Talk:The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders, R.N.

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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.