If only he had removed his hat, things might have turned out differently. Captain Matthew Flinders, a prisoner on Isle de France, suspected of being a spy, has plenty of time to consider how this turn of events could have been avoided. Certainly, he and his French captors got off to a bad start.
On the afternoon of 17 December 1803, while returning from Port Jackson to England on the schooner Cumberland with the records of his discoveries, the run-down condition of the Cumberland – it leaked like a sieve – forced Flinders to put in for repairs at Isle de France, the French naval base in the Indian Ocean.
Even though Britain and France were once again at war, Flinders assumed his ship’s neutrality as a vessel of scientific exploration was a guarantee of aid and safe passage and, on arriving at Port Napoleon, formerly Port Louis, he immediately went ashore to present himself to the governor, General Charles Decaen.
At Government House, told that Decaen was busy but would receive him shortly, Flinders waited outside, joining a group of French officers sitting chatting in the shade. From them he learned that Nicolas Baudin had died there three months earlier, and that Baudin’s ship, Le Géographe, sailed for France the day before the Cumberland arrived. The French officers quizzed him about Baudin’s visit to Port Jackson, ‘and also,’ wrote Flinders, ‘concerning the voyage of “Monsieur Flindare”, of whom, to their surprise, I knew nothing, but afterwards found it to be my own name which they so pronounced’.1
About two hours later he was called into Government House and ushered into a room where, standing beside a desk, were two officers – one a short, thickset man in a gold-braided uniform. This was General Decaen. The other was his aide-de-camp, Colonel Monistrol. Decaen, bareheaded, nodded a perfunctory greeting. Flinders did likewise but did not remove his hat, an omission perceived by the French as rude and arrogant.
Decaen, clearly offended, curtly demanded Flinders’ passport and commission, and asked why he had come to Isle de France in the 29-tonne Cumberland when his passport was for the 334-tonne Investigator.
Flinders explained that when he sailed from England in 1801 in the Investigator he was provided with a passport from the French government. The passport specified that the Investigator, captained by Flinders, was on a voyage of discovery, and commanded the French military not to interfere with the ship unless it acted in a hostile manner towards France or her allies, or trafficked in contraband. The Investigator – the ship in which Flinders had circumnavigated New Holland, and which had met Baudin’s Le Géographe in Encounter Bay – was no longer seaworthy, however. Consequently, he had taken command of the Cumberland to return to England.
The passport, signed by the French Minister of Marine on behalf of Napoleon, did not convince Decaen that Flinders was merely an explorer. And, if the little schooner’s mission was scientific, why were there no scientists aboard?
‘You are imposing on me, sir!’ Decaen barked. ‘It is not probable that the governor of New South Wales should send away the commander of a discovery expedition in such a small vessel!’
While in Sydney, Captain Baudin, in gratitude for the hospitality shown to him and to Captain Hamelin, gave Governor King 12 copies of an open letter addressed to the governors of the French colonies of Isle de France and neighbouring Reunion Island. It read:
‘On our arrival at Port Jackson, the stock of wheat there was very limited, and that for the future was uncertain. The arrival of 170 men was not a happy circumstance at the time, yet we were well received; and when our present and future wants were known, they were supplied by shortening part of the daily ration allowed to the inhabitants and the garrison of the colony. The governor first gave the example. Through those means, which do so great honour to the humane feelings of him who put them into motion, we have enjoyed a favour which we would perhaps have experienced much difficulty in finding anywhere else.
‘After such treatment, which ought in future to serve as an example for all the nations, I consider it my duty, as much out of gratitude as by inclination, to recommend particularly to you Mr ——, commander of HMS ——. Although he does not propose to call at Isle de France, it may be possible some unforeseen circumstance might compel him to put into port in the colony, the government of which is entrusted to you. Having been a witness of the kind manner with which his countrymen have treated us on every occasion, I hope he will be convinced by his own experience that Frenchmen are not less hospitable and benevolent; and then his mother country will have over us the advantage only of having done in times of war what happier times enabled us to return to her in time of peace.’2
The copies were intended to be given by King to the masters of any ships needing to put in to the French territories, with blanks to be filled in with the names of the captains and their vessels. Inexplicably, King did not give Flinders one of the letters, which might have satisfied Decaen as to Flinders’ bona fides. Decaen had a copy of the letter, given to him by Baudin when he called in at Port Louis on the voyage home, but that letter, with the blanks in it, proved nothing to Decaen who, having been greatly influenced by the report of Péron the French spy, strongly suspected – or chose to believe – that the man standing before him was a British spy. Baudin, who could confirm Flinders’ identity, was dead, and his ship had sailed.
Decaen ordered that Flinders be detained but, given that his captive was a fellow officer and gentleman, sent an invitation to join him and his wife for dinner. Flinders, angry at having been detained, and by this insult to his character, refused. He sent a message back that he would not go to dinner unless he was set free.
If not doffing his hat was his first faux pas, this was certainly his second, and would cost him dearly. He would later write, ‘My refusal of the intended honour until set at liberty so much exasperated the captain-general that he determined to make me repent it.’3
When a box of despatches from Governor King on military matters was discovered aboard the Cumberland, Decaen was convinced that his suspicions were confirmed.
King, while aware that a resumption of hostilities with France was likely, and that Flinders’ passport applied only to letters of a personal nature, took the risk of asking him to take with him a box of despatches to the secretary of state.
In one despatch, King recommends strengthening the defences of Port Jackson with more troops and artillery in case of attack by the French fleet from Isle de France. In another, he suggests using Sydney as a base from which Royal Navy ships could attack settlements in Spanish America.
Flinders, who knew nothing of the contents of the despatches, later told Joseph Banks, ‘I have learnt privately that in the despatches with which I was charged by Governor King, and which were taken from me by the French general, a demand was made for troops to be sent out to Port Jackson for the purpose of annoying Spanish America in the event of another war, and that this is considered a breach of my passport. It is a pity that Governor King should have mentioned anything that could involve me in the event of a war, either with the French at Mauritius, or the Dutch at Timor or the Cape, or that having mentioned anything related to war he did not make me acquainted in a general way with the circumstances, in which case I should have thrown them overboard on learning that war was declared. But as I was situated, having little apprehension of being made a prisoner, and no idea that the despatches had any reference to war, since it was a time of peace when I left Port Jackson, I did not see the necessity of throwing them overboard at a hazard.
‘To be the bearer of any despatches in time of peace cannot be incorrect for a ship on discovery more than for any other, but with a passport, and in time of war, it certainly is improper.’4
Months have passed, and Matthew Flinders and the crew of the Cumberland are still prisoners on Isle de France. Flinders, under guard at an inn, has some measure of comfort and freedom of movement, but he protests to Decaen that his crew are ‘shut up at night in a place where not a breath of air can come to them’, that they are all afflicted by ‘the itch’, and that ‘the provisions with which they are fed are too scanty, except in the article of meat, the proportion of which is large but of bad quality’.5
Decaen may not care for Flinders’ tone but he complies with his demand to improve the crew’s conditions. He complies also with Flinders’ request for his books, charts and other personal belongings to be fetched from the schooner. But Decaen will not – cannot – comply with Flinders’ constant demands to be set free. The matter is out of his hands because he referred the case to the French government, knowing full well it could be a year before an answer arrives. The general, echoing François Péron, insists he did so because he has no doubt that the British intend to seize control of trade on the Indian and Pacific oceans, and that Flinders is an agent of that aim.
In a reflective mood, Flinders writes to his wife, Ann, ‘I shall learn patience in this island, which will perhaps counteract the insolence acquired by having had unlimited command over my fellow men. You know, my dearest, that I always dreaded the effect that the possession of great authority would have upon my temper and disposition. I hope they are neither of them naturally bad but, when we see such a vast difference between men dependent and men in power, any man who has any share of impartiality must fear for himself.’6
He admits he can at times be overbearing, intolerant and quick to take offence. ‘In this land, those malignant qualities are ostentatiously displayed,’ he says. ‘I am made to feel their sting most poignantly. My mind has been taught a lesson in philosophy, and my judgement has gained an accession of experience that will not soon be forgotten.’7
It will be not one but six long years before Matthew Flinders walks free, and he will never believe that General Decaen’s reason for imprisoning him had anything to do with suspicion of espionage, but could be summed up in a single word.
Spite.