18!^ Memoir on the Expediency of [March, 



Rajahs. Hence we at once perceive a reason why, on the 

 return of peace in 176S, the spirit of national curiosity was 

 prevented from taking that bias which might have led to a wish 

 for more complete information regarding this rich and interest- 

 ing part of the world. 



On the other hand, the minds of the learned and the specula- 

 tive had been long agitated by the subject of a Southern Polar 

 Continent. During the 17th century, many discoveries made 

 in the Pacific by the distinguished navigators Tasman, Quiros, 

 Dampier, &c. but detailed in such a manner as threw over them 

 an air of mystery and romance that tended to whet public appe- 

 tite, gave the impulse in that direction to a feehng which indeed 

 had no other outlet whereby to vent itself. Accordingly a suc- 

 cession of expeditions on the laudable and benevolent principle 

 of enlarging the boundaries of natural knowledge, was persevered 

 in for a period of nearly twenty years, under officers of the 

 highest reputation, one especially, the most accomplished navi- 

 gator the world has ever beheld. These expeditions, and subse- 

 quently other projects, such as the transplanting of the bread- 

 fruit tree from the Society to the West India Islands— objects 

 connected with Nootka Sound, the survey of the north-west 

 coast of America, the pursuit of the fur trade, occupied the 

 notice of Government, and kept the national attention awake 

 till the war of the French revolution in a great measure put an 

 end to all peaceful arts. The importance of New South Wales 

 as a convict colony rendered a hydrographical examination of 

 its coasts necessary. This led, during the short armistice of 

 1801, to the sending out of Capt. Flinders, whose premature 

 and lamented death furnishes an instance of tyranny the most 

 cruel and refined of which modern history has given any exam- 

 ple, and stamps indelible infamy on the Government that sanc- 

 tioned it. Europe has rung with indignation at the violence 

 done to all the principles and usages of civihzed life, and even 

 of humanity, by the treatment which this most able and zealous 

 officer underwent at the Isle of France. It was not the hardship 

 arising from a few months' detention, but a lingering captivity 

 of seven long years, under vexations destructive of his health, 

 and ultimately of his valuable life. The great things which, with 

 even small and limited means, he was able to effect may be 

 regarded as a supplement to that course of nautical investigation 

 of which I have spoken. The distractions of a fresh war 

 enforced a pause in all the more speculative pursuits of Govern- 

 ment, nor was it till the year after hostilities had entirely ceased 

 that sufficient leisure could be obtained for meditating any 

 exploit worthy of our character. At that period an expedition 

 connected with operations that had been some time in progress 

 for penetrating into the interior of Africa, was sent to the river 

 Zaire on the south-west coast of that continent. The unfortu- 



