226 Analyses of Books. [March, 



Flinders vvas aelected for this arduous undertaking, and he 

 readily undertook it. Mr. Park of the Cato went with him as 

 second in command. They had a crew of ll men, and provisions 

 for three weeks ; so that they were rather too deeply loaded. How- 

 ever, they made their way without any accident, first to the coast 

 of Nevi? Holland, and then along that coast to Port Jackson, in 13 

 days. 



Governor King sent the ship Rolla, and two schooners, to bring 

 iaway the unfortunate men of the wreck. One of the schooners was 

 to bring back such as chose it to Port Jackson ; the other, of 27 tons 

 burthen, under the command of Captain Flinders, with a crew of 

 ten men, vvas to proceed to England ; while the Rolla was to carry 

 the rest of the officers and men to China. Captain Flinders 

 reached Wreck Reef six weeks after he had left it ; the stores and 

 provisions of the Porpoise vvere put aboard the Rolla or the Port 

 ■Jackson schooner; the men were all embarked to their various 

 destinations; and Captain Flinders set out on his extraordinary 

 vo3'age to England. 



Sailing through Torrcs's Straits he arrived at Coepang in Timor, 

 only four days after Captain Palmer, in the Bridgewater, had 

 reached Batavia ; thus demonstrating the great advantage of sailing 

 through that strait, when compared with the round about way 

 usually followed. From Timor he was obliged to make his way to 

 the Mauritius, because his little vessel could not venture lound the 

 Cape of Good Hope without being repaired. He trusted to his 

 French pass, that even if the war should have recommenced, he 

 would be treated in a friendly manner in that island, and be 

 allowed to continue his voyage to Britain. The Governor of the 

 Mauritius was General De Caen, who had been sent out to Pon- 

 dicherry at the peace of 1801 ; and, no doubt, expected to make 

 a great. figure in India ; but the breaking out of the new war in 

 1S02 disappointed his expectations, by depriving the French of all 

 their possessions in India. The Geographe, a French vessel, out 

 on a voyage of discovery, with an English pass, had left the Mau- 

 ritius on the very day that Captain Flindera reached it ; and, con- 

 trary to the stipulations contracted by obtaining the English pass, 

 had carried dispatches from the Mauritius to France. Tliis induced 

 General De Caen to detain Captain Flinders for some days. At first 

 he pretended that he was an impostor, and treated him with haugh- 

 tiness and vulgar insolence : but finding that the plea of impostor 

 could not be continued, he next day, without making any previous 

 apology for his former conduct, invited Captain Flinders to dinner. 

 This invitation Captain Flinders declined, in consequence of the 

 Governor's previous treatment of him. De Caen, it would seem, 

 was ofrended at this display of spirit ; and Captain Flinders's letters 

 to the Governor, though very naturally drawn from him by the 

 situation in which he was placed, contributed considerably to 

 heighten the Governor's resentment. Captain Flinders, at the 

 time, does not seem to have /been fully aware of the character of 



