6 INTRODUCTION'. 



what shall we say to the treatment of Captain 

 Flinders ? Confiding in the inviolability of the 

 passports given him, not conceiving it possible to 

 disgrace the French government, by the seizure of 

 a ship engaged in a voyage of discovery, Captain 

 Flinders placed himself, and his small vessel, which 

 was in a sinking state, under the protection of the 

 governor, who not only detained him and his ship, 

 but even seized his journals. To deprive a man 

 like Flinders, the greatest seaman that has appeared 

 since Cook, of his liberty at such a time, was 

 equivalent to killing him ; in fact, he survived but 

 a short time the cruel inactivity of his imprison- 

 ment, in which he was condemned to languish 

 above six years. There are doubtless more dreadful 

 facts to be met with in the records of naval history, 

 but I know of no one that excites more indigna- 

 tion than this treatment of the unhappy Flinders. 



The almost uninterrupted wars in which Europe 

 was engaged, and partly, too, the certainty which 

 the last attempts of the English were supposed to 

 have afforded, that a northern passage was impossi- 

 ble, were the causes that this problem had been 

 laid aside as insoluble; and it is a question, whether 

 anotlier attempt would ever have been made, had 

 not Count Romanzoff, who is distinguished for 

 elevated views, and for whom bold enterprises have 

 a particular charm, given the first impulse. He 

 frequently conversed with me on the subject, and 

 expressed his wish to see such an attempt again 



