114 NOTES ON CHAKTS OF THE CQAST OP TASMANIA. 



which the " Observations " continue : — " The double arrows 

 show the direction of the tides. 



" In the River Derwent, high water at 8 hours. Height 

 above low water 4 or 5 feet. These tides are feeble, and do 

 not appear to always coincide with full and new moon. 

 Sometimes they have an opposite course. We have grounds 

 for suspecting an under-current in a contrary direction." 



What is the history of this chart ? 



You will remember that when Flinders was kept prisoner 

 in the Mauritius his books, charts and papers were taken 

 from him. After many reclamations most of them were 

 returned to him in the seventh or eighth month of his 

 captivity. In recording this he says : — " Word had been sent 

 me privately that the trunk had been opened and copies taken of 

 the charts — (the italics are Flinders') but to judge from 

 appearances this was not true ; and on putting the question 

 to Colonel Monistrol, whether the trunk or papers had been 

 disturbed, he answered by an unqualified negative." No 

 one who knows Colonel Monistrol from Flinders' graphic 

 narrative will doubt the Colonel for a moment. But no one 

 who knows from the same source the Governor of the colony. 

 General De Caen, will hesitate for a moment in thinking that 

 he was capable of tampering with the charts, and that if he 

 did so he would take good care that the honest Colonel should 

 not know it. My own opinion is that the private letter was 

 right — the trunk had been opened, and the charts copied — 

 and the manuscript from which this photo-lithograph was 

 taken is one of the copies. I think this is capable of as much 

 demonstration as is possible in such a matter. 



Apart from the fact that other information was sent to 

 Europe about Flinders' voyages that could only have been 

 obtained from Flinders' papers — for instance, that which 

 he refers to as having been given in the Moniteur of July 7th, 

 1804 — which shows that the papers had been read and a 

 precis made or copies taken, there is a great deal of internal 

 evidence that the copy of this chart was made during the 

 time of Flinders' detention in the Mauritius. 



In the first place this chart contains exactly all that 

 Flinders knew of Yan Diemen's Land at that time— no more 

 and no less. It is true that some of Flinders' charts had 

 been published in England after the return of the 

 Beliance in the end of 1800, but it is hardly likely that they 

 were so published till after Flinders had left England in the 

 Investigator in May, 1801. I have not seen one of these 

 published charts, but think that they were not precisely 

 similar to this, seeing that Flinders, in his published charts, 

 puts in only his own course, whereas in this he marks Bass' 

 whaleboat track. Again, if this copy were not taken from 

 Flinders' papers, why was it taken at all ? If the published 



