Read Ebook: The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders by Scott Ernest Sir

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

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

MATTHEW FLINDERS, R.N.,

STOOD ON THIS ROCK TO SURVEY THE BAY.

MAY 1, 1802.

NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION,

PORT DALRYMPLE.

DISCOVERED 1798 IN THE NORFOLK SLOOP BY

M. FLINDERS.

New South Wales; Western Port, excepted. Notwithstanding this evident superiority, the vegetable Mould, is frequently, of nor great depth, and is sometimes, 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

GEORGE JOHN, SECOND EARL SPENCER, K.G.

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

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.

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

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."

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

FLINDERS' TRACKS IN THE VICINITY OF WRECK REEF.

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

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

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.

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 ; 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.

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.

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.

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

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