Page:The life of Matthew Flinders.djvu/446

 Excellency that it is highly inconsistent with my situation in His Britannic Majesty's service to deliver up my arms in this manner. I am ready to deliver up to an officer bearing your Excellency's order, but I request that that officer will be of equal rank to myself. "I have the honour to be, "Your Excellency's most obedient servant and prisoner,

" "Maison Despeaux, June 2, 1804."

In a few days Captain Neuville called to apologise. It was, he said, a mistake on the part of the sergeant to ask for the sword. Had the Governor required it, an officer of equal rank would have been sent, "but he had no intention to make me a prisoner until he should receive orders to that effect." Not a prisoner! What was he, then? Certainly not, said Captain Neuville; he was merely "put under surveillance for a short period." Inasmuch as Flinders was being treated with rather more strictness than those who were confessedly prisoners of war, the benefit of the distinction was hard to appreciate.

Flinders considered that he had been treated rather handsomely in the matter of the sword. But about three months later a junior officer, who behaved with much politeness, came under the orders of Colonel D'Arsonville, the town major, to demand it. D'Arsonville had been instructed by Decaen to take possession of it, but had been unable to come himself. Flinders considered that under the circumstances he had better give up the sword to save further trouble, and did so. The significance of the incident is that, having received no orders from France, Decaen from this time regarded Flinders as a prisoner of war in the technical sense. He felt bound to hold him until instructions arrived, and could only justifiably hold him as a prisoner.