I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more.

Barry Cornwall

The boy who read Robinson Crusoe

JIM HAYNES

TOWARDS THE END OF Matthew Flinders’ life, the editor of the Naval Chronicle was preparing a feature article on the famous commander, explorer and navigator. When he enquired about any ‘juvenile anecdotes’, which might be of interest in the biographical sketch, Flinders replied that he was ‘induced to go to sea against the wishes of friends from reading Robinson Crusoe’.

In the late eighteenth century, most literate European boys read Alexandre Dumas’ novel with the rather cumbersome title: The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself.

The book was hugely successful and was Europe’s first adventure ‘novel’, a story devoid of the usual mythology and legends and using contemporary ideas and characters. The hero goes to sea against his parents’ wishes, becomes a plantation owner and slave-trader, is shipwrecked and survives by his own ingenuity, rescues the intended victims of cannibals, defeats a gang of pirates, returns to civilisation and finds he is wealthy after all.

Flinders himself was not from York, but the adjoining county of Lincolnshire. As a result of defying his friends and family and ‘running away to sea’, he would himself survive shipwreck, undertake a perilous journey in an open boat to save the survivors, spend seven years trapped on an island against his will, give a name to a nation and become as famous for his adventures as his fictional hero . . . at least in the eyes of many Australians.

When Flinders was four years old, the other great hero of his youth was murdered in Hawaii. James Cook, a Yorkshireman like the fictional Robinson Crusoe, was to have an uncanny posthumous influence on the life of Matthew Flinders, through his connections with William Bligh and Joseph Banks.

Flinders should have been a country doctor, a physician like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, in and around the village of Donington, where he was born in 1774.

Educated at Donington Parish School until the age of twelve, young Matthew was then sent to nearby Horbling Grammar School for three years where he learned Latin, Greek, the Classics and mathematics and was given a good grounding in writing clear English by the Reverend John Shinglar. The geometry he learned in those three years enabled him to master the complex arts of navigation and chart making—in which he was essentially self-taught, like his hero James Cook.

Unlike Cook, Flinders did not have the benefit of many years sailing and commanding commercial vessels and studying navigation and seamanship at night before joining the navy.

Matthew had an uncle, John, who had served eleven years in the navy and tried to turn the young man away from a life at sea. Uncle John, however, could not compete with James Cook and Robinson Crusoe. When the family refused to sanction his plans, Flinders used a more devious method to achieve his dream.

The enterprising young Matthew had a cousin who was governess to the daughter of Captain Thomas Pasley of the Royal Navy and, at just fourteen years of age, he managed to persuade his cousin to introduce him to the captain.

The first meeting resulted in a long conversation and an overnight stay at the captain’s house. As a result of this friendship, Flinders joined HMS Alert as an officer’s servant at age fifteen. Seven months later he transferred to Captain Pasley’s vessel, HMS Scipio.

Two months later Thomas Pasley was promoted to command HMS Bellerophon, a 74-gun battleship named after a mythological Greek hero, and one of the most famous fighting ships of the era. Sixteen-year-old Matthew Flinders soon joined his patron as a midshipman on the Bellerophon.

Flinders had decided as a young teenager that his chances of advancement would depend on his abilities as a navigator and explorer, rather than as a naval commander of warships. In 1791, aged seventeen, he saw an opportunity to advance his cause.

William Bligh had just returned from losing the HMS Bounty to mutineers while on a voyage to gather breadfruit plants and take them to the West Indies, where they would hopefully prosper and provide a cheap source of food for plantation slaves.

Bligh was much admired by the Admiralty and was immediately charged with another voyage to complete the work he had begun, this time with two ships, HMS Providence and the tender Assistant.

Flinders knew Bligh had learnt his craft as a commander and navigator while serving under Cook, and applied for permission to join the voyage. With Pasley’s approval he was ‘loaned’ to the expedition and joined the Providence as a midshipman.

Thus, for the last two and a half years of his teenage life, Flinders sailed the waters of the Pacific Ocean, Asia and the West Indies— and many ports in between—under the tutelage of one of the finest navigators of the time. He learned to observe weather and ocean conditions and calculate position and distance. He meticulously kept a journal in which he noted the customs of the people he encountered and the landscapes of the places he visited. In short he developed what he called ‘a passion for exploring new countries’. During this voyage Bligh’s ships explored Adventure Bay in southeastern Tasmania, and sailed through Torres Strait to the north.

When the voyage ended, Flinders again joined the Bellerophon, this time as an aide-de-camp to Pasley, who had been promoted to rear-admiral and commanded the van squadron of the channel fleet. As rear-admiral Pasley remained on the Bellerophon, which was now captained by William Hope.

As Britain was at war with France young Matthew was bound to see action and, sure enough, the Bellerophon was involved in a number of minor engagements in the English Channel in late 1793 and early 1794. On 1 June 1794, the warship—known to her lessthan-classically educated crew as the ‘Billy Ruffian’—was involved in the famous Third Battle of Ushant, afterwards known as ‘the Glorious First of June’.

The battle came about when the British fleet attempted to blockade French ports during the French Revolution, during which the French declared war on Britain and the Dutch Republic on 1 February 1793. The French Atlantic fleet engaged the British fleet under Admiral Lord Howe in an attempt to get a convoy of grain ships from America into the French port of Brest.

Twenty-five British ships of the line and twenty-six French warships fought a pitched battle in the Bay of Biscay, after Lord Howe used the unusual tactic of sailing directly at the French and then attacking ship-to-ship after breaking their line. Seven French warships were sunk, while Howes’ fleet returned to port at Plymouth, battered and damaged, without losing a ship.

Although the French claimed a pyrrhic victory on account of the grain convoy arriving successfully several days afterwards, the battle was a triumph for the British navy.

Young 20-year-old Matthew Flinders sat calmly on the deck of the Bellerophon throughout the battle, observing and making notes. As chaos reigned around him and the Bellerophon took broadside after broadside from the French warships Eole and America in a pitched gunnery battle, he prepared what was to become the most accurate account of the famous battle, a report that ran to forty foolscap pages.

The battle was to have a great effect on Flinders’ career. While his calmness under fire and his skills of observation and expression impressed his superiors, the pivotal outcome of the battle for Flinders was the retirement from active command of his first patron, Rear-Admiral Thomas Pasley, who lost a leg to a cannon ball in the battle as his protege sat on deck making notes.

This left Flinders free to move on to another stage of his naval career, as he was no longer duty-bound to serve with his great supporter and mentor.

Following the Third Battle of Ushant, while the Bellerophon was being repaired, her fifth lieutenant, Henry Waterhouse, was appointed captain of HMS Reliance. This ship was to convey the second governor of New South Wales, John Hunter—a First Fleet veteran, as captain of the escort warship HMS Sirius—to the other side of the world to take up his post. Flinders saw his chance. Using his connection with Waterhouse, he joined the Reliance as midshipman and sailed from Plymouth in February 1795, bound for the penal colony, which had been largely forgotten by the Admiralty during the tumultuous years of war with the French. On board was another native of Lincolnshire, ship’s surgeon George Bass.

Bass was three years older than Flinders. A Lincolnshire farmer’s son, he also had a grammar school education after his father died when he was seven years old. He became a surgeon at eighteen, having joined the navy after being apprenticed to a local doctor for five years.

Bass had an adventurous spirit and had brought a small boat, 8 feet by 5 feet, on board the Reliance with the intention of exploring the waterways of the new colony—he called it Tom Thumb. He had also brought a servant boy, William Martin, with him.

Flinders made good use of the voyage out to New South Wales to develop friendships with both Governor Hunter and George Bass and, in October 1795, he and Bass and Martin explored the George’s River in Tom Thumb. The young explorers were encouraged and supported by Governor Hunter and their voyage led to the settlement of Bankstown being established.

In a larger version of Tom Thumb, they explored and charted Port Hacking and Lake Illawarra. Bass went on to explore the coast as far south as Western Port in Governor Hunter’s whaleboat, which led him to assert that Van Diemen’s Land was separated from the mainland.

The wreck of the trading vessel Sydney Cove on an island off the coast of Van Diemen’s Land in 1796, and the subsequent rescue missions to retrieve her crew and cargo, had aroused Bass’ interest in the area. His exploration of the southern coast led him to believe there was a passage north of Van Diemen’s Land that would shorten the journey from Britain to New South Wales considerably.

Bass was right and, in 1798, he and Flinders circumnavigated Van Diemen’s Land in the Norfolk, a sloop of 25 tons that was built on Norfolk Island.

Their explorations and charts led to the establishment of Hobart in 1803, and it was Flinders who suggested to Hunter that the strait between the mainland and Van Diemen’s Land bear his friend’s name, noting in his journal that ‘this was no more than a just tribute to my worthy friend and companion’.

In 1799 Flinders explored the coast of what today is Queensland. He and Bass returned to Britain in 1800 and Bass married Elizabeth, sister of Henry Waterhouse, Captain of the Reliance, in October 1800.

Ten weeks after his marriage, Bass sailed his own ship to New South Wales, and then embarked upon a series of trading exploits in New Zealand and Hawaii (the Sandwich Islands), which culminated in a secretive and possibly illegal voyage to trade in South America, a trip from which he simply never returned.

Bass was a remarkable man. Among other things he attempted unsuccessfully to cross the Blue Mountains, and was made an honorary member of the Society for Promoting Natural History (which became the famous Linnean Society) for his paper on the anatomy of the wombat!

Upon his return to Britain, keen to advance his opportunities to explore, Flinders found a valuable patron in another Lincolnshire man, Captain Cook’s old patron and friend Sir Joseph Banks, who was also a friend of Flinders’ supporter John Hunter.

Flinders’ charts and reputation as an explorer had preceded him and, with the support of Banks and Hunter, his career made remarkable progress between his arrival back in Britain in October 1800 and his promotion to commander in February 1801.

In these four short months his plan for the exploration of Australia was accepted, a ship (the Investigator) was commissioned for the purpose, and his journals were published.

Flinders described his ship this way:

The Investigator was a north-country-built ship, of three-hundred and thirty-four tons; and, in form, nearly resembled the description of a vessel recommended by Captain Cook as best calculated for voyages of discovery. She had been purchased some years before into His Majesty’s service; and having been newly coppered and repaired, was considered to be the best vessel which could, at that time, be spared for the projected voyage to Terra Australis.

Indeed, HMS Investigator began life as a shallow draught collier, like the Endeavour. Launched as the Fram in 1795, she was acquired by the navy during the war with the French in 1798, and used as a 20-gun escort sloop, HMS Xenophon.

Although refitted at Deptford with extra cabins and storage for scientists, she was not in good condition, but was all that could be spared by a navy preparing for war. Problems of poor timber would plague the Investigator and force Flinders to abort his mission in 1803.

To make matters worse she had been ‘coppered’—a process designed to protect a ship’s timber from marine worms and prevent marine growth, which slowed a ship’s speed. The very expensive process of routinely sheathing naval vessels in copper sheeting began in 1781, despite failed experiments as early as 1761. The problem was that the copper reacted electrolytically with the iron bolts used in timber ship construction, and the resultant corrosion of the bolts meant that the timbers leaked and rotted. Various alloys were tried but, over the following decades, many of His Majesty’s ships were actually falling apart as the timbers rotted inside the copper sheathing.

But all this was in the future for young Commander Flinders in February 1801. He had other problems.

Against the advice of his patron Joseph Banks, he married his childhood sweetheart, Ann Chappell, in April 1801 and applied for permission to take her on the voyage. When this was refused he sailed in July, leaving his bride to live alone for the next nine years, reaching the southwest tip of Australia, Cape Leeuwin, on 6 December 1801. He spent a month preparing in King George Sound (Albany) and then moved slowly eastward.

Flinders charted the south coast to Kangaroo Island meticulously, using the technique he had used in mapping Van Diemen’s Land. The ship was kept as close inshore as possible during the day, so the shoreline was visible and no river or opening could escape notice. Flinders stood at the masthead with a telescope and constantly checked bearings while the land was in sight. Each night he made his rough chart for the day and his journal of observations, and care was taken to start at the same point next morning at daylight.

When bays and islands were found, Flinders went ashore with the theodolite, measured, mapped and made topographical notes. Soundings were taken constantly and the rise and fall of the tides observed. Time was given for the naturalists to collect specimens, and for the artist to make drawings.

Flinders found and explored Spencer Gulf; today Lincolnshire names still abound in that area, including Port Lincoln and Donington.

Before the gulf was explored, however, tragedy struck the expedition. On Sunday 21 February, the ship’s cutter was returning from searching for water. Aboard were the ship’s master, John Thistle, midshipman William Taylor, and six sailors.

Nobody saw what happened. The boat was seen leaving shore, but it did not arrive. Next day the boat was found floating upside down, with holes indicating it had been smashed against rocks.

The loss of John Thistle affected Flinders deeply. He noted:

Mr Thistle was truly a valuable man, as a seaman, an officer, and a good member of society. I had known him, and we had mostly served together, from the year 1794. He had been with Mr Bass in his perilous expedition in the whaleboat, and with me in the voyage round Van Diemen’s Land, and in the succeeding expedition to Glass House and Hervey’s Bays. From his merit and prudent conduct, he was promoted from before the mast to be a midshipman and afterwards a master in His Majesty’s service. His zeal for discovery had induced him to join the Investigator when at Spithead and ready to sail, although he had returned to England only three weeks before, after an absence of six years . . . His loss was severely felt by me, and he was lamented by all on board.

Flinders erected a copper plate upon a stone post at the head of Memory Cove, engraved with the names of those who died. Two fragments of the original plate are now in the museum at Adelaide.

Some parts of the southern coast had been charted as far back as 1627, on the voyage undertaken by Dutchman Pieter Nuyts. Captain George Vancouver in the British ship Chatham had explored as far as King George Sound in 1791, and Frenchman Bruni d’Entrecasteaux explored further east the following year on his quest to find tidings of missing French explorer La Perouse.

In typically sentimental Gallic fashion, d’Entrecasteaux’s ships were named Esperance (Hope) and Recherche (Searching). The town of Esperance takes its name from the former.

Captain James Grant had sailed through Bass Strait in 1800 and charted the coast from the east as far as Western Port in 1801. While Flinders was slowly mapping the southern coast from the west, Frenchman Nicolas Baudin was doing the same thing, but heading westward. They met at Encounter Bay, off Kangaroo Island, on 8 April 1802.

In 1798 Baudin had presented to the French National Museum of Natural History a plan for a hydrographic survey expedition to the South Seas, which would include a search for fauna and flora that could be brought back for cultivation in France. After considering this extensive proposal, the French government decided to proceed with an expedition confined to a survey of western and southern New Holland. Baudin reached Australia in May 1801 with two ships, Geographe and Naturaliste, accompanied by nine zoologists and botanists. He explored and mapped the western coast, and a part of the southern coast. More than 2500 new species were discovered.

In spite of poor health and dissension among his officers, during a time of uneasy truce between Britain and France, Baudin acted diplomatically and honourably in his relations with the colonists and, during time spent in Sydney, was most grateful for the support of Governor King. He spent two and a half years exploring and charting the Australian coast, collecting flora and fauna and making a close study of Tasmanian Aborigines. He died from tuberculosis on his way home in 1803, at Mauritius.

Although there were some communication problems due to Flinders’ lack of French and Baudin’s poor English, the two were able to share the fruits of their discoveries and spent two days in friendly communication in Encounter Bay before parting.

As the entire southern coast was now at least adequately charted, Flinders sailed to Port Jackson, with a stop-over to make maps of Port Phillip and Western Port, and prepared the Investigator for the task of charting the entire coast of Australia. Baudin arrived some six weeks later, with most of his crew needing medical attention for scurvy and dysentery.

While the crew recovered, the two explorers shared more of their discoveries and charts during several weeks encamped together at Port Jackson.

Flinders sailed north in July, finding and exploring places such as Port Curtis and Port Bowen, and continuing his detailed survey work, mapping the Queensland coast and the Gulf of Carpentaria.

After passing through Torres Strait, it became apparent that the Investigator, which was leaking badly, was so rotten that she might have trouble surviving bad weather. The ship was careened for inspection, and the ship’s carpenter was of the opinion that she could only remain afloat for another six months.

Flinders could not continue his detailed surveying and charting under those conditions, but he was determined to be the first to at least circumnavigate the continent. He therefore sailed westward, spent some time looking for the mysterious Trial Rocks, which had wrecked the British East Indiaman Tryall in 1622, and returned to Port Jackson by way of the western coast and Bass Strait, bringing the barely seaworthy Investigator safely into Port Jackson on 9 June 1803.

Flinders was anxious to complete the task he had been assigned by the Admiralty: the complete survey of the coast of Terra Australis. In August 1803 he sailed as a passenger from Port Jackson in HMS Porpoise to secure a suitable ship.

Further adventures still lay ahead for Matthew Flinders, but the completion of the survey was not to be one of them.

The Porpoise was seven days out of Sydney, sailing in convoy with the passenger ships Cato and Bridgewater, when two of the three ships struck an uncharted reef in heavy seas at 9.30 on the dark moonless night of 17 August 1803.

Wreck Reefs, as they are now called, consist of 30 kilometres of reefs and sandy islands, 450 kilometres east-northeast of the modern-day town of Gladstone. Seconds after the lookout man on the forecastle called out ‘breakers ahead’, the Porpoise was beyond control in heavy surf. A minute later she struck a coral reef and the heavy sea lifted the vessel and dashed her onto the coral.

With her foremast gone and her bottom stove in, the Porpoise was being pounded to pieces while a futile attempt was made to fire a cannon to warn the other two ships. Sadly this could not be done. Those clinging desperately to the disintegrating Porpoise watched the Cato hit the reef 300 metres distant and disappear from view.

The Bridgewater seemed likely to suffer a similar fate, but a huge swell lifted her and she cleared the reef and stood out to sea. Flinders immediately took charge and ordered the ship’s rowboat to be launched. He told Captain Fowler that he intended to save his charts and journals, although many of his specimens were lost.

Flinders’ plan was to row to the Bridgewater and take charge of the rescue of those wrecked on the reef. The leaking rowboat was at a safe distance from the wreck as he conveyed his plan to Captain Fowler. Rather than risk losing the rowboat, Flinders swam through the raging waves to board her. He and five others bailed and rowed in pursuit of the Bridgewater, but could not reach her.

Rather than attempt to return to the wreck of the Porpoise through the breakers in darkness, Flinders kept the rowboat outside the reef until morning, assuming that they would all be rescued by the Bridgewater at first light.

At dawn, Flinders climbed back onto what was left of the Porpoise and took stock of the situation. About half a mile inside the reef he saw a dry sandy island, and directed all survivors of both vessels to jump overboard and swim through the surf to the island, using planks and spars. All were saved except three young crewmen from the Cato, who had perished in the night.

Not only did Flinders organise for all left alive at sunrise to reach the island safely, he also managed to get most of the provisions from the Porpoise ashore. Stores were landed, tents were made from sails, and ‘on the fourth day’, Flinders wrote, ‘each division of officers and men had its private tent, and the public magazine contained sufficient provisions and water to subsist us three months’.

Indeed, the stores saved from the wreck and itemised on the tiny island included 940 pounds of biscuit, 9644 pounds of flour, 1776 four-pound pieces of beef, 592 two-pound pieces of pork, 50 bushels of oatmeal, 1225 pounds of rice, 448 pounds of sugar and molasses, 398 gallons of spirits and wine and porter, and 5650 gallons of water.

Also many of Flinders’ specimens and the Investigator artist Westall’s drawings were salvaged—along with sundry amounts of sauerkraut, malt, vinegar, salt, sails, spars, an anchor, an armourer’s forge, canvas, twine, four and a half barrels of gunpowder, two swivel cannons, muskets and pistols, and a few sheep, which unfortunately trampled over some of Westall’s drawings as they came ashore. Their hoof-marks are still visible on one of the drawings, preserved in the Royal Colonial Institute Library.

Once the 94 survivors had been organised, Flinders, determined to preserve discipline, read aloud the articles of war and had one seaman, an ex-convict, publicly flogged for disorderly conduct. He was determined to ensure that all survivors, including merchant seamen from the Cato, knew where they stood. The island operated in the same manner as a British ship of the line until all were saved three months later.

But just how were they saved? And where was the Bridgewater?

The answers to these two questions make for two amazing tales: one of heroism, skill, bravery and salvation; the other of cowardice and treachery, followed by honesty and retribution.

So, let us first return to the Bridgewater.

After narrowly avoiding the same fate as the Porpoise and Cato, the Bridgewater stood out to sea and waited for the storm to abate. On his arrival in India, Captain Palmer related his story to a newspaper and sent official correspondence ashore at Thalassery.

When the day was broke, we had the mortification to perceive the Cato had shared the fate of the Porpoise; the bow and bow sprit of the latter only at intervals appearing through the surf . . . with her bottom exposed to the sea, which broke with tremendous fury over her; not a mast standing.

Finding we could not weather the reef, and that it was too late had it been in our power to give any assistance; and still fearing that we might be embayed or entangled by the supposed chain or patches . . . We therefore determined, while we had the day before us, to run to the westward of the northern reef. At five p.m. we could perceive the wrecks . . . After passing the reef we lay too for the night; and in the morning we lost sight of it, having drifted to the northward.

In other words, Captain Palmer sailed back and forth at a safe distance from the reefs and the wrecks and, fearing his ship was in danger if he approached closer, abandoned the two wrecks and sailed away to India.

As fate would have it, Palmer’s false account of the shipwrecks was entrusted to his ship’s third mate, a Mr Williams, to be taken ashore at Thalassery.

Williams was disgusted at his captain’s behaviour—he had noted the sandy island inside the reef and thought, from the position of the wrecks on the reef, there was every likelihood that there were survivors.

When he was chosen to take the message ashore, Williams made a decision that could have ruined his career. As he put it:

In executing this service, I did, for the first time to my knowledge, neglect my duty, and gave a contrary account; but for this reason— I was convinced that the crews of those ships were on the reefs, and that this was an erroneous account made by Captain Palmer to excuse his own conduct.

Not only did Williams contradict his captain’s account, he returned to the ship and informed Palmer that he had done it. For this he was put ashore by Palmer in Bombay without his pay and some of his belongings.

In a twist of fate that would seem implausible in fiction, the Bridgewater was lost at sea with all hands on its voyage back to Britain, while Williams and several others who had left the ship in protest at Bombay lived to tell the true story.

Meanwhile, back on the sandy island, Flinders called a council of officers, which resolved that he should take the largest of the Porpoise’s two six-oar cutters, with an officer and crew, and make his way to Port Jackson—a risky voyage that would have to be made against prevailing strong southerly winds. In case his mission ended in death or failure, he ordered that two boats should be built by the carpenters from the wreckage, so all the survivors could attempt to sail back to Sydney.

The cutter was prepared for her long voyage. Appropriately named the Hope, she was launched on 26 August.^.

With Captain Park of the Cato as his assistant officer, and a double set of rowers, fourteen men in all set out with three weeks’ provisions.

Flinders had flown a large blue ensign upside down on a masthead as a signal of distress for the Bridgewater to see. In a gesture of admiration, a sailor hauled it down and flew it right way up as Flinders and his crew left the tiny island.

‘This symbolic expression of contempt for the Bridgewater and of confidence in the success of our voyage,’ said Flinders, ‘I did not see without lively emotion.’

On the evening of 8 September, Governor King and his family had just commenced dinner when a servant announced a visitor. Matthew Flinders, who had not shaved for a month, was ushered into the dining room.

Plans to rescue the shipwrecked men were immediately formed. Captain Cumming of the Rolla, a 438-ton merchant ship, agreed to call at the reef and carry some to Canton, while the Francis would bring the remainder back to Sydney.

Flinders himself was given command of the Cumberland, a 29-ton schooner, and was to sail in her to England with his charts and papers as rapidly as possible. The Cumberland was a small ship built in Sydney for local service. Her crew consisted of just a boatswain and ten men, but she was the only boat available.

Although it took just two weeks to prepare the rescue mission, Flinders stated that ‘every day seemed a week’. On Friday 7 October, exactly six weeks after Hope had left Wreck Reefs, the lookout on the Rolla spotted the blue ensign flying on the flag-staff of the little desert island, and the rescue was completed.

Thus it was that Matthew Flinders, having found himself shipwrecked like his hero Robinson Crusoe, took control, formulated a plan for salvation, swam through mountainous seas to board a leaking rowboat and chase a ship which deserted him, managed to save and get safely to shore all but three of the passengers and crew of two wrecked ships, set up a well-run camp, organised the civilised and orderly storage and distribution of provisions, and sailed over 1000 kilometres back to Port Jackson in an open boat to organise the rescue.

It was, I believe, his finest and bravest adventure. Robinson Crusoe could have done no better!

Having arranged for the relief and rescue of his wrecked shipmates, Flinders sailed off in the 29-ton schooner Cumberland, planning to proceed to England by way of Torres Strait.

The ship soon proved totally unfit for the task, needing almost constant pumping to keep her afloat, as well as being almost impossible to sail on the open sea. Flinders therefore decided to seek assistance at Ile-de-France (known before and after French rule as Mauritius), in conformity with his French passport. He arrived there on 17 December 1803, three months to the day after his friend Baudin had died there, and exactly one day after Baudin’s ship, the Geographe, had departed for France.

There were two small details that were to make this an unfortunate turn of events.

Firstly, in his haste to leave Port Jackson and return to rescue those on Wreck Reefs, Flinders had neglected to change the details on his French passport. He was sailing in a different ship to that for which his papers were valid.

Secondly, he had sailed inadvertently into an enemy port, for France and Britain were once again at war.

The story of Matthew Flinders’ imprisonment on Mauritius has been told many times. It was six years and six months before he was released, even though the French government ordered his release just two years after his arrival.

There are many reasons why things went so badly for Flinders on Mauritius.

The governor of the colony, Charles Decaen, was a brave soldier, a good general in battle and a scrupulously honest man with a brusque manner. He was a protege of the great French general Jean Moreau, and his actions were largely responsible for Moreau’s crushing victory against the Austrians in 1800 at Hohenlinden. Decaen had good reason to hate the British and feel suspicious of their actions.

In spite of Napoleon’s distrust of Moreau, whom he had dismissed for disloyalty in 1797 but reinstated after he seized power as France’s ruler in 1799, Napoleon trusted and confided in Decaen and had great plans for him.

In February 1803, under the conditions of the Peace of Amiens (a truce between France and Britain), Decaen was chosen to sail to India to govern the French territories that had been taken by the British and were to be returned to France under the terms of the treaty.

Decaen left Brest in February, expecting to arrive in India to find the territories restored to French rule, as agreed. The British, however, had decided not to hand back the colonies, so Decaen arrived in the port at Pondicherry in June to find the British still in control and unwilling to negotiate.

Another French ship then arrived with news that war was imminent (it had actually been declared in May, while the ship was at sea). Decaen was instructed to return to the much less important colony of Mauritius and take up the post of governor there, which he did, four months before Flinders’ arrival.

The British, as Decaen saw it, had stolen French territories, reneged on promises made in a treaty, and robbed him of a valuable career opportunity.

It is little wonder he was suspicious of Flinders’ motives. Although he quickly realised that Flinders had not been aware that France and Britain were at war, he suspected Flinders might have been sent to do reconnaissance on the island’s defences for the British government.

It was quite logical for Decaen to assume that the British merely used the Treaty of Amiens as a cover to prepare for an onslaught on the French colonies, because in fact it was true.

Both nations used the treaty as an opportunity to plot and spy and make plans. The French naturalist Francois Peron, who was a member of Baudin’s expedition and wrote the official account of the voyage after Baudin’s death, also prepared a secret report, which shows he operated as a spy while in Port Jackson and advocated a French attack on the colony. Peron had undoubtedly spoken to Decaen about these plans, and perhaps filled his mind with doubts about Flinders.

It is ironic that Peron, to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude for his work in collecting over 100,000 zoological specimens, and making the only detailed study of Tasmanian Aborigines before their contact with Europeans destroyed their culture, was also operating as a spy, and advocated and planned the downfall of the British settlement in New South Wales.

Francois Peron was an unusual man. He studied for the priesthood before joining the army. While a prisoner of war after the Battle of Kaiserslautern, in which he lost an eye, he read accounts of voyages and decided to become a naturalist. He was the only one of five naturalists to survive Baudin’s voyage, and his work was excellent. He did not like Baudin and the feeling was mutual. It is doubly ironic that, when Baudin refused to fund Peron’s exploration of the outlying areas of the colony during their stay at Port Jackson, Governor King gave him the resources he needed and paid for him to undertake the task!

Whatever the reason for Decaen’s original distrust of Flinders, the situation soon became exacerbated by the reactions of the two men to each other. Even though their nations were at war, there was an expectation of mutual respect between officers and gentlemen, and especially so in the case of explorers and men of science, but Decaen was suspicious, and Flinders was insulted and annoyed.

Soon it was Decaen’s turn to be insulted and annoyed. Having concluded his official business with Flinders, he immediately sent him a message inviting him to dine with his wife and himself.

Flinders refused the invitation, even though the officer who delivered it begged him to reconsider, pointing out that conversation over dinner would perhaps serve to solve the misunderstandings between him and the Governor.

Refusing an invitation to dine with the one man who could help him, as a fellow officer and gentleman, was a decision Flinders would have plenty of time to regret. Indeed Flinders soon realised that much of the problem between himself and Decaen was caused by him mistaking Decaen’s brusqueness for deliberate rudeness.

Decaen was flabbergasted by the refusal. He felt that Flinders’ behaviour at their official interview made his invitation to dine an exceptionally gracious gesture. In his memoirs, he recalled that:

although he had given me cause to withhold the invitation on account of his impertinence; but from boorishness, or rather from arrogance, he refused that courteous invitation, which, if accepted, would indubitably have brought about a change favourable to his position, through the conversation which would have taken place.

Apart from all the other obvious impediments to a successful outcome of the unfortunate circumstance of Flinders arriving at an enemy port, the personality clash between the two men was to set in motion a series of events that led to Flinders spending six and a half years on the island.

Decaen saw it like this: ‘Captain Flinders imagined that he would obtain his release by arguing, by arrogance, and especially by impertinence.’

Flinders’ version was:

I believe that the violence of his passion outstrips his judgment and reason . . . he is instantaneous in his directions, and should he do an injustice he must persist in it because it would lower his dignity to retract. His antipathy, moreover, is so great to Englishmen, who are the only nation that could prevent the ambitious designs of France from being put into execution, that immediately the name of one is mentioned he is directly in a rage . . .

Flinders, however, thought Decaen was an honest and honourable man, and admitted that ‘he has the credit of having a good heart at the bottom’.

To the credit of Decaen, Flinders was treated with dignity and respect during his enforced stay on Mauritius. His every request was agreed to—except his request to leave.

His papers and documents were returned to him, his crew were allowed to leave and he was accommodated in comfort at the expense of the French government in very comfortable lodgings in the hills at Wilhelm’s Plains.

He made many friends, worked on his journals, learned to speak excellent French and passable Malay, and reflected on life in general, and his own in particular. He later said that in some respects those years were the most serene and pleasant of his entire life.

In a letter to his wife he admitted, ‘I am proud, unindulgent, and hasty to take offence, but . . . my mind has been taught a lesson in philosophy, and my judgment has gained an accession of experience that will not soon be forgotten.’

Many requests for release were made to both Decaen and the French government on Flinders’ behalf, by respected British citizens, including Governor King, Sir Joseph Banks and the Governor of India, and also by French scientists and notables, including explorer Louis-Antoine Bougainville, and eminent citizens on Mauritius.

Although other British prisoners and captured naval personnel were released or traded for French prisoners of war, Decaen obstinately refused to allow Flinders to leave—despite a release order being signed by Napoleon in March 1806. The release document approved of Decaen’s actions, but asked that Flinders’ ship be restored to him and Flinders be released.

It is true that, due to the successes of the British fleet in the ongoing war, no copy of the release document arrived on Mauritius until mid-1807, but when it did arrive Decaen chose to take it as advice that he could release Flinders when he thought it appropriate, rather than as a direct order.

It was not until three years later, with Mauritius doomed and blockaded by the British, that Flinders was informed that the Emperor’s order for his release was to be activated. He was then conveyed to one of the British ships involved in the blockade and returned home via the Cape Colony, which was now under British control, arriving back to greet his wife nine years and three months after his departure.

Why did Decaen persist in keeping Flinders on the island so long? We can only surmise that, once Flinders had been given relative liberty to roam the island and talk to anyone he chose, Decaen realised he knew far too much about the weakened state of the island’s defences, and how easily it could be taken, to let him return to Britain with that information.

The longer Flinders remained, the more he knew. Decaen was well aware the colony was living on borrowed time as the war swung in favour of Britain. Keeping Flinders on the island prolonged the time he could stave off the inevitable fall of the colony to the British.

Decaen has been pilloried by historians for keeping Flinders in an unfair state of captivity, but his priorities were to his country, and he managed to keep Ile-de-France in French hands for far longer than he had imagined possible by a combination of bluff and cunning.

Although the public buildings, wharfs and defences were falling apart and food was scarce at times, Decaen managed to bluff the British out of attacking, even though a small force could have easily taken the island at any time from 1804. He held out until 1810.

Decaen knew Flinders would not violate his ‘parole’ for two reasons. He had given his word that he would not attempt to escape, although it would have been a simple thing to achieve, and he was offered safe passage by at least one neutral captain and refused the offer. Flinders even kept his word in so far as his letters home never gave any military information.

Apart from having given his word as an officer and a gentleman, Flinders was unwilling to leave without his documents, charts and journals. His mission had been to chart the coast of Terra Australis and write an account of the voyage, and he intended to complete the task assigned to him. Escaping from the island without his possessions was never an option. Indeed, he spent much of his time on Mauritius planning the completion of his mission to chart and explore the Australian continent, even going so far as to decide who should accompany him, and what positions they should hold.

This was never to be, of course. Flinders returned to a quite different world to the one he left. Trafalgar had changed the state of the play: the navy was expanding and the Admiralty had many other concerns to deal with. Flinders was some six years too late to capitalise on his achievements and, although he was well received, his only official task for the next four years was to finalise his report and charts. Sir Joseph Banks organised a dinner in his honour, and William Bligh took him to visit the Duke of Clarence, later King William IV, but the Admiralty took little interest in his work and left him on half pay, which made his domestic situation difficult, and led to the family moving five times in four years. The great joy of his final two years was his daughter, Anne.

Also, his health was failing. He had suffered from ‘internal complaints’ on Mauritius and the disease advanced rapidly, leaving him ‘worn to a skeleton’ in his wife’s words; at the age of thirty-nine, he resembled an old man of seventy. Although he was never heard to complain, his personal diary notes that he suffered severe pain often.

Flinders laboured hard and diligently to make sure that A Voyage to Terra Australis was well-produced and accurate in terms of text and charts. It is a monumental work, which was designed not as a popular book, but as an accurate record of his endeavours to fulfil his commission.

He was a severe critic of both his own drafts and the printer’s work and laboured over corrections and improvements until the final product met with his approval.

The first copies were delivered on 18 July 1814. His wife Ann laid the volumes on his bed while he slept, but he woke the following day, only to whisper his last words, ‘my papers’, before he closed his eyes and died.

His wife struggled on a small post-captain’s pension until she died in 1852. Learning of this, the governments of the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria each voted that a pension of £100 be paid to his widow and then revert to his daughter.

Flinders’ widow died before this took place, but his daughter, Mrs Ann Petrie, was very touched, and wrote: ‘it would indeed have cheered her last days to know that my father’s long-neglected services were at length appreciated . . . and the handsome amount of the pension granted will enable me to educate my young son in a manner worthy of the name he bears’.

Her son would become Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, born in 1853, the year the pensions were granted—the most celebrated and respected archaeologist of his era and the first professor to hold a chair of Egyptology in the United Kingdom. He died in 1942.

Flinders’ protege and nephew by marriage, Sir John Franklin, served with him on the Investigator and was wrecked with him on Wreck Reefs. He joined Flinders’ old ship HMS Bellerophon and was aboard her at Trafalgar. He became Governor of Tasmania and a famous polar explorer, and perished looking for the Northwest Passage in 1847.

The Bellerophon—the ‘Billy Ruffian’ on which Flinders saw action as a young man—became even more famous a year after Flinders’ death. It was the ship on which Napoleon surrendered and was transported to England.

Matthew Flinders is an iconic name in the history of our nation, remembered everywhere today in the titles of geographical features and public institutions such as universities, suburbs, parks and streets, although Flinders never once named anything in his own honour.

He did us the honour, however, of popularising the name of our young nation, when he wrote in 1804, ‘I call the whole island Australia’. He wished to use the name in his published works, but unfortunately was talked out of using this name in his book’s title by his great friend and supporter Sir Joseph Banks, who thought the term ‘Terra Australis’ better known and less likely to confuse scholars already used to the terminology. ‘Had I permitted myself any innovation on the original term,’ Flinders wrote, ‘it would have been to convert it to Australia; as being more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth.’

However, Governor Macquarie had read Flinders’ journals. He liked the name Australia and began using the term, and the surveyor and explorer Major Sir Thomas Mitchell followed suit when he coined the phrase ‘Australia Felix’ for the land he discovered south of the Murray.

‘Australia’ was in such common use by 1901 that there was little debate about the name that should be used when the colonies federated.

Had he become a village surgeon, like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, Matthew Flinders’ life would have no doubt been much less eventful, and probably much longer.

As it transpired, his short life was one packed with discoveries, adventures, achievements, heroism, hardships, disappointments, suffering, and eternal fame—and it was all because, as a boy, he read Robinson Crusoe.