The case of Flinders the navigator, who suffered a six years'
imprisonment in the Isle of France, was one of peculiar hardship.
In 1801, he set sail from England in the INVESTIGATOR, on a voyage
of discovery and survey, provided with a French pass, requiring
all French governors (notwithstanding that England and France were
at war) to give him protection and succour in the sacred name of
science. In the course of his voyage he surveyed great part of
Australia, Van Diemen's Land, and the neighbouring islands. The
INVESTIGATOR, being found leaky and rotten, was condemned, and the
navigator embarked as passenger in the PORPOISE for England, to
lay the results of his three years' labours before the Admiralty.
On the voyage home the PORPOISE was wrecked on a reef in the South
Seas, and Flinders, with part of the crew, in an open boat, made
for Port Jackson, which they safely reached, though distant from
the scene of the wreck not less than 750 miles. There he procured
a small schooner, the CUMBERLAND, no larger than a Gravesend
sailing-boat, and returned for the remainder of the crew, who had
been left on the reef. Having rescued them, he set sail for
England, making for the Isle of France, which the CUMBERLAND
reached in a sinking condition, being a wretched little craft
badly found. To his surprise, he was made a prisoner with all his
crew, and thrown into prison, where he was treated with brutal
harshness, his French pass proving no protection to him.
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