Garden Prison .] 
TERRA AUSTRALIS. 
40T 
of France the 24 Friraaire last, in the schooner Cumberland. The author 
of the letter in the Moniteur says, that Mr. Flinders, " not knowing of the 
“ war, stopped at the Isle of France which was in his route , to obtain water 
” and refreshments : that some secret articles in his instructions gave rise to 
“ suspicions upon which the captain-general at first thought it his duty to detain 
“ him prisoner ; hut that, nevertheless, the passports he had obtained from the 
cc French government and all other nations, the nature even of his expedition 
" which interested all civilized people, were not long in procuring his release,” 
The fact is, that Mr. Flinders not knowing of, but suspecting the war, 
ventured to come to the Isle of France; where having learned its declaration, 
he doubted whether the passport granted him by the French government in 
the year 9, would serve him. In reality, the passport was exclusively for the 
sloop Investigator, of which it contained the description; and it is not in the 
Investigator that he has been arrested, but in the Cumberland. 
The same passport did not permit Mr. Flinders to stop at French 
colonics but on condition that he should not deviate from his route to go 
there; and Mr. Flinders acknowledges in his journal that he deviated volun- 
tarily, (for the Isle of France was not in his passage, as the author of the 
above cited letter says). In fine, the passport granted to Mr. Flinders did 
not admit of any equivocation upon the objects of the expedition for which 
it was given ; but we read in one part of his journal, that he suspected the 
war; and in another, that he had resolved to touch at the Isle of France , as 
well in the hope of selling his vessel advantageously, as from the desire of know- 
ing the present state of that colony, and the utility of which it and its depen- 
dencies in Madagascar could be to Fort Jackson. 
As the passport given by the French government to Mr. Flinders, an 
English navigator, was far from admitting an examination of that nature in 
a French colony ; it is not at all surprising that the captain-general of that 
colony has arrested him ; and nothing announces as yet, that helias thought 
it necessary to release him. 
An elaborate refutation of these trifling, and in part false and 
contradictory charges, will not, I should hope, be thought necessary. 
By turning to pages 351 , 352 , and comparing my reasons for putting 
in at Mauritius with what the Moniteur says, it will be seen that the 
1805. 
Starch. 
