant's servant" on October 23rd, 1789. He
remained there for rather more than seven months, learning the practical
part of a sailor's business. On May 17th, 1790, he was able to present
himself to Captain Pasley on the Scipio at Chatham, as an aspirant of
more than ordinary efficiency; and remained under his command until the
next year, following him as a midshipman when he left the Scipio for the
Bellerophon in July, 1790.

This famous ship, which carried 74 guns, and was launched in 1786, is
chiefly known to history as the vessel upon which Napoleon surrendered to
Captain Maitland on July 15th, 1815, after the Waterloo debacle. She took
a prominent part in Nelson's great battles at the Nile and Trafalgar. But
her end was pitifully ignoble. After a glorious and proud career, she was
converted into a convict hulk and re-named the Captivity. A great prose
master has reminded us, in words that glow upon his impassioned page, of
the slight thought given by the practical English to the fate of another
line-of-battle ship that had flown their colours in the stress of war.
"Those sails that strained so full bent into the battle, that broad bow
that struck the surf aside, enlarging silently in steadfast haste full
front to the shot, those triple ports whose choirs of flame rang forth in
their courses, into the fierce avenging monotone, which, when it died
away, left no answering voice to rise any more upon the sea against the
strength of England, those sides that were wet with the long runlets of
English life-blood, like press-planks at vintage, gleaming goodly crimson
down to the cast and clash of the washing foam, those pale masts that
stayed themselves up against the war-ruin, shaking out their ensigns
through the thunder, till sail and ensign drooped, steeped in the
death-stilled pause of Andalusian air, burning with its witness clouds of
human souls at rest--surely for these some sacred care might have been
left in our thoughts, some quiet resting place amidst the lapse of
English waters? Nay, not so, we have stern keepers to trust her glory to,
the fire and the worm. Never more shall sunset lay golden robe on her,
nor starlight tremble on the waves that part at her gliding. Perhaps,
where the gate opens to some cottage garden, the tired traveller may ask,
idly, why the moss grows so green on its rugged wood; and even the
sailor's child may not answer nor know, that the night-dew lies deep in
the war-rents of the wood of the old Temeraire."

But even the decline of might and dignity into decrepitude and oblivion
described in that luminous passage is less pathetic than the conversion
of the glorious Bellerophon, with her untarnished traditions of historic
victories, into a hulk for the punishment of rascals, and the changing of
her unsullied name to an alias significant only of shame.

During this preliminary period Flinders learnt the way about a ship and
acquired instruction in the mechanism of seamanship, but there was as yet
no opportunity to obtain deep-water experience. He was transferred to the
Dictator for a brief period, but as he neither mentions the captain nor
alludes to any other circumstance connected therewith, it was probably a
mere temporary turnover or guardship rating not to lose any time of
service.* (* Naval Chronicle 1814.)

His first chance of learning something about the width of the world and
the wonder of its remote places came in 1791, when he went to sea under
the command of a very remarkable man. William Bligh had sailed with James
Cook on his third and fatal voyage of discovery, 1776 to 1780. He was
twenty-three years of age when he was selected by that sagacious leader
as one of those young officers who "under my direction could be usefully
employed in constructing charts, in taking views of the coasts and
headlands near which we should pass, and in drawing plans of the bays and
harbours in which we should anchor;" for Cook recognised that constant
attention to these duties was "wholly requisite if he would render our
discoveries profitable to future navigators."* (* Cook's Voyages edition
of 1821 5 page 92.)

Bligh's name appears frequently in Cook's Journal, and is also mentioned
in King's excellent narrative of the conclusion of the voyage after
Cook's murder. He was master of the Resolution, and was on several
occasions entrusted with tasks of some consequence: as for instance on
first reaching Hawaii, when Cook sent him ashore to look for fresh water,
and again at Kealakeakura Bay (January 16, 1779) when he reported that he
had found good anchorage and fresh water "in a situation admirable to
come at." It was a fatal discovery, for on the white sands of that bay, a
month later (February 14), the great British seaman fell, speared by the
savages.

On each of Cook's voyages a call had been made at Tahiti in the Society
group. Bligh no doubt heard much about the charms of the place before he
first saw it himself. He was destined to have his own name associated
with it in a highly romantic and adventurous manner. The idyllic beauty
of the life of the Tahitians, their amiable and seductive
characteristics, the warm suavity of the climate, the profusion of food
and drink to be enjoyed on the island with the smallest conceivable
amount of exertion, made the place stand out in all the narratives of
Cook's expeditions like a green-and-golden gem set in a turquoise sea, a
lotos-land "in which it seemed always afternoon," a paradise where love
and plenty reigned and care and toil were not. George Forster, the German
naturalist who accompanied Cook on his second voyage, wrote of the men as
"models of masculine beauty," whose perfect proportions would have
satisfied the eye of Phidias or Praxiteles; of the women as beings whose
"unaffected smiles and a wish to please ensure them mutual esteem and
love;" and of the life they led as being diversified between bathing in
cool streams, reposing under tufted trees, feeding on luscious fruits,
telling tales, and playing the flute. In fact, Forster declared, they
"resembled the happy, indolent people whom Ulysses found in Phaeacia, and
could apply the poet's lines to themselves with peculiar propriety:

'To dress, to dance, to sing our sole delight,
The feast or bath by day, and love by night.'"

In Tahiti grew an abundance of breadfruit. It was in connection with this
nutritious food, one of nature's richest gifts to the Pacific, that Bligh
undertook a mission which involved him in a mutiny, launched him upon one
of the most dangerous and difficult voyages in the annals of British
seamanship, and provided a theme for a long poem by one of the greatest
of English authors. Byron it was who, writing as though the trees
sprouted quartern loaves ready baked, said of it (The Island 2 11):

"The bread-tree, which without the ploughshare yields
The unreaped harvest of unfurrowed fields,
And bakes its unadulterated loaves
Without a furnace in unpurchased groves,
And flings off famine from its fertile breast,
A priceless market for the gathering guest."

Breadfruit had been tasted and described by Dampier in the seventeenth
century. His description of it has all the terse directness peculiar to
the writing of the inquisitive buccaneer, with a touch of quaintness that
makes the passage desirable to quote:* (* Dampier's Voyages edition of
1729 1 page 294.)

"The breadfruit, as we call it, grows on a large tree as big and as tall
as our largest apple trees. It hath a spreading head full of branches and
dark leaves. The fruit grows on the boughs like apples; it is as big as a
penny loaf when wheat is at five shillings the bushel. The natives of
this island (Suam) use it for bread. They gather it when full-grown; then
they bake it in an oven, which scorcheth the rind and makes it black; but
they scrape off the outside black crust and there remains a tender thin
crust and the inside is soft, tender and white, like the crumb of a penny
loaf. There is neither seed nor stone in the inside, but all is of a pure
substance like bread; it must be eaten new, for if it is kept above
twenty-four hours it becomes dry and eats harsh and chokey; but 'tis very
pleasant before it is too stale."

By Dampier, who in the course of his astonishing career had consumed many
strange things--who found shark's flesh "good entertainment," and roast
opossum "sweet wholesome meat"--toleration in the matter of things edible
was carried to the point of latitudinarianism. We never find Dampier
squeamish about anything which anybody else could eat with relish. To
him, naturally, the first taste of breadfruit was pleasing. But Cook was
more critical. "The natives seldom make a meal without it," he said,
"though to us the taste was as disagreeable as that of a pickled olive
generally is the first time it is eaten." That opinion, perhaps, accords
with the common experience of neophytes in tropical gastronomy. But new
sensations in the matter of food are not always to be depended on. Sir
Joseph Banks disliked bananas when he first tasted them.

The immense popularity of Cook's voyages spread afar the fame of
breadfruit as an article of food. Certain West Indian planters were of
opinion that it would be advantageous to establish the trees on their
islands and to encourage the consumption of the fruit by their slaves.
Not only was it considered that the use of breadfruit would cheapen the
cost of the slaves' living, but--a consideration that weighed both with
the planters and the British Government in view of existing relations
with the United States--it was also believed that it would "lessen the
dependence of the sugar islands on North America for food and
necessaries."* (* Bryan Edwards History of the British West Indies 1819 1
40.)

The planters petitioned the Government to fit out an expedition to
transplant trees from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Sir Joseph Banks
strongly supported them, and Lord Hood, then First Lord of the Admiralty,
was sympathetic. In August, 1787, Lieutenant Bligh was appointed to the
command of the Bounty, was directed to sail to the Society Islands, to
take on board "as many trees and plants as may be thought necessary," and
to transplant them to British possessions in the West Indies.

The vessel sailed, with two skilled gardeners on board to superintend the
selection and treatment of the plants. Tahiti was duly reached, and the
business of the expedition was taken in hand. One thousand and fifteen
fine trees were chosen and carefully stowed. But the comfortable
indolence, the luxuriant abundance, the genial climate, the happy
hospitality of the handsome islanders, and their easy freedom from
compunction in reference to restraints imposed by law and custom in
Europe, had a demoralising effect upon the crew of the Bounty. A stay of
twenty-three weeks at the island sufficed to subvert discipline and to
persuade some of Bligh's sailors that life in Tahiti was far preferable
to service in the King's Navy under the rule of a severe and exacting
commander.

When the Bounty left Tahiti on April 14, 1787, reluctance plucked at the
heart of many of the crew. The morning light lay tenderly upon the plumes
of the palms, and a light wind filled the sails of the ship as she glided
out of harbour. As the lazy lapping wash of the waters against the low
outer fringe of coral was lost to the ear, the Bounty breasted the deep
ocean; and as the distinguishable features of green tree, white sand,
brown earth, and grey rock faded out of vision, wrapped in a haze of
blue, till at last the only pronounced characteristic of the island
standing up against the sky and sea was the cap of Point Venus at the
northern extremity--the departure must have seemed to some like that of
Tannhauser from the enchanted mountain, except that the legendary hero
was glad to make his return to the normal world, whereas all of Bligh's
company were not. For them, westward, whither they were bound,

"There gaped the gate
Whereby lost souls back to the cold earth went."

The discipline of ship's life, and the stormings and objurgations of the
commanding officer, chafed like an iron collar. At length a storm burst.

On April 28 the Bounty was sailing towards Tofoa, another of the Society
Islands. Just before sunrise on the following morning Bligh was aroused
from sleep, seized and bound in his cabin by a band of mutineers, led out
by the master's mate, Fletcher Christian, and, with eighteen companions,
dropped into a launch and bidden to depart. The followers of Christian
were three midshipmen and twenty-five petty officers and sailors. They
turned the head of the Bounty back towards their island paradise; and as
they sailed away, the mariners in the tossing little boat heard them
calling "Hurrah for Tahiti!"

The frail craft in which the nineteen loyalists were compelled to attempt
to traverse thousands of miles of ocean, where the navigation is perhaps
the most intricate in the world, was but 23 feet long by 6 feet 9 inches
broad and 2 feet 9 inches deep. Their provisions consisted of 150 pounds
of bread, 16 pieces of pork, each about two pounds in weight, six quarts
of rum, six bottles of wine, and 28 gallons of water. With this scanty
stock of nourishment, in so small a boat, Bligh and his companions
covered 3618 miles, crossing the western Pacific, sailing through Torres
Strait, and ultimately reaching Timor.

That Bligh was somewhat deficient in tact and sympathy in handling men,
cross-grained, harsh, and obstinate, is probably true. His language was
often lurid, he lavished foul epithets upon his crew, and he was not
reluctant to follow terms of abuse by vigorous chastisement. He called
Christian a "damned hound," some of the men "scoundrels, thieves and
rascals," and he met a respectful remonstrance with the retort: "You
damned infernal scoundrels, I'll make you eat grass or anything you can
catch before I have done with you." Naval officers of the period were not
addicted to addressing their men in the manner of a lady with a pet
canary. Had Bligh's language been the head and front of his offending, he
would hardly have shocked an eighteenth century fo'c'sle. But his
disposition does not seem to have bound men to him. He generated dislike.
Nevertheless it is credible that the explanation which he gave goes far
to explain the mutiny. He held that the real cause was a species of
sensuous intoxication which had corrupted his crew.

"The women of Tahiti," Bligh wrote, "are handsome, mild and cheerful in
their manners and conversation, possessed of great sensibility, and have
sufficient delicacy to make them admired and loved. The chiefs were so
much attached to our people that they rather encouraged their stay among
them than otherwise, and even made them promises of large possessions.
Under these and other attendant circumstances equally desirable, it is
perhaps not so much to be wondered at, though scarcely possible to have
been foreseen, that a set of sailors, many of them void of connections,
should be led away; especially when in addition to such powerful
inducements they imagined it in their power to fix themselves in the
midst of plenty on one of the finest islands in the world, where they
need not labour, and where the allurements of dissipation are beyond
anything that can be conceived...Had their mutiny been occasioned by any
grievance, either real or imaginary, I must have discovered symptoms of
their discontent, which would have put me on my guard; but the case was
far otherwise. Christian in particular I was on the most friendly terms
with; that very day he was engaged to have dined with me; and the
preceding night he excused himself from supping with me on pretence of
being unwell, for which I felt concerned, having no suspicions of his
integrity and honour."

Support is given to Bligh's explanation by a statement alleged to have
been made by Fletcher Christian a few years later, the genuineness of
which, however, is open to serious question. If it could be accepted,
Christian acquitted his commander of having contributed to the mutiny by
harsh conduct. He ascribed the occurrence "to the strong predilection we
had contracted for living in Tahiti, where, exclusive of the happy
disposition of the inhabitants, the mildness of the climate, and the
fertility of the soil, we had formed certain tender connections which
banished the remembrance of old England from our breasts." The weight of
evidence justifies the belief that Bligh, though a sailor of unequivocal
skill and dauntless courage, was an unlikeable man, and that aversion to
service under him was a factor contributing to the mutiny which cannot be
explained away.

Bligh is the connecting link between Cook and Flinders. Bligh learned
under Cook to experience the thrilling pleasure of discovery and to
pursue opportunities in that direction in a scientific spirit. Flinders
learnt the same lesson under Bligh, and bettered the instruction. Cook is
the first great scientific navigator whose name is associated with the
construction of the map of Australia; so much can be said without
disparagement of the adventurous Dutchmen who pieced together the outline
of the western and northern coasts. Flinders was the second; and Bligh,
pupil of the one and teacher of the other, deserves a better fate than to
be remembered chiefly as a sinister figure in two historic mutinies, that
of the Bounty, and that which ended his governorship of New South Wales
in 1808. Much worse men have done much worse things than he, have less
that is brave, honourable, enterprising and original to their credit, and
yet are remembered without ignominy. It is said by Hooker: "as oftentimes
the vices of wicked men do cause other their commendable virtues to be
abhorred, so the honour of great men's virtues is easily a cloak to their
errors." Bligh fell short of being a great man, but neither was he a bad
man; and the merit of his achievements, both as a navigator and amid the
shock of battle (especially at Copenhagen in 1801, under Nelson), must
not be overlooked, even though stern history will not permit his errors
to be cloaked.

Notwithstanding the failure of the Bounty expedition, Sir Joseph Banks
pressed upon the Government the desirableness of transplanting breadfruit
trees to the West Indies. He also proved a staunch friend to Bligh. The
result was that the Admiralty resolved to equip a second enterprise for
the same purpose, and to entrust the command of it to the same officer.

We may now follow the fortunes of Matthew Flinders under the tutelage of
this energetic captain.


CHAPTER 3. A VOYAGE UNDER BLIGH.

Bligh's second expedition was authorised by the admiralty in March, 1791,
and the commander was consulted as to "what sort of vessel may be best
adapted to the object in view." The Providence, a 28-gun ship, was
chosen, with the brig Assistant as a tender. The latter was placed in
charge of Lieutenant Nathaniel Portlock. Flinders, eager for sea
experience, joined the Providence as a midshipman on May 8th, and thus
had the advantage of being under the immediate direction of her captain.

He took this step with Pasley's concurrence, if not actually upon his
advice. The captain wrote him an encouraging letter asking him to send
from time to time observations on places visited during the voyage; and
his protege complied with the injunction. It is to this fact that we owe
some entertaining passages from young Flinders' pen concerning the
voyage. The letters despatched to Pasley are lost; but Flinders, with the
love of neatness which was ever characteristic of him, sent only fair
copies, and some of his original drafts remain in manuscript. Pasley's
letter was as follows:* (*Flinders' Papers.)

Bellerophon, Spithead, June 3rd, 1791.

Dear Flinders,

I am favoured with your letter on your return from visiting your friends
at the country, and I am pleased to hear that you are so well satisfied
with your situation on board the Providence. I have little doubt of your
gaining the good opinion of Capt. Bligh, if you are equally attentive to
your duty there as you were in the Bellerophon. All that I have to
request in return for the good offices I have done you is that you never
fail writing me by all possible opportunities during your voyage; and
that in your letters you will be very particular and circumstantial in
regard to every thing and place you may chance to see or visit, with your
own observations thereon. Do this, my young friend, and you may rest
assured that my good offices will not be wanting some future day for your
advancement. All on board are well. Present my kind remembrances to
Captain and Mrs. Bligh, and believe me, yours very sincerely,

THOMAS PASLEY.

The Providence and Assistant left England on August 2nd. From Santa Cruz
in Teneriffe Flinders sent his first letter to Captain Pasley. It is
worth while to quote a few passages:* (* Flinders' Papers.)

"Not a large town; streets wide, ill-paved and irregular. The houses of
the principal inhabitants large; have little furniture, but are airy and
pleasant, suitable to the climate. Most of them have balconies, where the
owners sit and enjoy the air. Those of the lower classes ill-built,
dirty, and almost without furniture. In the square where the market is
held, near the pier, is a tolerably elegant marble obelisk in honour of
our Lady of Candelaria, the tutelar goddess of the place. The Spaniards
erected this statue, calling it Our Lady, keeping up some semblance of
the ancient worship that they might better keep the Tenerifeans in
subjection. At the top of the obelisk is placed the statue, and at its
base are four well executed figures, representing the ancient kings or
princes of Teneriffe, each of which has the shin-bone of a man's leg in
his hand. This image is held in great honour by the lower classes of
people, who tell many absurd stories of its first appearance in the
island, the many miracles she has wrought, etc.

"We visited a nunnery of the order of St. Dominic. In the chapel was a
fine statue of the Virgin Mary, with four wax candles burning before her.
Peeping through the bars, we perceived several fine young women at
prayers. A middle-aged woman opened the door halfway, but would by no
means suffer us to enter this sanctified spot. None of the nuns would be
prevailed upon to come near us. However, they did not seem at all
displeased at our visit, but presented us with a sweet candy they call
Dulce, and some artificial flowers, in return for which Mr. Smith* (* The
botanist.) gave them a dollar. In general these people appear to be a
merry, good-natured people, and are courteous to and appear happy to see
strangers. We found this always the case, although they said we were no
Christians: but they generally took care to make us pay well for what we
had. They live principally upon fruits and roots, are fond of singing and
dancing, and upon the whole they live as lazily, as contentedly, and in
as much poverty as any French peasant would wish to do."

The Cape of Good Hope was reached in October, and Flinders told Captain
Pasley what he thought of the Dutch colonists:

"The Dutch, from having great quantities of animal food, are rather
corpulent. Nevertheless they keep up their national characteristic for
carefulness. Neither are they very polite. A stranger will be treated
with a great deal of ceremony, but when you come to the solid part of a
compliment their generosity is at a stand. Of all the people I ever saw
these are the most ceremonious. Every man is a soldier and wears his
square-rigged hat, sword, epaulets, and military uniform. They never pass
each other without a formal bow, which even descends to the lowest ranks,
and it is even seen in the slaves."

On April 10th, 1792, Bligh's ships anchored at Tahiti, where they
remained till July 19th. There was no disturbance this time, and the
relations between Bligh and his crew were not embarrassed by the
indulgent kindness of the islanders. Their hospitality was not deficient,
but a wary vigilance was exercised.

At Tahiti Bligh found the major part of the crew of a whaler, the
Matilda, which had been wrecked about six days' sail from the island.
Some of the men accepted passages on the Providence and the Assistant;
some preferred to remain with the natives; one or two had already
departed in one of the lost ship's boats to make their way to Sydney.* (*
This incident is reported in the Star, a London newspaper, March 2nd,
1793.) Two male Tahitians were persuaded to accompany the expedition,
with a view to their exhibition before the Royal Society, in England,
when at length, laden with 600 breadfruit trees, it sailed for the West
Indies.

The route followed from the Friendly Islands to the Caribbean Sea was not
via Cape Horn (since that cold and stormy passage would have destroyed
every plant), but back across the Pacific, through Torres Strait to
Timor, thence across the Indian Ocean and round the Cape of Good Hope.
St. Helena was reached on December 17, and Bligh brought his ships safely
to Kingston, St. Vincent's, on January 13th 1793. Three hundred
breadfruit trees were landed at that island, and a like number taken to
Jamaica. The plants were in excellent condition, some of them eleven feet
high, with leaves 36 inches long. The gardener in charge reported to Sir
Joseph Banks that the success of the transplantations "exceeded the most
sanguine expectation." The sugar planters were delighted, and voted Bligh
500 pounds for his services.* (* Southey, History of the West Indies,
1827 3 61.) To accentuate the contrast between the successful second
expedition and the lamentable voyage of the Bounty, it is notable that
only one case of sickness occurred on the way, and that from Kingston it
was reported that "the healthy appearance of every person belonging to
the expedition is remarkable."* (* Annual Register 1793 page 6.)

But though nothing in the nature of a mutiny marred the voyage, Flinders'
journal shows that Bligh's harshness occasioned discontent. There was a
shortness of water on the run from the Pacific to the West Indies, and as
the breadfruit plants had to be watered, and their safe carriage was the
main object of the voyage, the men had to suffer. Flinders and others
used to lick the drops that fell from the cans to appease their thirst,
and it was considered a great favour to get a sip. The crew thought they
were unfairly treated, and somebody mischievously watered some plants
with sea-water. When Bligh discovered the offence, he flew into a rage
and "longed to flog the whole company." But the offender could not be
discovered, and the irate captain had to let his passion fret itself out.

Bligh published no narrative of this expedition; but Flinders was already
accustoming himself to keep careful notes of his observations. Twenty
years later, when preparing the historical introduction to his Voyage to
Terra Australis, he wrote out from his journal (and with Bligh's sanction
published) an account of the passage of the Providence and Assistant
through Torres Strait, as a contribution to the history of navigation and
discovery in that portion of Australasia. From the Pacific to the Indian
Ocean the passage was accomplished in nineteen days. "Perhaps," commented
Flinders, "no space of 3 1/2 degrees in length presents more dangers than
Torres Strait, but with caution and perseverance the captains, Bligh and
Portlock, proved them to be surmountable, and within a reasonable time."
Bligh's Entrance and Portlock Reef, marked on modern charts, are
reminders of a feat of navigation which even nowadays, with the dangers
accurately described, and the well-equipped Torres Strait pilot service
to aid them, mariners recognise as pregnant with serious risks. On this
occasion it was also attended with incidents which make it worth while to
utilise Flinders' notes, since they are of some biographical importance.

The high lands of the south-eastern extremity of Papua (New Guinea), were
passed on August 30th, and at dusk on the following day breakers
"thundering on the reef" were sighted ahead. On September 1st the vessels
edged round the north end of Portlock Reef. Thence the monotonous record
of soundings, shoals, reefs seen and charted, passages tried and
abandoned, in the prolonged attempt to negotiate a clear course through
the baffling coral barrier, is relieved by the story of one or two sharp
brushes with armed Papuans in their long, deftly-handled canoes. On
September 5th, while boats were out investigating a supposed passage near
Darnley Island, several large canoes shot into view. One of these, in
which were fifteen "Indians," black and quite naked, approached the
English cutter, and made signs which were interpreted to be amicable. The
officer in charge, however, suspecting treacherous intentions, did not
think it prudent to go near enough to accept a green cocoanut held up to
him, and kept his men rowing for the ship. Thereupon a native sitting on
the shed erected in the centre of the canoe, called a direction to the
Papuans below him, who commenced to string their bows. The officer
ordered his men to fire in self-defence, and six muskets were discharged.

"The Indians fell flat into the bottom of the canoe, all except the man
on the shed. The seventh musket was fired at him, and he fell also.
During this time the canoe dropped astern; and, the three others having
joined her, they all gave chase to the cutter, trying to cut her off from
the ship; in which they would probably have succeeded, had not the
pinnace arrived at that juncture to her assistance. The Indians then
hoisted their sails and steered for Darnley Island." Flinders had watched
the encounter from the deck of the Providence, and his seaman's word of
admiration for the skill of the savages in the management of their
canoes, is notable. "No boats could have been manoeuvred better in
working to windward, than were these canoes of the naked savages. Had the
four been able to reach the cutter, it is difficult to say whether the
superiority of our arms would have been equal to the great difference of
numbers, considering the ferocity of these people and the skill with
which they seemed to manage their weapons."

Five days later, between Dungeness and Warrior Islands, there was a
livelier encounter. A squadron of canoes attacked both ships in a daring
and vigorous fashion. The Assistant was pressed with especial severity,
so that Portlock had to signal for help. A volley of musketry had little
effect upon the Papuans; and when one wing of the attacking squadron,
numbering eight canoes, headed for the Providence, and a musket was fired
at the foremost, the natives responded with a great shout and paddled
forward in a body." Bligh had one of the great guns of the ship loaded
with round and grape shot, and fired fair into the first of the long
Papuan war canoes, which were full of savage assailants. The round shot
raked the whole length of the craft, and struck the high stern. Men from
other canoes, with splendid bravery, leaped into the water, and swam to
the assistance of their comrades, "plunging constantly to avoid the
musket balls which showered thickly about them." So hard was the attack
pressed, that three of the Assistant's crew were wounded, one afterwards
dying; and "the depth to which the arrows penetrated into the decks and
sides of the brig was reported to be truly astonishing." But bows and
arrows, on this as on many another occasion, were no match for gunnery;
so that, after a hot peppering, the Papuans gave up the fight, paddling
back to a safe distance as fast as they could, without exposing
themselves to fire. They rallied beyond reach of musket balls, as though
for a second onslaught, but a shot fired over their heads from the
Providence served to convince them of the hopelessness of their
endeavour, and they abandoned it.

An incident not without heroic pathos is recorded by Flinders. One native
was left sitting alone in the canoe which the gun-shot of the Providence
had raked and splintered. The men in the canoes which had made good their
flight observed their solitary companion, and some of them returned to
him; whereafter "with glasses, signals were perceived to be made by the
Indians to their friends on Dungeness Island, expressive, as was thought,
of grief and consternation." Whether the lone warrior was too severely
wounded to be moved, or whether he was some Papuan Casabianca clinging to
his shattered craft "whence all but he had fled" or been killed, or
hurled into the sea, we are not told. But that canoe had been foremost in
attack, perhaps the flagship of the squadron; and the memory of that
solitary warrior still sitting upon the floating wreck while his defeated
companions returned to him, and then left him, to explain his case with
gestures of grief to those on the island, clings to the memory of the
reader, as it did to that of the young observer and historian of the
encounter.

No more natives were seen during the passage through Torres Strait, nor
were there other incidents to enliven the narrative, unless we include
the formal "taking possession of all the islands seen in the Strait for
His Britannic Majesty George III, with the ceremonies used on such
occasions" (September 16). The name bestowed upon the whole group of
islands was Clarence's Archipelago.

Flinders described the natives whom he saw carefully and accurately; and
his account of their boats, weapons, and mode of warfare is concise and
good. Some friendly Darnley Islanders were described as stoutly made,
with bushy hair; the cartilage between the nostrils cut away; the lobes
of the ears split, and stretched "to a good length." "They had no kind of
clothing, but wore necklaces of cowrie shells fastened to a braid of
fibres; and some of their companions had pearl-oyster shells hung round
their necks. In speaking to each other, their words seemed to be
distinctly pronounced. Their arms were bows, arrows, and clubs, which
they bartered for every kind of iron work with eagerness, but appeared to
set little value on anything else. The bows are made of split bamboo, and
so strong that no man in the ship could bend one of them. The string is a
broad slip of cane fixed to one end of the bow; and fitted with a noose
to go over the other end when strung. The arrow is a cane of about four
feet long, into which a pointed piece of the hard, heavy, casuarina wood
is firmly and neatly fitted; and some of them were barbed. Their clubs
are made of casuarina, and are powerful weapons. The hand part is
indented, and has a small knob, by which the firmness of the grasp is
much assisted; and the heavy end is usually carved with some device. One
had the form of a parrots head, with a ruff round the neck, and was not
ill done.

"Their canoes are about fifty feet in length, and appear to have been
hollowed out of a single tree; and the pieces which form the gunwales are
planks sewed on with fibres of the cocoanut and secured with pegs. These
vessels are low forward, but rise abaft; and, being narrow, are fitted
with an outrigger on each side to keep them steady. A raft, of greater
breadth than the canoe, extends over about half the length, and upon this
is fixed a shed or hut, thatched with palm leaves. These people, in
short, appeared to be dexterous sailors and formidable warriors, and to
be as much at ease in the water as in their canoes."

On September 19th the two ships, with caution and perseverance, had
threaded their dangerous way through the intricate maze of reefs and
shoals of Torres Strait, and found open sea to the westward. In latitude
10 degrees 8 1/2 minutes "no land was in sight, nor did anything more
obstruct Captain Bligh and his associates in their route to the island
Timor."

It is easy to imagine the delight with which these experiences thrilled
the young midshipman on the Providence. His eighteenth birthday was spent
in the Pacific, in the early Autumn of a hemisphere where the sea was not
yet cloven by innumerable keels, and where beauty, enchantment and
mystery lay upon life and nature like a spell. A few years previously he
had been a schoolboy in the flattest, most monotonous of English shires.
Broad fields, dykes and fen had composed the landscape most familiar to
his eye. In these surroundings he had dreamed, as a boy will, of
palm-fanned islands in distant climes, of adventures with savage peoples,
of strange seas where great fishes are, and where romance touches all
that is with its purple light. Far horizons steeped in marvels had
bounded the vision of his imagining eye. His passion was to see and do in
realms at the back of the sunrise. He wanted to sail and explore in parts
represented by blank spaces on the map.

These dreams of the boy, basking with Robinson Crusoe under remote skies,
were suddenly translated into a reality as dazzling-bright and wonderful
as anything pictured in pages often and fondly conned. This was his first
voyage, and he was serving under a commander who had lived the romance
that other men wrote and read about, who was himself a living part of an
adventure whose story will be told and re-told to the centuries, and who
had served under as great and noble a captain as ever trod an English
deck.

The very nature of the voyage was bound to stimulate that "passion for
exploring new countries," to use Flinders' own phrase, the hope for which
was a strong factor in prompting him to choose the sea as a career. It
was a voyage whose primary object involved a stay in two of the loveliest
regions on the earth, the paradise of the Pacific and the gem-like
Antilles. The pride and pleasure of participation in discovery were his
forthwith. A new passage through an intricate and dangerous Strait was
found and charted; a whole archipelago was delineated, named, and taken
possession of for the British nation. The world's knowledge was
increased. There was something put down on the map which was not there
before. The contact with the islanders in the Strait gave a brisk element
of adventure to the expedition; and certainly Papuan warriors are foes as
wild and weird as any adventurer can desire to meet. The rescuing of
wrecked mariners at Tahiti added a spice of adventure of another sort.
From beginning to end, indeed, this voyage must have been as full of
charm as of utility.

The effect it had upon the future life of Matthew Flinders was very
striking. The whole of the salient features of his later career follow
from it. He made the most of his opportunities. Captain Bligh found him a
clever assistant in the preparation of charts and in making astronomical
observations. Indeed, says an expert writer, although Flinders was as yet
"but a juvenile navigator, the latter branch of scientific service and
the care of the timekeepers were principally entrusted to him."* (* Naval
Chronicle Volume 32 180.) These facts indicate that he was applying
himself seriously to the scientific side of his profession, and that he
had won the confidence of a captain who was certainly no over-indulgent
critic of subordinates.

The Providence and the Assistant returned to England in the latter part
of 1793. Before Flinders once more sighted the Australian coastline he
was to experience the sensations of battle, and to take a small part in
the first of the series of naval engagements connected with the
Revolutionary and Napoleonic era.


CHAPTER 4. THE BATTLE OFF BREST.

When Bligh's expedition returned, Europe was staggering under the shock
of the French Revolution. The head of Louis XVI was severed in January;
the knife of Charlotte Corday was plunged into the heart of Marat in
July; Marie Antoinette, the grey discrowned Queen of thirty-eight,
mounted the scaffold in October. The guillotine was very busy, and France
was frantic amid internal disruption and the menace of a ring of foes.

The English governing classes had been clamouring for war. It seemed to
many political observers that it was positively needful to launch the
country into an international struggle to divert attention from demands
for domestic reform. "Democratic ambition was awakened; the desire of
power, under the name of reform, was rapidly gaining ground among the
middling ranks; the only mode of checking the evil was by engaging in a
foreign contest, by drawing off the ardent spirits into active service
and, in lieu of the modern desire for innovation, rousing the ancient
gallantry of the British people."* (* Alison, History of Europe, 1839 2
128.) French military operations in the Netherlands, running counter to
traditional British policy, were provocative, and the feeling aroused by
the execution of Louis immediately led Pitt's ministry to order the
French Ambassador, Chauvelin, to leave London within eight days. He left
at once. On February 1st, acting on Chauvelin's report of the disposition
and preparations of Great Britain, France formally declared war.

Flinders was with Bligh, peacefully landing breadfruit trees in the West
Indies, when this momentous opening of a twenty-two years' conflict
occurred. When the expedition reached England, every port and dockyard on
the south coast was humming with preparations for a great naval struggle.
The Channel Fleet, under Lord Howe's command, was cruising in search of
the enemy's ships of war. Flinders' patron, Pasley, who had hoisted his
broad pennant as commodore on the Bellerophon, was actively engaged in
this service. In October, 1793, he was detached by Howe to look for five
French vessels that had some time before chased the British frigate Circe
into Falmouth. Howe himself, with a fleet of 22 sail, put to sea later in
the same month. On November 18 his squadron sighted six French ships of
the line and some frigates, and gave chase. But they were seen late in
the day, and soon darkness prevented an engagement. On the following
morning the enemy was again sighted by the chasing squadron under Pasley;
but the Latona signalled that the French were in superior strength, and
the British detachment retired.* (* James, Naval History, 1837 1 60.)
Howe's cruise was barren of results, and the British fleet returned to
Torbay. Naval operations were suspended for several months.

Flinders naturally took advantage of the earliest opportunity to report
himself to the friend who had first helped him into the King's Navy.
Pasley, who was promoted on April 12th, 1794, to the rank of Rear-Admiral
of the White, again welcomed him on board the Bellerophon and, hearing
from Captain Bligh excellent accounts of his diligence and usefulness,
appointed him one of his aides-de-camp. It was in this capacity that he
took part in the great battle off Brest on June 1st, 1794, signalised in
British naval history as "the glorious First of June."

Lord Howe, with the Channel Fleet (thirty-four ships of the line and
fifteen frigates) put to sea on May 2nd with two purposes: first, to
convoy to a safe distance from the probable field of hostilities a
squadron of 148 British merchantmen bound for various ports; second, to
intercept and destroy a French fleet which was known to be convoying a
large company of provision-ships from America. War, bad harvests, the
disorganization of industry, and revolutionary upheavals, had produced an
acute scarcity of food in France, and the arrival of these vessels was
awaited with intense anxiety. To prevent their arrival, or to destroy the
French squadron, would be to strike a serious blow at the enemy. Howe had
under him a fleet eager for fight; against him, a foe keenly aware how
vitally necessary to their country was the arrival of the food-ships.

The French fleet (twenty-six ships of the line) under the command of
Villaret-Joyeuse, put to sea from Brest on May 16. Some foggy days
intervened. On the 28th Howe sighted them. The French admiral formed his
ships in a close line. Howe's plan was first to get his fleet to windward
of the enemy, then to sail down, pierce his line, and engage his vessels
to leeward.

The Bellerophon was in action shortly after coming within striking
distance, on the 28th May. Pasley, at six o'clock in the evening,
attacked the French rear, his immediate antagonist being the
Revolutionnaire, 110 guns. A hot duel, maintained with splendid
intrepidity by the British rear-admiral, continued for over an hour and a
quarter, for the other ships of the British fleet were unable to get up
to support the fast-sailing Bellerophon. She was severely handled by her
large antagonist, and was hampered in her ability to manoeuvre by a shot
which injured her mainmast. Pasley therefore, on a signal from the
Admiral, bore up. The Revolutionnaire was now attacked from a distance by
the Russell, the Marlborough and the Thunderer, and endeavoured to make
off, but was blocked by the Leviathan. The Audacious (74) took up the
work which the Bellerophon had commenced, and, laying herself on the lee
quarter of the Revolutionnaire, poured a rain of shot into her. The fight
was continued in a rough sea far into the twilight of that early summer
evening; until, about 10 o'clock, the Revolutionnaire was a mere floating
hulk. Her flag had either been lowered or shot down, but she was not
captured, and was towed into Rochefort on the following day. The
Audacious was so badly knocked about that she was of no use for later
engagements, and was sent home.

This was Matthew Flinders' first taste of war.

Howe's plan for the big battle that was imminent involved much
manoeuvring, and, as Nelson wrote in his celebrated "plan of attack"
before Trafalgar, "a day is soon lost in that business." The British
manoeuvred to get the weather gauge; Villaret-Joyeuse to keep it. On May
29th Howe in the Queen Charlotte pierced the French line with two other
ships, the Bellerophon and the Leviathan, and there was some fighting.
The Bellerophon got to windward of the enemy by passing in front of the
French Terrible (110), and put in some excellent gunnery practice. She
sailed so close to the French ship to starboard as almost to touch her,
and brought down the enemy's topmast and lower yards with a broadside,
whilst at the same time she raked the Terrible with her larboard guns.*
(* There is an interesting engraving of the Bellerophon passing through
the French line and firing both her broadsides in the Naval Chronicle
Volume 1, and a plan of the manoeuvre, showing the course of the
Bellerophon, in James's Naval History.)

May 30 and 31 were foggy days, and neither fleet could see the other. On
June 1st there was a blue sky, a brilliant sun, a lively sea, and a wind
that favoured the plans of the British Admiral. The signal for close
action was flown from the masthead of the Queen Charlotte. Howe ordered
his ships to sail on an oblique course down upon the French line, the two
fleets having during the night lain in parallel lines stretching east and
west. The intention was to break the French line near the centre, each
British captain sailing round the stern of his antagonist, and fighting
her to leeward, thus concentrating the attack on the enemy's rear,
cutting it off from the van, and preventing flight.

The Bellerophon was the second ship in the British line, next after the
Caesar. Flinders was upon the quarterdeck as she steered through her
selected gap, which was on the weather quarter of the Eole; and an
anecdote of his behaviour on that memorable occasion fortunately
survives. The guns on the quarterdeck were loaded and primed ready for
use, but Pasley did not intend to fire them until he had laid himself on
the lee of his chosen adversary, and could pour a broadside into her with
crushing effect. There was a moment when the gunners were aloft trimming
sails. As the Bellerophon was passing close under the stern of the French
three-decker--within musket-shot, James says--* (* Naval History 1 154.)
Flinders seized a lighted match and rapidly fired as many of the
quarterdeck guns as would plump shot fairly into her.* (* Naval Chronicle
32 180.) Pasley saw him and, shaking him by the collar, said, sternly:
"How dare you do that, youngster, without my orders?" Flinders replied
that he "thought it a fine chance to have a shot at 'em." So it was,
though not in conformity with orders; and probably Pasley, as good a
fighter as there was in the fleet, liked his young aide-de-camp rather
the more for his impetuous action.

The guns of the Bellerophon were opened upon the Eole at 8.45, and
battered her severely. The British vessel was subjected in turn, however,
not only to the fire of her chosen victim, but also to that of the
Trajan. At ten minutes to eleven o'clock a shot from the Eole took off
Pasley's leg, and he was carried down to the cockpit, whereupon the
command devolved upon Captain William Hope. It must have been a
distressing moment for Flinders, despite the intense excitement of
action, when his friend and commander fell; it was indeed, as will be
seen, a crucial moment in his career. A doggerel bard of the time
enshrined the event in a verse as badly in need of surgical aid as were
the heroes whom it celebrates:

"Bravo, Bowyer, Pasley, Captain Hutt,
Each lost a leg, being sorely hurt;
Their lives they valued but as dirt,
When that their country called them!"*

(* Naval Songs and Ballads, Publications of the Navy Record Society,
Volume 33 270.)

The fight was continued with unflagging vigour, in the absence of the
gallant rear-admiral, who, as another lyrist of the event informs us,
smiled and said:

"Fight on my lads and try
To make these rebel Frenchmen know
That British courage still will flow
To make them strike or die."

At a quarter before noon the Eole had received such a hammering that she
endeavoured to wear round under shelter of her leader; but in doing so
she lost mainmast and foretopmast. The Bellerophon, too, had by this time
been sufficiently hard hit to cause Hope to signal to the Latona for
assistance. Her foretopmast and maintopmast had gone, and her mainmast
was so badly damaged as to be dangerous. Her rigging was cut to pieces,
all her boats were smashed, and she was practically as crippled as was
her brave commander, upon whom the surgeons had been operating down
below, amid the blood of the cockpit and the thunder and smoke of the
cannon.

The battle ended about 1 p.m. The French fleet was badly beaten, and
Villaret-Joyeuse at the end of the day drew back to Brest only a
battered, splintered and ragged remnant of the fine squadron which he had
commanded. Still, the French provision ships slipped by and arrived
safely in port. The squadron had been sent out to enable them to get in,
and in they were, though it had cost a fleet to get them in. Nelson used
the phrase "a Lord Howe victory" disparagingly. Nothing short of a
complete smashing of the enemy and the utter frustration of his purposes
would ever satisfy that ardent soul.

For the sake of clearness, the general scheme of the battle has been
described, together with the part played in it by the Bellerophon; but we
fortunately have a detailed account of it by Flinders himself. Young as
he was, only a few weeks over 20 years of age, he was evidently cool, and
his journal is crowded with carefully observed facts, noted amidst the
heat and confusion of conflict; and it is doubtful whether there is in
existence a better story of this important fleet action. The manuscript
of his journal occupies forty foolscap pages. It is much damaged by
sea-water, the paper in some parts having been rendered quite pulpy. But
the sheets relating to the 1st of June are entirely legible. As the
reader will see, there is here no rhetoric, no excited use of vivid
adjectives to give colour to the story. It is a calmly observed piece of
history. Read attentively, it enables one to live through the stirring
events with which it deals in a singularly thrilling style. We feel the
crash and thunder and hustle of battle far more keenly from the detailed
accumulation of occurrences here presented than any scene-painting prose
could make us do. The journal begins on September 7th, 1793, when
Flinders joined the Bellerophon, and continues till August 10th, 1794,
when he quitted her. In the early part it deals principally with cruising
up and down the Channel looking for the enemy's ships. Occasionally there
was a skirmish. We may select a few instances from this period, before
coming to what immediately preceded the great day:

"Wednesday, 11th (September, 1793) a.m. Hoisted a broad pennant by order
of Lord Howe, Capt.
Pasley being appointed a commodore of the fleet. Weighed and anchored in
our station in Torbay.

"Monday, November 18th.* (* See note below.) Saw nine or ten sail,
seemingly large ships, standing towards us. The admiral made the Russell
and Defence signals to chase, also the Audacious; and soon after ours. By
this time the strange ships had brought to, hull down, to windward,
seemingly in some confusion. The Ganges' signal was also made to chase.
At 9 the Admiral made the sign for the strange fleet being an enemy, and
for our sternmost ships to make more sail. At 10 the signal to engage as
the other ships came up was made. The enemy had now hauled their wind,
and standing from us with as much sail as they could carry. Split one
jib; got another bent as fast as possible. We were now the headmost line
of battle ship and gaining fast upon the enemy; but the main part of our
fleet seemed rather to drop from them. St. Agnes north 34 degrees east 89
miles. Ship all clear for action since 9 o'clock.

"Tuesday, November 19th, 1793. Judge six of the enemy's ships to be of
the line, two frigates and two brigs...On the wind shifting at 4 in a
squall, tacked, as did the Latona, which brought her near the rear of the
enemy's ships, at which she fired several shot; she tacked again at 5,
and fired, which the sternmost of their ships returned. At dark the enemy
passed to windward of us, about 5 or 6 miles...12, set top-gallant-sails,
but obliged to take them in again for fear of carrying away the masts.
Sundry attempts were made during the night to set, but as often obliged
to take them in. At 12 lost sight of all our ships except one frigate.
The weather very hazy, with squalls at times, and at 2 a heavy shower of
rain, which lasted a considerable time. When it cleared a little, saw two
or three of the enemy's ships ahead of the others on the lee bow. Very
thick and hazy, with much rain. Made the signal that the enemy had bore
away. Saw the Latona and Phoenix, who seemed suspicious of each other,
but on discovering they were friends both bore away after one of the
enemy's ships...About 9 the Phoenix and Latona being the only friends in
sight, the latter made the signal for the enemy being superior to the
ships chasing. Soon after we made the signal to call the frigates in...In
the firing the preceding evening the Latona received a shot between wind
and water in the breadroom, and another in the galley; but happily no one
was hurt and but little injury received."

An amusing example of an attempt to "dodge," under false colours, is
related on the following day. The trick did not succeed.

"Wednesday, November 27th, 1793, a.m. Hazy weather. Squadron in company.
Saw a strange ship
to the southward, who hoisted an Union Jack at the main topmast head and
a red flag at the fore. The Phoenix being ahead made the private signal,
but the stranger not answering she made the signal for an enemy. We
immediately made the general signal to chase. At 10 the Phoenix and
Latona fired a few shots at her, upon which she hoisted French colours,
discharged her guns, and struck. She proved to be La Blonde of 28 guns
and 190 men. The squadron brought to. The French captain came on board
and surrendered his sword to the commodore. Separated the prisoners
amongst the squadron. An officer of the Phoenix sent to take charge of
the prize and a party of men from each ship.

"Tuesday, December 1st, 1793. Brought to. The Phoenix sent into Falmouth,
Mr. Waterhouse, Lieutenant, sent in her to take charge of the Blonde
prize."

The French fleet, as related above, put out of Brest on May 16, 1794.
Flinders tells us how they were sighted, and what happened during the
days preceding the great battle:

"Friday, May 23rd. The Southampton brought a strange brig into the fleet
and destroyed her...a.m. A fine little ship, called the Albion, of
Bermuda, set on fire by the Glory. The Aquilon brought a strange ship
into the fleet. A galliot, with Dutch colours inverted, passed through
the fleet, having been set on fire by the Niger...A French man-of-war,
captured and brought into the fleet by the frigates, was set on fire.

"Saturday, May 24. The ship brought into the fleet by the Aquilon left us
and stood to the eastward. She was bound to Hull, and was part of a Dutch
convoy, most of which had been taken and destroyed by the French fleet on
Wednesday last.

"Sunday, May 25th. At daybreak saw four sail to windward; our squadron
sent in chase. Fired a shot and brought to a French brig, man-of-war.
Made signal that the prize was not secure, and chased a large ship
further to windward, apparently of the line, and with another ship in
tow. Tacked as soon as she was on our beam. She had cast off her prize as
soon as we fired at the brig. In passing, fired at and brought to a
French corvette; but left her for the fleet to pick up. Passed to leeward
of the ship the chase had in tow. She appeared to be a large merchantman
and had up American colours. The frigates in chase picked her up soon
after. At 10 the chase was nearly hull down, and gained upon us. Stood
back to the fleet, being recalled by signal. Saw one of the prizes in
flames, and found the three had been destroyed at noon; 162 leagues west
by south of Ushant."

In the ensuing pages we are brought into the thick of the battle.

"Wednesday, May 28th. Saw two strange sail, one of which the Phoenix
spoke, and soon after made signal for a strange fleet south-south-west.
About 8, we counted 33 sail, 24 or 25 of which appeared to be of the
line, and all standing down towards us. At 8.30 our signal was made to
reconnoitre the enemy--as we were now certain they were. A frigate of
their's was likewise looking at us. At noon the enemy's fleet south-west
to west-south-west, on the larboard tack under an easy sail in line
ahead, and distant 3 or 4 leagues. Our fleet 3 or 4 leagues to leeward in
the order of sailing or under a press of sail. Ushant north 82 degrees
east 143 leagues.

"Thursday, May 29th, 1794. Fresh gales with rain at times, and a swell
from the westward. Repeated the general signals for chase, battle, etc.
Kd.* ship occasionally, working to windward under a press of sail, our
squadron and the frigates in company, and our fleet a few miles to
leeward.

(* "Kd. ship" is an expression which puzzled Professor Flinders Petrie,
who appended a note to the Flinders papers, suggesting that it could
hardly mean kedged. Captain Bayldon supplies an exceedingly interesting
explanation:

"Without the least doubt 'Kd. ship' means 'tacked ship.' 'Kd.' is either
a private abbreviation of Flinders' for 'tacked' or else he intended to
have written 'Tkd.' There is no nautical term beginning with K which
would make the least sense under the circumstances. 'Kedged' is utterly
inadmissable; both fleets were under way in pretty heavy weather.
'Working to windward' practically means 'tacking ship.' So why did
Flinders mention an obvious fact, 'tacked ship'? Because the weather was
bad, strong breezes, heavy swell, and therefore it was very hazardous to
tack ship (on account of throwing the sails aback) and also many ships
could not be forced into tacking with a heavy head swell. Consequently it
is usual to wear ship under these conditions (turn her round before the
wind). So he then mentions 'under a press of sail,' to force her up into
the wind (also making it a risky manoeuvre, for they could easily lose
their masts--foremast especially). Hence he was proud of the manoeuvre,
so mentions, 'tacked ship occasionally, under a press of sail.' On the
29th May at 8 a.m., the French van wore in succession. (Fresh wind, heavy
head sea). Soon after noon (Flinders' old nautical time gives May 30th)
Lord Howe signalled the British fleet to tack in succession. The leading
ship, the Caesar, instead of obeying, made the signal of inability and
wore round. The next ship, the Queen, also wore. So (at 1.30 p.m.) Lord
Howe set the example in the Queen Charlotte and tacked. Pasley's
Bellerophon followed him, and tacked also; the Leviathan tacked and
followed her. These three ships were the only ones to tack. All the
remainder wore, and so did the French. Either their captains would not
take the risk, or else could not force their ships through the heavy head
sea. So I expect Flinders and the 'Bully ruffians' felt elated at their
performance and he intended to record 'Tkd. ship.'")

"About 3 the Russell, being a mile or two to windward of us, began to
fire on the enemy's rear, as they were hauling on the larboard tack, and
continued to stand on with the Thunderer and frigates, to get into their
wake. We tacked a little before the rear ship was on our beam, which
enabled us to bring them to action a considerable time before the other
ships could come up to our assistance. Our first fire was directed on a
large frigate which brought up the enemy's rear, but she soon made sail
and went to windward of the next ship (a three-decker)* (* The
Revolutionnaire.) on whom we immediately pointed our guns. In a few
minutes she returned it with great spirit, our distance from her being
something more than a mile. My Lord Howe, seeing us engaged with a
three-decked ship, and the next ahead of him frequently giving us a few
guns, made the Russell and Marlborouqh's signals to come to our
assistance, they being on the weather quarter. About dusk more of the
fleet had got up with us, the signal having been made to chase without
regard to order. The Leviathan and Audacious, particularly, passed to
windward of us, and came to close engagement; the first keeping as close
to him to leeward as she could fetch, and the latter fetching to windward
of him, laid herself athwart his stern and gave a severe raking. The
headmost of the French fleet were apparently hove to, but made no effort
to relieve their comrade. At this time our maincap was seen to be so
badly sprung as to oblige us to take in the main topsail; the larboard
topsail sheet block was likewise shot away. Got down the top-gallant yard
and mast, and, the ship being scarcely under command, we made the signal
for inability. Soon after the Admiral called us by signal into his wake.
The enemy's rear ship about 9 had his mizzenmast gone and he bore down
towards us, the Russell and Thunderer striking close to his weather
quarter and lee bow, keeping up a severe fire, but he scarcely returned a
shot. Having got clear of them he continued coming down on us, apparently
with the intention of striking to our flag, but firing a shot now and
then. He was intercepted by one of our ships, who running to leeward of
him soon silenced his guns, and, we concluded, had obliged him to strike.
The enemy's fleet were now collected about 3 miles to windward, carrying
lights, as did ours. We were in no regular order, it having been broken
up by the chase. A.M., employed securing the maincap, etc. All hands kept
at quarters. Fresh breezes and hazy weather. At daybreak the enemy's line
was formed about 2 miles distant, and our commander in chief made the
signal to form the line of battle, and take stations as most convenient.
We bore down and took ours astern of the Queen Charlotte, the Marlborough
and Royal Sovereign following. About 8 our fleet tacked in succession,
with a view to cut off the enemy's rear, the Caesar leading and my Lord
Howe the 10th ship. As soon as our van were sufficiently near to bring
them to action, the enemy's whole fleet wore in succession, and ran to
leeward of their line in order to support their rear, and edged down van
to van. At 10 the firing commenced between the headmost ships of both
lines, but at too great a distance to do much execution, and the Admiral
made the signal to tack in succession in order to bring the enemy to
close action, but not being taken notice of, about noon it was repeated
with a gun. The Leviathan, being next ahead of the Admiral, fired some
guns, but the Queen Charlotte and those astern did not attempt it. Hazy
weather at noon with a considerable swell from the westward. Latitude
observed to be 47 degrees 35 minutes north. NOTE--We found this morning
at daybreak that the Audacious was missing, and we concluded was the ship
who had secured the prize, neither being in sight.* (* Of course this
surmise was incorrect. The Audacious had not secured the Revolutionnaire
which was towed into Rochefort by the Audacieux (curious similarity in
names). The Audacious badly crippled made her way to Plymouth
alone.--[Captain Bayldon's note].)

"Friday, May 30th. Fresh breezes and hazy weather. The signal for the van
to tack was again repeated, when the Caesar made the signal of inability;
but at last they got round, and the Admiral made signal to cut through
the enemy's line; but finding our leading ships were passing to leeward,
we tacked a considerable time before the ships came in succession, and
luffed up as close to them as possible. The enemy were now well within
point-blank shot, which began to fall very thick about us, and several
had passed through our sails before we tacked. Immediately we came into
the Queen Charlotte's wake we tacked, lay up well for the enemy's rear,
and began a severe fire, giving it to each ship as we passed. My Lord
Howe in the Charlotte kept his luff, and cut through their line between
the 4th and 5th ship in the rear. We followed, and passed between the 2nd
and 3rd. The rest of the fleet passed to leeward. Their third ship gave
us a severe broadside on the bow as we approached to pass under her
stern, and which we took care to return by two on her quarter and stern.
Before we had cleared her, her fore and maintop masts fell over the side,
and she was silenced for a while, but it was only till we had passed her.
Their rear ship received several broadsides even from our three-deckers,
but kept her colours up. The Orion ran down to her, but getting upon her
beam and too far to leeward was obliged to leave her, and she got to her
own fleet, whom we were now to windward of. Lord Howe made the signal to
tack, and for a general chase, but few of the van ships were able to
follow him. For ourselves, we lay to, to reeve new braces and repair the
rigging, which was entirely cut to pieces forward. The foresail was
rendered useless, and was cut away, and being only able to set a
close-reefed main topsail for fear of the cap giving way, we were not
able to follow his lordship. The French perceiving how few followed them,
rallied, tacked, and supported their disabled ships, and even made a
feint to cut off the Queen, who was rendered a wreck. The Admiral, seeing
their intention, bore down with several of the heavy ships who had not
been engaged, and forced them to leeward of our disabled ships. At 5.30
having got a new foresail bent, and the rigging in a little order, we
bore down and joined the Admiral, who soon after formed the line in two
divisions, and stood to the westward under an easy sail abreast of the
enemy, who were to leeward in a line ahead; the disabled ships in both
fleets repairing their damages, several of theirs being without topmasts
and topsail yards. At sunset saw two ships pass to windward, conjectured
to be the Audacious and prize. Employed splicing and knotting the
rigging, and repairing sails, not one of which but had several shot
through them. The truck of the foretopgallant mast was likewise shot
away. A.M., thick foggy weather. Saw the enemy at times north-north-west
4 or 5 miles. At noon very foggy. Latitude 47 degrees 39 minutes north by
dull observation.

"Saturday, May 31st, 1794. Lost sight of the enemy and only four of our
own ships in sight. People employed repairing sail, rigging, etc., with
all expedition. At noon thick and foggy. No enemy in sight; 30 sail of
our own ships.

"Sunday, June 1st, 1794.* (* Nautical reckoning in Flinders' day was 12
hours ahead; i.e., his June 1 began at noon on May 31. Occurrences
following "a.m.," happened on June 1 by the Almanac.) Moderate breezes
and foggy weather. Before two it began to clear up. Saw the enemy to
leeward, 8 or 9 miles distant, and made the signal for that purpose. Soon
after the whole fleet bore down towards them by signal. The enemy were
edging away from the wind, and several of their ships were changing
stations in the line; some of them without topmasts and topsail yards.
About 7, the van of our fleet being within three miles of the enemy's
centre, the heavy ships in the rear a considerable way astern, the
Admiral made the signal to haul to the wind together on the larboard
tack, judging we should not be able to bring on a general action
to-night. At sunset the enemy were in a line ahead from north-west by
west to north-east by east about four miles distant, and apparently
steering about two points from the wind. At 11 the Phaeton passed along
the line, and informed the different ships that Lord Howe intended
carrying single reefed T.S.F. sail, jib and M.T.M.S. sail.* (* Letters
probably denote single reefed Top Sails, Fore sail, jib and Main Topmast
and Main Stay sails.) After speaking us he kept on our lee bow; each ship
carrying a light by signal. A.M., fresh breezes and cloudy. At daybreak
the enemy not in sight, our rear ships a long way astern, their signal
made to make more sail; when the line became tolerably connected, the
whole fleet bore away and steered north-west by signal. A little before
six saw the enemy in the north by east about 3 leagues. Made the signal
to the Admiral for that purpose, who by signal ordered the fleet to alter
the course to starboard together, bearing down towards them. About 8,
being nearly within shot of the enemy's van, hove to for the rear of the
fleet to come up. Lord Howe made the signal 34, which we understood was
to pass through the enemy's line, but it did not seem to be understood by
the rest of the fleet. At 8.10 the signal was made to bear up and each
engage his opponent. We accordingly ran down within musket shot of our
opponent, and hove to, having received several broadsides from their van
ships in so doing. We now began a severe fire upon our opponent, the
second ship in the enemy's van, which she returned with great briskness.
The van ship likewise fired many shot at us, his opponent the Caesar
keeping to windward, not more than two points before our beam in general,
and of course nearly out of point-blank shot. About 8.30 Admiral Graves
made his and the Russell's signal to engage their opponent; we likewise
made Captain Molloy's (the Caesar) signal twice to bear down and come to
close action. About 9 the action became general throughout the two
fleets, but the Tremendous kept out of the line, but on being ordered in
by signal from the Admiral, she bore down after some time. A little
before 11 our brave Admiral (Pasley) lost his leg by an 18-pound shot,
which came through the barricading of the quarter-deck. It was now the
heat of the action. The Caesar was not yet come close to his opponent,
who in consequence of that fired all his after guns at us. Our own ship
kept up a severe fire, and by keeping well astern to let the Caesar take
her station, their third van ship shot up on our quarter, and for some
time fired all his fore guns upon us. Our shot was directed on three
different ships as the guns could be got to bear. In ten or fifteen
minutes we saw the foremast of the third ship go by the board, and the
second ship's main-top-sail-yard down upon the cap. Otherwise the two
headmost had not received much apparent injury, at least in the rigging.
At 11 1/4, however, they both bore away and quitted the line, their
Admiral being obliged to do the same some time before by the Queen
Charlotte. On seeing the two van ships hauling upon the other tack, we
conjectured they meant to give us their starboard guns. The Caesar's
signal was immediately made by us to chase the flying ships. On his
bearing down they were put into confusion, and their ship falling down
upon them they received several broadsides from the Leviathan and us,
before they could get clear; which when they effected they kept away a
little, then hauled their wind in the starboard tack, and stood away from
the opposing fleets. And now, being in no condition to follow, we ceased
firing; the main and foretopmast being gone, every main shroud but one on
the larboard side cut through, and many on the other, besides having the
main and foremasts with all the rigging and sails in general much
injured. We made the Latona's signal to come to our assistance, and got
entirely out of action. When the smoke cleared away, saw eleven ships
without a mast standing, two of whom proved to be the Marlborough and
Defence. The rest were enemy's, who, notwithstanding their situation kept
their colours up, and fired at any of our ships that came near them. The
Leviathan's opponent particularly (the same ship whose foremast we shot
away) lying perfectly dismasted, the Leviathan ran down to him to take
possession; but on her firing a gun to make him haul down his colours, he
returned a broadside, and a severe action again commenced between them
for nearly half an hour, and we could see shot falling on the water on
the opposite side of the Frenchman, which appeared to have gone through
both his sides, the ships being at half a cable's length from each other.
The Leviathan falling to leeward could not take the advantage of him her
sails gave her, and, seeing his obstinacy, left him, but not before his
fire was nearly silenced. About 11.30 the firing was pretty well ceased
on all sides, the Queen having only a foremast standing was fallen to
leeward between the two fleets. She stood on the larboard tack to fetch
our fleet, keeping to the wind in an astonishing manner, which we
afterwards learnt was effected by getting up boat's sails abaft. In this
situation every ship she passed gave her a broadside or more, which she
returned with great spirit, keeping up an almost incessant blaze. After
she had stood on past the fleets, she wore round and stood back, pursuing
the same conduct as before, but the French, having collected their
best-conditioned ships in a body, and being joined by two or three other
disabled ships, were making off, having apparently given up all ideas of
saving the rest. On this our fleet stood down a little, and the Queen
joined. We were now employed knotting, splicing, repairing, etc. the
rigging, cutting away the wrecks of the fore and main topmasts, and
securing the lower masts. Fortunately no accident happened with the
powder, or with guns bursting. We had but three men killed outright (a
fourth died of his wounds very soon after) and about 30 men wounded,
amongst whom five lost their limbs, and the other leg of one man was so
much shattered as to be taken off some time after. Our brave Admiral was
unfortunately in this list, as before observed. Captain Smith of the
Marines and Mr. Chapman, boatswain, were amongst the wounded on the
second day. Most of our spars were destroyed, and the boats severely
injured. About noon we had still fine weather and the enemy standing away
from us, except one ship, which did not seem injured, and paraded to
windward, as if with the intention of giving some of us disabled ships a
brush. However, we were well prepared for him, having got tolerably clear
of the wreck, and he stood back again and out of sight, having spoken one
of their wrecks. Lord Howe made the signal to form the line as most
convenient, but it was a long time before that movement could be
effected."

Flinders wrote in his journal an estimate of the French sailors who were
put on board his ship as prisoners. It is of some historical value:

"Their seamen, if we may judge from our own prisoners, are in a very bad
state both with respect to discipline and knowledge of their profession;
both which were evidently shown by the condition we saw them in on the
31st, many of them being without topmasts and topsail yards, and nearly
in as bad a state as on the 29th after the action. 'Tis true they were
rather better when we saw them in the morning of June 1st. Out of our 198
prisoners there certainly cannot be above 15 or 20 seamen, and all
together were the dirtiest, laziest set of beings conceivable. How an
idea of liberty, and more so that of fighting for it, should enter into
their heads, I know not; but by their own confession it is not their wish
and pleasure, but that of those who sent them; and so little is it their
own that in the Brunswick (who was engaged yardarm and yardarm with the
Vengeur) they could see the French officers cutting down the men for
deserting their quarters. Indeed, in the instances of the Russell and
Thunderer when close to the Revolutionnaire, and ours when cutting the
line, the French do not like to come too close. A mile off they will
fight desperately."

Pasley's loss of a leg had a decisive effect upon the career of Matthew
Flinders. So fine a sailor and so tough a fighting man would
unquestionably, if not partially incapacitated, have had conferred upon
him during the following years of war commands that would have led to his
playing a very prominent part in fleet operations. As it was, he did not
go to sea again, though he was promoted through various ranks to that of
Admiral of the Blue (1801). He became commander in chief at the Nore in
1798, and at Plymouth in 1799. Had he received other sea commands, his
vigorous, alert young aide-de-camp might have continued to serve with
him, and would thus have just missed the opportunities that came to him
in his next sphere of employment. What young officer would not have
eagerly followed a gallant and warm-hearted Admiral who had first placed
him upon a British quarterdeck and had made him an aide-de-camp? As it
was, the chance that came to Flinders about two months after the battle
off Brest was one that ministered to his decided preference for service
in seas where there was exploratory work to do.

Pasley's influence upon the life of Flinders was so important, that a
characterisation of him by one who has perused his letters and journals
must be quoted.* (* Memoir of Admiral Sir T.S. Pasley, by Louisa M.
Sabine Pasley. Sir T.S. Pasley was the grandson of Flinders' Admiral. It
unfortunately happens that the Journals of "old Sir Thomas" which are
extant do not cover the period when Flinders acted as his aide-de-camp.
Miss Sabine Pasley was kind enough to have a search made among his papers
for any trace of Flinders' relations with him, but without success.) "It
is impossible," writes Miss L.M. Sabine Pasley, "not to be impressed from
these journals with a strong feeling of respect for the writer, so
simple-minded, so kind-hearted, such a brave old sailor of his
time--rough, no doubt, in manners and language, but with an earnest and
genuine piety that shows itself from time to time in little ejaculations
and prayers, contrasting, it must be owned, rather strongly with the
terms in which the 'rascally Yankies' are alluded to in the same pages."
What Howe thought of him is recorded in a letter which he sent to the
Rear-Admiral a fortnight after the battle, regretting that "the services
of a friend he so highly esteemed and so gallant an officer, capable of
such spirited exertions, should be restrained by any disaster from the
continued exertion of them." There is also on record a letter to Pasley
from the Prime Minister, a model of grace and delicate feeling, in which
Pitt signified that the King had conferred on him a baronetcy "as a mark
of the sense which His Majesty entertains of the distinguished share
which you bore in the late successful and glorious operations of His
Majesty's fleet," and assured him "of the sincere satisfaction which I
personally feel in executing this commission."

On the south-western coast of Australia, eight years later, Flinders
remembered his first commander when naming the natural features of the
country. Cape Pasley, at the western tip of the arc of the great
Australian Bight, celebrates "the late Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley, under
whom I had the honour of entering the naval service."* (* Flinders,
Voyage to Terra Australis 1 87.) On some current maps of Australia the
cape is spelt "Paisley," an error which obscures the interesting
biographical fact with which the name is connected.

It is noteworthy that though the career of Flinders as a naval officer
covers the stormiest period in British naval history, the whole of his
personal experience of battle was confined to these five days, May 28 to
June 1, 1794. The whole significance of his life lies in the work of
discovery that he accomplished, and in the contributions he made to
geography and navigation. Yet he was destined to feel the effect of the
enmity of the French in a peculiarly distressing form. His useful life
was cut short largely by misfortunes that came upon him as a consequence
of war, and work which he would have done to the enhancement of his
reputation and the advancement of civilisation was thwarted by it.


CHAPTER 5. AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHY BEFORE FLINDERS.

In order that the importance of the work done by Flinders may be
adequately appreciated, it is necessary to understand the state of
information concerning Australian geography before the time of his
discoveries. Not only did he complete the main outlines of the map of the
continent, but he filled in many details in parts that had been traversed
by his predecessors. This is a convenient point whereat to interrupt the
narrative of his life with a brief sketch of what those predecessors had
done, and of the curiously haphazard mode in which a partial knowledge of
this fifth division of the globe had been pieced together.

There never was, until Flinders applied himself to the task, any
deliberately-planned, systematic, persistent exploration of any portion
of the Australian coast. The continent grew on the map of the world
gradually, slowly, almost accidentally. It emerged out of the unknown,
like some vast mythical monster heaving its large shoulders dank and
dripping from the unfathomed sea, and metamorphosed by a kiss from the
lips of knowledge into a being fair to look upon and rich in kindly
favours. It took two centuries and a half for civilised mankind to know
Australia, even in form, from the time when it was clearly understood
that there was such a country, until at length it was mapped, measured
and circumnavigated. Before this process began, there was a dialectical
stage, when it was hotly contested whether there could possibly be upon
the globe lands antipodean to Europe; and both earlier and later there
were conjectural stages when makers of maps, having no certain data, but
feeling sure that the blank southern hemisphere ought to be filled up
somehow, exercised a vagrant fancy and satisfied a long-felt want by
decorating their drawings with representations of a Terra Incognita
having not even a casual resemblance to the reality.

The process presents few points of resemblance to that by which the
discovery of America was accomplished. Almost as soon as Europe came into
touch with the western hemisphere, discovery was pursued with unflagging
energy, until its whole extent and contour were substantially known.
Within fifty years after Columbus led the way across the Atlantic (1492),
North and South America were laid down with something approaching
precision; and Gerard Mercator's map of 1541 presented the greater part
of the continent with the name fairly inscribed upon it. There were, it
is true, some errors and some gaps, especially on the west coast, which
left work for navigators to do. But the essential point is that in less
than half a century Europe had practically comprehended America as an
addition to the known world. There was but a brief twilight interval
between nescience and knowledge. How different was the case with
Australia! Three hundred years after the date of Columbus' first voyage,
the mere outline of this continent had not been wholly mapped.

During the middle ages, when ingenious men exercised infinite subtlety in
speculation, and wrote large Latin folios to prove each other wrong in
matters about which neither party knew anything at all, there was much
dissertation about the possibility of antipodes. Bishops and saints waxed
eloquent upon the theme. The difficulty of conceiving of lands where
people walked about with their heads hanging downwards, and their feet
exactly opposite to those of Europeans, was too much for some of the
scribes who debated "about it and about." The Greek, Cosmas
Indicopleustes, denounced the "old wives' fable of Antipodes," and asked
how rain could be said to "fall," as in the Scriptures, in regions where
it would have to "come up"* (* The Christian Topography of Cosmas,
translated by J.W. McCrindle, page 17 (Hakluyt Society).) Some would have
it that a belief in Antipodes was heretical. But Isidore of Seville, in
his Liber de Natura Rerum, Basil of Caesarea, Ambrose of Milan, and
Vergil Bishop of Salzburg, an Irish saint, declined to regard the
question as a closed one. "Nam partes eius (i.e. of the earth) quatuor
sunt," argued Isidore. Curiously enough, the copy of the works of the
Saint of Seville used by the author (published at Rome in 1803), was
salvaged from a wreck which occurred on the Australian coast many years
ago. It is stained with seawater, and emits the musty smell which tells
of immersion. An inscription inside the cover relates the circumstance of
the wreck. Who possessed the book one does not know; some travelling
scholar may have perused it during the long voyage from Europe; and one
fancies him, as the ship bumped upon the rocks, exclaiming "Yes, Isidore
was right, there ARE antipodes!"

From about the fourth quarter of the sixteenth century until the date of
Abel Tasman's voyages, 1642 to 1644, there was a period of vague
speculation about a supposed great southern continent. The maps of the
time indicate the total lack of accurate information at the disposal of
their compilers. There was no general agreement as to what this region
was like in its outlines, proportions, or situation. Some cartographers,
as Peter Plancius (1594) and Hondius (1595), trailed a wavy line across
the foot of their representations of the globe, inscribed Terra Australis
upon it, and by a fine stroke of invention gave an admirable aspect of
finish and symmetry to the form of the world. The London map of 1578,
issued with George Best's Discourse of the Late Voyages of Discoverie,
barricaded the south pole with a Terra Australis not unlike the design of
a switch-back railway. Molyneux' remarkable map, circa 1590, dropped the
vast imaginary continent, and displayed a small tongue of land in about
the region where the real Australia is; suggesting that some voyager had
been blown out of his course, had come upon a part of the western
division of the continent, and had jotted down a memorandum of its
appearance upon his chart. It looks like a sincere attempt to tell a bit
of the truth. But speaking generally, the Terra Australis of the old
cartographers was a gigantic antipodean imposture, a mere piece of
map-makers' furniture, put in to fill up the gaping space at the south
end of the globe.

A few minutes devoted to the study of a map of the Indian Ocean,
including the Cape of Good Hope and the west coast of
Australia--especially one indicating the course of currents--will show
how natural it was that Portuguese and Dutch ships engaged in the spice
trade should occasionally have found themselves in proximity to the real
Terra Australis. It will also explain more clearly than a page of type
could do, why the western and north-western coasts were known so early,
whilst the eastern and southern shores remained undelineated until James
Cook and Matthew Flinders sailed along them.

A change of the route pursued by the Dutch on their voyages to the East
Indies had already conduced to an acquaintance with the Australian coast.
Originally, after rounding the Cape, their ships had sailed north-east to
Madagascar, and had thence struck across the Indian Ocean to Java, or to
Ceylon. As long as this course was followed, there was little prospect of
sighting the great continent which lay about three thousand miles east of
their habitual track. But this route, though from the map it appeared to
be the most direct, was the longest in duration that they could take. It
brought them into the region of light winds and tedious tropical calms;
so that very often a vessel would lie for weeks "as idle as a painted
ship upon a painted ocean," and would occupy over a year upon the outward
voyage. In 1611, however, one of their commanders discovered that if,
after leaving the Cape, a ship ran not north-east, but due east for about
three thousand miles, she would be assisted by the winds, not baffled by
calms. Henrick Brouwer, who made the experiment, arrived in Java seven
months after leaving Holland, whereas some ships had been known to be as
long as eighteen months at sea. The directors of the Dutch East India
Company, recognising the importance of the discovery, ordered their
commanders to follow the easterly route from the Cape in future, and
offered prizes to those who completed the voyage in less than nine
months. The result was that the Dutch skippers became exceedingly anxious
to make the very utmost of the favourable winds, which carried them
eastward in the direction of the western coasts of Australia.

Thus it happened that in 1616 the Eendragt stumbled on Australia opposite
Shark's Bay. Her captain, Dirk Hartog, landed on the long island which
lies as a natural breakwater between the bay and the ocean, and erected a
metal plate to record his visit; and Dirk Hartog Island is the name it
bears to this day. The plate remained till 1697, when another Dutchman,
Vlaming, substituted a new one for it; and Vlaming's plate, in turn,
remained till 1817, when the French navigator, Freycinet, took it and
sent it to Paris.

After Hartog reported his discovery, the Dutch directors ordered their
ships' captains to run east from the Cape till they sighted the land.
This would enable them to verify their whereabouts; for in those days the
means of reckoning positions at sea were so imperfect that navigators
groped about the oceans of the globe almost as if they were sailing in
darkness. But here was a means of verifying a ship's position after her
long run across from the Cape, and if she found Dirk Hartog Island, she
could safely thence make her way north to Java.

But ships did not always sight the Australian coast at the same point.
Hence it came about that in 1619 J. de Edel "accidentally fell in with"
the coast at the back of the Abrolhos. Pieter Nuyts, in 1627,
"accidentally discovered" a long reach of the south coast. Similarly, in
1628, the Vianen was "accidentally," as the narrative says, driven on to
the north-west coast, and her commander, De Wit, gave his name to about
200 miles of it. In 1629 the Dutch ship Batavia was separated in a storm
from a merchant fleet of eleven sail, and ran upon the Abrolhos Reef. The
captain, Francis Pelsart, who was lying sick in his cabin at the time of
the misadventure, "called up the master and charged him with the loss of
the ship, who excused himself by saying he had taken all the care he
could; and that having discerned the froth at a distance he asked the
steersman what he thought of it, who told him that the sea appeared white
by its reflecting the rays of the moon. The captain then asked him what
was to be done, and in what part of the world he thought they were. The
master replied that God only knew that; and that the ship was on a bank
hitherto undiscovered." The story of Pelsart's adventure was recorded,
and the part of the coast which he saw was embodied on a globe published
in 1700.

To the accidental discoveries must be added those made by the Dutch
prompted by curiosity as to the possibility of drawing profit from the
lands to the south of their great East India possessions. Thus the Dutch
yacht Duyfhen, sent in 1605 to examine the Papuan islands, sailed along
the southern side of Torres Strait, found Cape York, and believed it to
be part of New Guinea. The great discovery voyages of Tasman, 1643 and
1644, were planned in pursuit of the same policy. He was directed to find
out what the southern portion of the world was like, "whether it be land
or sea, or icebergs, whatever God has ordained to be there."

In 1606 the Spaniard, Torres, also probably saw Cape York, and sailed
through the strait which bears his name. He had accompanied Quiros across
the Pacific, but had separated from his commander at the New Hebrides,
and continued his voyage westward, whilst Quiros sailed to South America.

It is needless for present purposes to catalogue the various voyages made
by the Dutch, or to examine claims which have been preferred on account
of other discoveries. It may, however, be observed that there are three
well defined periods of Australian maritime discovery, and that they
relate to three separate zones of operation.

First, there was the period with which the Dutch were chiefly concerned.
The west and north-west coasts received the greater part of their
attention, though the voyage of Tasman to the island now bearing his name
was a variation from their habitual sphere. The visits of the Englishman,
Dampier, to Western Australia are comprehended within this period.

The second period belongs to the eighteenth century, and its hero was
James Cook. He sailed up the whole of the east coast in 1770, from Point
Hicks, near the Victorian border, to Cape York at the northern tip of the
continent, and accomplished a larger harvest of discovery than has ever
fallen to the fortune of any other navigator in a single voyage. To this
period also belongs Captain George Vancouver, who in 1791, on his way to
north-western America from the Cape of Good Hope, came upon the
south-western corner of Australia and discovered King George's Sound. In
the following year the French Admiral, Dentrecasteaux, despatched in
search of the missing expedition of Laperouse, also made the south-west
corner of the continent, and followed the coast of the Great Australian
Bight for some hundreds of miles. His researches in southern Tasmania
were likewise of much importance.

The third period is principally that of Flinders, commencing shortly
before the dawn of the nineteenth century, and practically completing the
maritime exploration of the continent.

A map contained in John Pinkerton's Modern Geography shows at a glance
the state of knowledge
about Australia at the date of publication, 1802. Flinders had by that
time completed his explorations, but his work was not yet published. The
map delineates the contour of the continent on the east, west, and north
sides, with as much accuracy as was possible, and, though it is defective
in details, presents generally a fair idea of the country's shape. But
the line along the south coast represents a total lack of information as
to the outline of the land. Pinkerton, indeed, though he was a leading
English authority on geography when his book was published, had not
embodied in his map some results that were then available.

The testimony of the map may be augmented by a reference to what
geographical writers understood about Australia before the time of
Flinders.

Though Cook had discovered the east coast, and named it New South Wales,
it was not definitely known whether this extensive stretch of country was
separate from the western "New Holland" which the Dutch had named, or
whether the two were the extremities of one vast tract of land.
Geographical opinion rather inclined to the view that ultimately a strait
would be found dividing the region into islands. This idea is mentioned
by Pinkerton. Under the heading "New Holland" he wrote:* "Some suppose
that this extensive region, when more thoroughly investigated, will be
found to consist of two or three vast islands intersected by narrow seas,
an idea which probably arises from the discovery that New Zealand
consists of two islands, and that other straits have been found to divide
lands in this quarter formerly supposed to be continuous." The discovery
that Bass Strait divided Australia from Tasmania was probably in
Pinkerton's mind; he mentions it in his text (quoting Flinders), though
his map does not indicate the Strait's existence. He also mentions "a
vast bay with an isle," possibly Kangaroo Island. (* Modern Geography 2
588.)

Perhaps it was not unnatural that competent opinion should have favoured
the idea that there were several large islands, rather than one immense
continent stretching into thirty degrees of latitude and forty-five of
longitude. The human mind is not generally disposed to grasp very big
things all at once. Indeed, in the light of fuller knowledge, one is
disposed to admire the caution of these geographers, whose beliefs were
carefully reasoned but erroneous, in face of, for instance, such a wild
ebullition of venturesome theory as that attributed to an aforetime
Gottingen professor,* (*Professor Blumenbach according to Lang,
Historical Account of New South Wales, 1837 2 142.) who considered that
not only was Australia one country, but that it made its appearance upon
this planet in a peculiarly sudden fashion. His opinion was that "the
vast continent of Australia was originally a comet, which happening to
fall within the limits of the earth's attraction, alighted at length upon
its surface." "Alighted at length" is a mild term, suggestive of a
nervous lady emerging from a tram-car in a crowded street. "Splashed,"
would probably convey a more vigorous impression.

The belief that a strait would be found completely dividing New Holland
was a general one, as is shown by several contemporary writings. Thus
James Grant in his Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery (1803), expressing
his regret that his orders did not permit him to take his ship, the Lady
Nelson, northward from Port Jackson in 1801, speculated that "we might
also betimes have ascertained if the Gulf of Carpentaria had any inlet to
Bass Straits, and if it be discovered secure more quickly to Great
Britain the right of lands which some of our enterprising neighbours
might probably dispute with us. And this I trust will not be thought
chimerical when it was not known whether other Straits did not exist as
well as that dividing New Holland from Van Diemen's Land." Again, the
Institute of France in preparing instructions for the voyage of
exploration commanded by Nicolas Baudin (1800) directed a search to be
made for a strait which it was supposed divided Australia "into two great
and nearly equal islands."

Another interesting geographical problem to be determined, was whether a
great river system drained any part of the Australian continent. In the
existing state of knowledge the country presented an aspect in regard to
fluvial features wholly different from any other portion of the world. No
river of considerable importance had been found. Students of geography
could hardly conceive that there should be so large an area of land
lacking outlets to the sea; and as none had been found in the parts
investigated so far, it was believed that the exploration of the south
coast would reveal large streams flowing from the interior. Some had
speculated that within the country there was a great inland sea, and if
so there would probably be rivers flowing from it to the ocean.

A third main subject for elucidation when Flinders entered upon this
work, was whether the country known as Van Diemen's Land was part of the
continent, or was divided from it by a strait not yet discovered. Captain
Cook entertained the opinion that a strait existed. On his voyage in the
Endeavour in 1770, he was "doubtful whether they are one land or no." But
when near the north-eastern corner of Van Diemen's Land, he had been
twenty months at sea, and his supplies had become depleted. He did not
deem it advisable to sail west and settle the question forthwith, but,
running up the eastern coast of New Holland, achieved discoveries
certainly great enough for one voyage. He retained the point in his mind,
however, and would have determined it on his second voyage in 1772 to
1774 had he not paid heed to information given by Tobias Furneaux. The
Adventure, commanded by Furneaux, had been separated from the Resolution
on the voyage to New Zealand, and had cruised for some days in the
neighbourhood of the eastern entrance to Bass Strait. But Furneaux
convinced himself that no strait existed, and reported to that effect
when he rejoined Cook in Queen Charlotte's Sound. Cook was not quite
convinced by the statement of his officer; but contrary winds made a
return to the latitude of the supposed strait difficult, and Cook though
"half inclined to go over to Van Diemen's Land and settle the question of
its being part of New Holland" decided to proceed westward. As will be
seen hereafter, Flinders helped to show that the passage existed.

There were also many smaller points requiring investigation. Cook in
running along the east coast had passed several portions in the night, or
at such a distance in the daytime as to render his representation of the
coastline doubtful. Some groups of islands also required to be accurately
charted. Indeed, it may be said that there was no portion of the world
where, at this period, there was so much and such valuable work to be
done by a competent and keen marine explorer, as in Australia.

A passage in a manuscript by Flinders may be quoted to supplement what
has been written above, as it indicates the kind of speculations that
were current in the conversation of students of geography.* (* Called an
Abridged Narrative--Flinders' Papers.)

"The interior of this new region, in extent nearly equal to all Europe,
strongly excited the curiosity of geographers and naturalists; and the
more so as, ten years after the establishment of a British Colony at Port
Jackson on the east coast, and the repeated effort of some enterprising
individuals, no part of it beyond 30 leagues from the coast had been seen
by an European. Various conjectures were entertained upon the probable
consistence of this extensive space. Was it a vast desert? Was it
occupied by an immense lake--a second Caspian Sea, or by a Mediterranean
to which existed a navigable entrance in some part of the coasts hitherto
unexplored? or was not this new continent rather divided into two or more
islands by straits communicating from the unknown parts of the south to
the imperfectly examined north-west coast or to the Gulf of Carpentaria,
or to both? Such were the questions that excited the interest and divided
the opinion of geographers."

Apart from particular directions in which enquiry needed to be pursued,
it was felt in England that the only nation which had founded a
settlement on the Australian continent was under an obligation to
complete the exploration of the country. The French had already sent out
two scientific expeditions with instructions to examine the unknown
southern coasts; and if shipwreck had not destroyed the first, and want
of fresh water diverted the second, the credit of finishing the outline
of the map of Australia would have been earned for France. "Many
circumstances, indeed," wrote Flinders, "united to render the south coast
of Terra Australis one of the most interesting parts of the globe to
which discovery could be directed at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. Its investigation had formed a part of the instructions to the
unfortunate French navigator, Laperouse, and afterwards of those to his
countryman Dentrecasteaux; and it was not without some reason attributed
to England as a reproach that an imaginary line of more than two hundred
and fifty leagues' extent in the vicinity of one of her colonies should
have been so long suffered to remain traced upon the charts under the
title of Unknown Coast. This comported ill with her reputation as the
first of maritime powers."

We shall see how predominant was the share of Flinders in the settlement
of these problems, the filling up of these gaps.


CHAPTER 6. THE RELIANCE AND THE TOM THUMB.

Apart from Admiral Pasley, two officers who participated in Lord Howe's
victory on "the glorious First of June," had an important influence upon
the later career of Flinders. The first of these, Captain John Hunter,
had served on the flagship Queen Charlotte. The second, Henry Waterhouse,
had been fifth lieutenant on the Bellerophon. Flinders was under the
orders of both of them on his next voyage.

Hunter had accompanied the first Governor of New South Wales on the
Sirius, when a British colony was founded there in 1788, and was
commissioned by the Crown to assume the duties of Lieutenant-Governor in
case of Phillip's death. When the office fell vacant in 1793, Hunter
applied for appointment. He secured the cordial support of Howe, and Sir
Roger Curtis of the Queen Charlotte exerted his influence by recommending
him as one whose selection "would be a blessing to the colony" on account
of his incorruptible integrity, unceasing zeal, thorough knowledge of the
country, and steady judgment. He was appointed Governor in February,
1794, and in March of the same year H.M.S. Reliance, with the tender
Supply, were commissioned to convey him to Sydney.

Henry Waterhouse was chosen to command the Reliance, under Hunter, at
that officer's request. He expressed to the Secretary of State a wish
that the appointment might be conferred upon an officer to whom it might
be a step in advancement, rather than upon one who had already attained
the rank of commander; and he recommended Waterhouse as one who, though a
young man and not an old officer, was "the only remaining lieutenant of
the Sirius, formerly under my command; and having had the principal part
of his nautical education from me, I can with confidence say that he is
well qualified for the charge."

It is probable that Flinders heard of the expedition from his Bellerophon
shipmate, Waterhouse, who by the end of July was under orders to sail as
second captain of the Reliance. Certainly the opportunity of making
another voyage to Australian waters, wherein, as he knew, so much work
lay awaiting an officer keen for discovery, coincided with his own
inclinations. He wrote that he was led by his passion for exploring new
countries to embrace the opportunity of going out upon a station which of
all others presented the most ample field for his favourite pursuit.

The sailing was delayed for six months, and in the interval young
Flinders was able to visit his home in Lincolnshire. Whatever opposition
there may have been to his choice of the sea as a profession before 1790,
we may be certain that the Donington surgeon was not a little proud of
his eldest son when he returned after a wonderful voyage to the isles of
the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, and after participation in the recent
great naval fight which had thrilled the heart of England with exultation
and pride. The boy who had left his father's house four years before as
an anxious aspirant for the King's uniform now returned a bronzed seaman
on the verge of manhood. His intelligence and zeal as a junior officer
had won him the esteem and confidence of distinguished commanders. He had
looked upon the strangeness and beauty of the world in its most remote
and least-known quarters, had witnessed fights with savages, threaded
unmapped straits, and had, to crown his youthful achievements, striven
amidst the wrack and thunder of grim-visaged war. We may picture his
welcome: the strong grasp of his father's hand, the crowding enthusiasm
of his brother and sisters fondly glorying in their hero's prowess. The
warnings of uncle John were all forgotten now. When the midshipman's
younger brother, Samuel Ward Flinders, desired to go to sea with him, he
was not restrained, and, in fact, accompanied him as a volunteer on the
Reliance when at length she sailed.

Hunter took not merely an official but a deep and discerning interest in
the colonisation of Australia. He foresaw its immense possibilities,
encouraged its exploration, promoted the breeding of stock and the
cultivation of crops, and had a wise concern for such strategic
advantages as would tend to secure it for British occupation. He
perceived the great importance of the Cape of Good Hope from the point of
view of Australian security; and a letter which he wrote to an official
of the Admiralty while awaiting sailing orders for the Reliance (January
25, 1795), is perhaps the first instance of official recognition of
Australia's vital interest in the ownership of that post. There was cause
for concern. The raw and ill-disciplined levies of the French, having at
the outbreak of the Revolutionary wars most unexpectedly turned back the
invading armies of Austria and Prussia, and having, after campaigns full
of dramatic changes, shaken off the peril of the crushing of the
fatherland by a huge European combination, were now waging an offensive
war in Holland. Pichegru, the French commander, though not a soldier by
training, secured astonishing successes, and, in the thick of a winter of
exceptional severity, led his ragged and ill-fed army on to victory after
victory, until the greater part of Holland lay conquered within his grip.
In January he entered Amsterdam. There was a strong element of Republican
feeling among the Dutch, and an alliance with France was demanded.

When this condition of things was reported in England, Hunter was alarmed
for the safety of the colony which he was about to govern. The Cape of
Good Hope was a Dutch possession. Holland was now under the domination of
France. Might not events bring about the establishment of French power at
the Cape? "I cannot help feeling much concerned at the rapid progress of
the French in Holland," he wrote, "and I own shall not be surprised if in
consequence of their success in that country they make a sudden dash at
the Cape of Good Hope, if we do not anticipate them in such an attempt.
They are so very active a people that it will be done before we know
anything of it, and I think it a post of too much importance to be
neglected by them. I hope earnestly, therefore, that it will be prevented
by our sending a squadron and some troops as early as possible. If the
Republicans once get a footing there, we shall probably find it difficult
to dislodge them. Such a circumstance would be a sad stroke for our young
colony."

The course which Hunter then advised was that which the British
Government followed, though more because the Cape was the "half way
house" to India, than for the protection of Australian interests. An
expedition was despatched later in the year to protect the Cape against
French occupation, and in September the colony, by order of the
Stadtholder of Holland, accepted British protection.

The Reliance and the Supply left Plymouth on February 15th, 1795, amongst
a very large company of merchantmen and ships of the navy convoyed by the
Channel Fleet under Lord Howe, which guarded them till they were beyond
the range of possible French attacks and then sailed back to port.

From Teneriffe, which Hunter reached on March 6th, he wrote a despatch to
the Government stating his intention to sail, not to the Cape of Good
Hope, but to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, and thence to New South Wales. His
avoidance of the more direct route was due to the causes explained above.
"In the present uncertain state of things between the French and Dutch,"
he had written before sailing, "it will be dangerous for me to attempt
touching at the Cape on my way out;" and writing from Rio de Janeiro in
May he explained that he did not "conceive it safe from the uncertain
state of the Dutch settlements in India to take the Cape of Good Hope in
my way to Port Jackson, lest the French, following up their late
successes in Holland, should have been active enough to make an early
attack on that very important post." In a despatch to the Duke of
Portland he commented strongly on the same circumstance, expressing the
opinion that "if the French should be able to possess themselves of that
settlement it will be rather unfortunate for our distant colony."

Hunter had to complain of discourteous treatment received from the
Portuguese Viceroy, who kept him waiting six days before according an
interview, and then fixed an appointment for seven o'clock in the
evening, when it was quite dark. "As His Excellency was acquainted with
the position I held, I confess I expected a different reception," wrote
Hunter; and he was so much vexed that he did not again set foot ashore
while his ships lay in port. The incident, though not important in
itself, serves, in conjunction with Hunter's avoidance of the Cape, to
illustrate the rather limp condition of British prestige abroad at about
the time when her authority was being established in Australia. With her
army defeated in the Low Countries, her ships deeming it prudent to keep
clear of the Cape that formed the key to her eastern and southern
possessions, and her King's representative subjected to a studied slight
from a Portuguese official in Brazil, she hardly appeared, just then, to
be the nation that would soon shatter the naval power of France, demolish
the greatest soldier of modern times, and, before her sword was sheathed,
float her victorious flag in every continent, in every sea, and over
people of every race and colour.

On this voyage, as on all occasions, Flinders kept a careful record of
his own observations. Sixteen years later, a dispute arose, interesting
to navigators, as to the precise location of Cape Frio in Brazil. An
American had pointed out an error in European charts. It was a matter of
some importance, because ships bound for Rio de Janeiro necessarily
rounded Cape Frio, and the error was sufficiently serious to cause no
small risk if vessels trusted to the received reckoning. The Naval
Chronicle devoted some attention to the point; and to it Flinders sent a
communication stating that on consulting his nautical records he found
that on May 2nd, 1795, he made an observation, reduced from the preceding
noon, calculating the position of the Cape to be latitude 22 degrees 53
minutes south, longitude 41 degrees 43 minutes west. His memorandum was
printed over a facsimile of his signature as that of "a distinguished
navigator," and was hailed as "a valuable contribution towards clearing
up the difficulty concerning the geographical position of that important
headland."* (* Naval Chronicle Volume 26.) For us the incident serves as
an indication of Flinders' diligence and carefulness in the study of
navigation. He was but a midshipman at the time, and it will be noticed
that it was a personal observation which he was able to quote, not one
taken as part of his duty as an officer.

The Reliance arrived at Port Jackson on September 7th, and in the
following month Flinders, with a companion of whom it is time to speak,
commenced the series of explorations which made his fame.

This companion was George Bass, a Lincolnshire man like Flinders himself,
born at Aswarby near Sleaford. He was a farmer's son, but his father died
when he was quite a child, and his mother moved to Boston. She managed
out of her widow's resources to give her son an excellent education, and
designed that he should enter the medical profession. In due course he
was apprenticed to a Boston surgeon, Mr. Francis--a common mode of
securing training in medicine at that period. He "walked" the Boston
hospital for a finishing course of instruction, and won his surgeon's
diploma with marked credit.

Bass had from his early years shown a desire to go to sea. His mother was
able to buy for him a share in a merchant ship; but this was wrecked,
whereupon, not cured of his love of the ocean, he entered the navy as a
surgeon. It was in that capacity that he sailed in the Reliance. He was
then, in 1795, thirty-two years of age.

All the records of Bass, both the personal observations of those who came
in contact with him, and the tale of his own deeds, leave the impression
that he was a very remarkable man. He was six feet in height,
dark-complexioned, handsome in countenance, keen in expression, vigorous,
strong, and enterprising. His father-in-law spoke of his "very
penetrating countenance." Flinders called him "the penetrating Bass."
Governor Hunter, in official despatches, said he was "a young man of a
well-informed mind and an active disposition," and one who was "of much
ability in various ways out of the line of his profession." He was gifted
with a mind capable of intense application to any task that he took in
hand. Upon his firm courage, resourcefulness and strength of purpose,
difficulties and dangers acted merely as the whetstone to the finely
tempered blade. He undertook hazardous enterprises from the sheer love of
doing hard things which were worth doing. "He was one," wrote Flinders,
"whose ardour for discovery was not to be repressed by any obstacle nor
deterred by danger." He seemed to care nothing for rewards, and was not
hungry for honours. The pleasure of doing was to him its own recompense.
That "penetrating countenance" indexed a brain as direct as a drill, and
as inflexible. A loyal and affectionate comrade, preferring to enter upon
a task with his chosen mate, he nevertheless could not wait inactive if
official duties prevented co-operation, but would set out alone on any
piece of work on which he had set his heart. The portrait of Bass which
we possess conveys an impression of alert and vigorous intelligence, of
genial temper and hearty relish. It is the picture of a man who was
abundantly alive in every nerve.

Flinders and Bass, being both Lincolnshire men, born within a few miles
of each other, naturally became very friendly on the long voyage to
Australia. It was said of two other friends, who achieved great
distinction in the sphere of art, that when they first met in early
manhood they "ran together like two drops of mercury," so completely
coincident were their inclinations. So it was in this instance. Two men
more predisposed to formulate plans for exploration could not have been
thrown together. A passion for maritime discovery was common to both of
them. Flinders, from his study of charts and books of voyages, had a
sound knowledge of the field of work that lay open, and Bass's keen mind
eagerly grasped the plans explained to him. It would not have taken the
surgeon and the midshipman long to find that their ambitions were
completely in tune on this inviting subject. "With this friend," Flinders
wrote, "a determination was found of completing the examination of the
east coast of New South Wales by all such opportunities as the duty of
the ship and procurable means could admit. Projects of this nature, when
originating in the minds of young men, are usually termed romantic; and
so far from any good being anticipated, even prudence and friendship join
in discouraging, if not in opposing them. Thus it was in the present
case." The significance of that passage is that the two friends made for
themselves the opportunities by which they won fame and rendered service.
They did not wait on Fortune; they forced her hand. They showed by what
they did on their own initiative, with very limited resources, that they
were the right men to be entrusted with work of larger scope.

Nevertheless it is unwarrantable to assume that Governor Hunter
discountenanced their earliest efforts. It was presumably on the passage
quoted above that the author of a chapter in the most elaborate modern
naval history founded the assertion that "the plans of the young
discoverers were discouraged by the authorities. They, however, had
resolution and perseverance. All official help and countenance were
withheld."* (* Sir Clements Markham in The Royal Navy, a History, 4 565.)
But Flinders does not say that "the authorities" discouraged the effort.
"Prudence and friendship" did. They were not yet tried men in such
hazardous enterprises; the settlement possessed scarcely any resources
for exploratory work, and the dangers were unknown. Official countenance
implies official responsibility, and there was not yet sufficient reason
for setting the Governor's seal on the adventurous experiments of two
young and untried though estimable men. When they had shown their
quality, Hunter gave them every assistance and encouragement in his
power, and proved himself a good friend to them. In the circumstances,
"prudence and friendship" are hardly to be blamed for a counsel of
caution. The remark of Flinders is not to be interpreted to mean that the
Governor put hindrances in their way. They were under his orders, and his
positive discountenance would have been effectual to block their efforts.
They could not even have obtained leave of absence without his approval.
But John Hunter was not the man to prevent them from putting their powers
to the test.

No sooner had the two friends reached Sydney than they began to look
about them for means to undertake the exploratory work upon which their
minds were bent. Bass had brought out with him from England a small boat,
only eight feet long, with a five foot beam, named by him the Tom Thumb
on account of her size.* (* Flinders' Papers "Brief Memoir" manuscripts
page 5. Some have supposed the measurements given in Flinders' published
work to have been a misprint, the size of the boat being so absurdly
small. But Flinders' Journal is quite clear on the point: "We turned our
eyes towards a little boat of about 8 feet keel and 5 feet beam which had
been brought out by Mr. Bass and others in the Reliance, and from its
size had obtained the name of Tom Thumb.") In this diminutive craft the
two friends made preparations for setting out along the Coast. Taking
with them only one boy, named Martin, with provisions and ammunition for
a very short trip, they sailed the Tom Thumb out of Port Jackson and made
southward to Botany Bay, which they entered. They pushed up George's
River, which had been only partly explored, and pursued their
investigation of its winding course for twenty miles beyond the former
limit of survey. Upon their return they presented to Hunter a report
concerning the quality of the land seen on the borders of the river,
together with a sketch map. The Governor was induced from what they told
him to examine the country himself; and the result was that he founded
the settlement of Bankstown, which still remains, and boasts the
distinction of being one of the pioneer towns of Australia.

The adventurers were delayed from the further pursuit of their ambition
by ship's duties. The Reliance was ordered to convey to Norfolk Island an
officer of the New South Wales Corps required for duty there, as well as
the Judge Advocate. She sailed in January, 1796. After her return in
March, Bass and Flinders, being free again, lost no time in fitting out
for a second cruise. Their object this time was to search for a large
river, said to fall into the sea to the south of Botany Bay, which was
not marked on Cook's chart. As before, the crew consisted only of
themselves and the boy.

It has always been believed that the boat in which this second cruise was
made, was the same Tom Thumb as that which carried the two young
explorers to George's River; indeed, Flinders himself, in his Voyage to
Terra Australis, Volume 1, page 97, says that "Mr. Bass and myself went
again in Tom Thumb." But in his unpublished Journal there is a passage
that suggests a doubt as to whether, when he wrote his book, over a
decade later, he had not forgotten that a second boat was obtained for
the second adventure. He may not have considered the circumstance
important enough to mention. At all events in the Journal, he writes: "As
Tom Thumb had performed so well before, the same boat's crew had little
hesitation in embarking in another boat of nearly the same size, which
had been since built at Port Jackson." There was, it is evident, a second
boat, no larger than the first, or that fact would have been mentioned,
and she was also known as the Tom Thumb. She was Tom Thumb the Second.
Only by that assumption can we reconcile the Voyage statement with the
Journal, which, having been written up at the time, is an authoritative
source of information.

They left Sydney on March 25th, intending to stand off to sea till
evening, when it was expected that the breeze would bring them to the
coast. But they drifted on a strong current six or seven miles southward,
and being unable to land, passed the night in the boat. Next day, being
in want of water, but unable to bring the Tom Thumb to a safe landing
place, Bass swam ashore. While the filled cask was being got off a wave
carried the boat shoreward and beached her, leaving the three on the
beach with their clothes drenched, their provisions partly spoiled, and
their arms and ammunition thoroughly wet. The emptying and launching of
the boat on a surfy shore, and the replacing of the stores and cask in
her, were managed with some difficulty; and they ran for two islands for
shelter late in the afternoon. Finding a landing to be dangerous they
again spent the night, cramped, damp, and uncomfortable, in their tossing
little eight-foot craft, with their stone anchor dropped under the lee of
a tongue of land. Bass could not sleep because, from having for so many
hours during the day had his naked body exposed to the burning sun, he
was "one continued blister." On the third day they took aboard two
aboriginals--"two Indians," Flinders calls them--natives of Botany Bay,
who offered to pilot them to a place where they could obtain not only
water but also fish and wild duck.

They were conducted to a small stream descending from a lagoon, and rowed
up it for about a mile until it became too shallow to proceed. Eight or
ten aboriginals put in an appearance, and Bass and Flinders began to
entertain doubts of securing a retreat from these people should they be
inclined to be hostile. "They had the reputation at Port Jackson of being
exceedingly ferocious, if not cannibals."

The powder having become wet and the muskets rusty, Bass and Flinders
decided to land in order that they might spread their ammunition in the
sun to dry, and clean their weapons. The natives, who increased in number
to about twenty, gathered round and watched with curiosity. Some of them
assisted Bass in repairing a broken oar. They did not know what the
powder was, but, when the muskets were handled, so much alarm was excited
that it was necessary to desist. Some of them had doubtless learnt from
aboriginals about Port Jackson of the thunder and lightning made by these
mysterious pieces of wood and metal, and had had described to them how
blackfellows dropped dead when such things pointed and smoked at them.
Flinders, anxious to retain their confidence (because, had they assumed
the offensive, they must speedily have annihilated the three whites), hit
upon an amusing method of diverting them. The aboriginals were accustomed
to wear their coarse black hair and beards hanging in long, shaggy,
untrimmed locks, matted with accretions of oil and dirt. When the two
Botany Bay blacks were taken on board the Tom Thumb as pilots, a pair of
scissors was applied to their abundant and too emphatically odorous
tresses. Flinders tells the rest of the story:

"We had clipped the hair and beards of the two Botany Bay natives at Red
Point,* (* Near Port Kembla; named by Cook.) and they were showing
themselves to the others and persuading them to follow their example.
Whilst therefore the powder was drying, I began with a large pair of
scissors to execute my new office upon the eldest of four or five chins
presented to me, and as great nicety was not required, the shaving of a
dozen of them did not occupy me long. Some of the more timid were alarmed
at a formidable instrument coming so near to their noses, and would
scarcely be persuaded by their shaven friends to allow the operation to
be finished. But when their chins were held up a second time, their fear
of the instrument, the wild stare of their eyes, and the smile which they
forced, formed a compound upon the rough savage countenance not unworthy
the pencil of a Hogarth. I was almost tempted to try what effect a little
snip would produce; but our situation was too critical to admit of such
experiments."

Flinders treats the incident lightly, and as a means of creating a
diversion while preparing a retreat it was useful; but it can hardly be
supposed to have been an agreeable occupation to barber a group of
aboriginals. What the heads were like that received Flinders'
ministrations, may be gathered from the description by Clarke, the
supercargo of the wrecked Sydney Cove, concerning the natives whom he
encountered in the following year (March 1797): "Their hair is long and
straight, but they are wholly inattentive to it, either as to cleanliness
or in any other respect. It serves them in lieu of a towel to wipe their
hands as often as they are daubed with blubber or shark oil, which is
their principal article of food. This frequent application of rancid
grease to their heads and bodies renders their approach exceedingly
offensive."

But the adventure, by putting the blacks into a good humour, enabled Bass
and Flinders to collect their dried powder, obtain fresh water, and get
back to their boat. The natives became vociferous for them to go up to
the lagoon, but the natives "dragged her along down the stream shouting
and singing," until the depth of water placed them in safety. Flinders,
in his Journal, expressed the view that "we were perhaps considerably
indebted for the fear the natives entertained of us to an old red jacket
which Mr. Bass wore, and from which they took us to be soldiers, whom
they were particularly afraid of; and though we did not much admire our
new name, Soja, we thought it best not to undeceive them."

On March 25 they anchored "under the innermost of the northern
islets...We called these Martin's Isles after our young companion in the
boat."* (* Journal.)

They were now in the Illawarra district, one of the most prolific in New
South Wales;* (* McFarlane, Illawarra and Monaro, Sydney 1872 page 8.)
and the observation of Flinders that the land they saw was "probably
fertile, and the slopes of the back hills had certainly that appearance,"
has been richly justified by a century's experience.

The two friends and their boy had to remain on the Tom Thumb for a third
night; but next afternoon (March 28) they were able to land unmolested,
to cook a meal, and to take some rest on the shore. "The sandy beach was
our bed, and after much fatigue and passing three nights of cramp in Tom
Thumb it was to us a bed of down."

At about ten o'clock at night, on March 29th, the little craft was in
extreme danger of foundering in a gale. The anchor had been cast under
the lee of a range of cliffs, but the situation was insecure, so that
Bass and Flinders considered it prudent to haul up the stone and run
before the wind. The night was dark, the wind burst in a gale, and the
adventurers had no knowledge of any place of security to which they could
run. The frowning cliffs above them and the smashing of the surf on the
rocks, were their guide in steering a course parallel with the coast.
Bass held the sheet, Flinders steered with an oar, and the boy bailed out
the water which the hissing crests of wind-lashed waves flung into the
boat. "It required the utmost exertion to prevent broaching to; a single
wrong movement or a moment's inattention would have sent us to the
bottom."

They drove along for an hour in this precarious situation, hoping for an
opening to reveal itself into which they could run for shelter. At last,
Flinders, straining his eyes in the darkness, distinguished right ahead
some high breakers, behind which there appeared to be no shade of cliffs.
So extremely perilous was their position at this time, with the water
increasing despite the efforts of the boy, that Flinders, an unusually
placid and matter-of-fact writer when dealing with dangers of the sea,
declares that they could not have lived ten minutes longer. On the
instant he determined to turn the boat's head for these breakers, hoping
that behind them, as there were no high cliffs, there might be sheltered
water. The boat's head was brought to the wind, the sail and mast were
taken down, and the oars were got out. "Pulling thus towards the reef,
th

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