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THE DETENTION OF FLINDEES AT THE 

 MAURITIUS. 

 By A> Matjlt. 



To the passport dated at Paris the 4 Prairial, An neuf de 

 la Eepublique Frangaise, to the " corvette Investigator, its 

 o£B.cers, crew, and effects, during their voyage, to permit 

 them to land at the different ports of the Republic, as well 

 in Europe as in other parts of the world, whether they be 

 forced by bad weather to there seek refuge, or that they come to 

 ask for succour and the means of repairs necessary to continue 

 their voyage," there is added the proviso : — "It is well under- 

 stood, nevertheless, that they shall not thus find protection 

 and assistance, but in the case that they shall not have wil- 

 lingly turned out of the course they should follow ; that they 

 shall not have committed, nor announced their intention to 

 commit, any hostility against the French Republic and its 

 allies ; that they shall not have procured, nor sought to 

 procure, any succours to its enemies ; and that they shall not 

 have occupied themselves with any kind of commerce nor of 

 contraband." It should be also borne in mind that in the 

 preamble to the passport, Captain Matthew Flinders is named 

 as commanding the Investigator. Flinders himself records 

 that the Lords of the Admiralty directed him " to act in all 

 respects towards French ships as if the two countries were not 

 at war ; and with respect to the ships and vessels of other 

 powers with which this country is at war, you are to avoid, if 

 possible, having any communication with them ; and not to 

 takes letters or packets other than such as you may receive 

 from this office, or the office of His Majesty's Secretary of 

 State." 



We all know that, the passport notwithstanding, when 

 Flinders and some of his crew — the Investigator having been 

 condemned and the Porpoise lost — came in the little sloop 

 Cumberland to Port Louis in December, 1803, " to ask for 

 succour and the means of repairs necessary to continue their 

 voyage," to use the words of the passport, Genei'al De Caen, 

 Governor of the Mauritius, refused the request, and made the 

 captain and crew prisoners of war. Till recently this action 

 of De Caen's has been as universally as righteously con- 

 demned. But in 1886, in an official, or quasi-official docu- 

 ment, published by the New South Wales Government (a 

 summary of the contents of the Brabourne Papers), the 

 following passages occur : — " Much trouble had been taken 

 to obtain this scientific passport for Flinders. Why, then, was it 



