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.
CHRONOLOGY.
1774 (March 16) : Born at Donington.
1789 (October 23) : Enters the Royal Navy.
1790 (July 31) : Midshipman on the Bellerophon.
1791 to 1793 : Voyage in the Providence.
1793 (September) : Rejoins the Bellerophon.
1794 (June) : Participates in the battle off Brest.
1795 (February) : Sails for Australia in the Reliance. Meets George Bass.
1796 (March) : Cruise of the Tom Thumb.
1797 (December) : Bass's whaleboat voyage.
1798 (January) : Discovery of Westernport.
1798 (January) : Flinders' voyage in the Francis.
1798 (January 31) : Flinders obtains lieutenant's commission.
1798 (October) : Voyage of the Norfolk.
1798 (November) : Discovery of Port Dalrymple.
1798 (December) : Bass Strait demonstrated.
1799 : Return to Port Jackson.
1799 (July) : Exploration on Queensland coast.
1800 (March) : Return to England in the Reliance.
1800 (October) : Arrival in England.
Plan of Australian Exploration.
1800 (December) : The Investigator commissioned.
1801 (January 17) : Publication of Observations.
1801 (February 16) : Obtains commander's rank.
1801 (April) : Marriage of Flinders.
1801 (July 18) : Sailing of the Investigator.
1801 (December) : Australia reached.
1802 (February) : Discovery of Spencer's Gulf.
1802 (March) : Discovery of Kangaroo Island and St. Vincent's Gulf.
1802 (April) : Meeting of Flinders and Baudin in Encounter Bay.
1802 (May) : Flinders in Port Phillip.
1802 (July) : Voyage to Northern Australia.
1802 (August) : Discovery of Port Curtis and Port Bowen.
1802 (November) : In the Gulf of Carpentaria.
1803 (April) : Return voyage; Australia circumnavigated.
1803 (June) : Sydney reached; the Investigator condemned.
1803 (July 10) : Sails in the Porpoise.
1803 (August 17) : Wrecked on the Barrier Reef.
Voyage in the Hope to Sydney.
1803 (September 8) : Arrival in Port Jackson.
1803 (September 21) : Sails in the Cumberland.
1803 (November) : Timor reached.
1803 (December 17) : Arrival at Ile-de-France; made a prisoner.
1804 (April) : Removal to the Garden Prison (Maison Despeaux).
1805 : Removal to Wilhelm's Plains.
1806 (March 21) : French Government orders release of Flinders.
1810 (June 13) : Release of Flinders.
1810 (October 24) : Return to England.
1814 (July 19) : Death of Flinders.
FLINDERS' BIRTHPLACE, DONINGTON, LINCOLNSHIRE
THE LIFE OF MATTHEW FLINDERS.
CHAPTER 1. BIRTH AND ORIGINS.
Matthew Flinders was the third of the triad of great English sailors by whom the principal part of Australia was revealed. A poet of our own time, in a line of singular felicity, has described it as the "last sea-thing dredged by sailor Time from Space; "* (* Bernard O'Dowd, Dawnward, 1903.) and the piecemeal, partly mysterious, largely accidental dragging from the depths of the unknown of a land so immense and bountiful makes a romantic chapter in geographical history. All the great seafaring peoples contributed something towards the result. The Dutch especially evinced their enterprise in the pursuit of precise information about the southern Terra Incognita, and the nineteenth century was well within its second quarter before the name New Holland, which for over a hundred years had borne testimony to their adventurous pioneering, gave place in general and geographical literature to the more convenient and euphonious designation suggested by Flinders himself, Australia.* (* Not universally, however, even in official documents. In the Report of the Committee of the Privy Council, dated May 1, 1849, "New Holland" is used to designate the continent, but "Australia" is employed as including both the continent and Tasmania. See Grey's Colonial Policy 1 424 and 439.)
But, important as was the work of the Dutch, and though the contributions made by French navigators (possibly also by Spanish) are of much consequence, it remains true that the broad outlines of the continent were laid down by Dampier, Cook and Flinders. These are the principal names in the story. A map of Australia which left out the parts discovered by other sailors would be seriously defective in particular features; but a map which left out the parts discovered by these three Englishmen would gape out of all resemblance to the reality.
Dampier died about the year 1712; nobody knows precisely when. Matthew Flinders came into the world in time to hear, as he may well have done as a boy, of the murder of his illustrious predecessor in 1779. The news of Cook's fate did not reach England till 1781. The lad was then seven years of age, having been born on March 16th, 1774.
His father, also named Matthew, was a surgeon practising his profession at Donington, Lincolnshire, where the boy was born. The Flinders family had been settled in the same town for several generations. Three in succession had been surgeons. The patronymic indicates a Flemish origin, and the work on English surnames* that bids the reader looking for information under "Flinders" to "see Flanders," sends him on a reasonable quest, if to no great resulting advantage. (* Barker, Family Surnames 1903 page 143.)
The English middle-eastern counties received frequent large migrations of Flemings during several centuries. Sometimes calamities due to the harshness of nature, sometimes persecutions and wars, sometimes adverse economic conditions, impelled companies of people from the Low Countries to cross the North Sea and try to make homes for themselves in a land which, despite intervals of distraction, offered greater security and a better reward than did the place whence they came. England derived much advantage from the infusion of this industrious, solid and dependable Flemish stock; though the temporary difficulty of absorption gave rise to local protests on more than one occasion.
As early as 1108, a great part of Flanders "being drowned by an exudation or breaking in of the sea, a great number of Flemings came into the country, beseeching the King to have some void place assigned them, wherein they might inhabit."* (* Holinshed's Chronicle edition of 1807 2 58.) Again in the reign of Edward I we find Flemish merchants carrying on a very large and important trade in Boston, and representatives of houses from Ypres and Ostend acquired property in the town.* (* Pishey Thompson