FLINDERS, MATTHEW, was born at Donington, in Lincolnshire, about 1760. He went early to sea in the merchant service. In 1795 he was a midshipman in the Royal Navy, and went to New Holland with the ship that conveyed Captain Hunter, the new governor, to Botany Bay. On board this ship he found a congenial mind in George Bass, the surgeon, who, like himself, was bold and adventurous, and had a passionate desire to explore new countries. Soon after their arrival at Port Jackson these enterprising young men launched a little boat, which was appropriately called Tom Thumb, being only eight feet long. In this boat Flinders and Bass, with no other companion than a boy, ran across Botany Bay, and explored George's River 20 miles beyond the point where Governor Hunter's survey had stopped. They mado several discoveries and encountered many dangers. Their heroism was appreciated by but few persons in the colony. The English had been ten years in possession, and there was an imaginary line of more than 250 leagues (beginning in the vicinity of the colony) set down on the charts as "unknown coast." Flinders was anxious to remove this blot. The complete examination of Australia became what he called his "darling object." It was not yet known that Van Diemen's Land was a separate island ; the existence of a strait dividing it from Australia was first mentioned as a probable fact by Bass, who ran down the coast in a whale-boat, and who suggested that the heavy swell which rolled in from the westward could be pro duced only from the Great Southern Ocean. Flinders was sent with his old companion Bass to ascertain this fact. They embarked in the Norfolk, a large decked boat built of the excellent fir of Norfolk Island; and they had only six men to assist them. They went through the straits, made a rapid survey, and returned to Port Jackson in little more than three months. The name of Bass was given to this strait. In the following year, 1799, Flinders, now a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, was sent in the same small vessel to explore the coast to the north of Port Jackson, where nothing had been done since the imperfect notices by Cook. He visited and examined all the creeks and bays as far north as 25°, paying par ticular attention to Harvey's Bay, and returned to Port Jackson with satisfactory accounts. On his return to England ho was promoted. Bass, we may add, appears to have met with no reward whatever. In 1802 he left Port Jackson as mate or master of a trading vessel, and was never more beard of. In 1820 there was a vague report that Baas was alive and settled somewhere in Peru ; but the more probable story is that he was lost at sea.
In July 1801 Captain Flinders sailed from England in the Investi gator, a barque of 334 tone, carrying 88 meu, including an astronomer, a naturalist, two painters, a botanic gardener, and a miner. England and France were at war at the time, the preliminaries of the treaty of Amiens not being signed until the 25th of October following ; but a French pass, conceived in flattering terms, and speaking of the sacred rights of science, was granted to Flinders, who, whether in war or peace, was to be respected by all armed ships of France, and to be entertained as a friend in any French colony that he might make.
Such conditions, though not expressly laid down, had been acted upon by the French in the time of Louis XVI.; and about a year before Captain Flindere's departure the English government had regularly established a precedent. M. Otto, in the name of Bonaparte, applied for a similar freo peas in favour of Captain Baudin, who, it was said, was going with two ships on a voyage of discovery "round the world ;" and the Addington administration readily and courteously granted it, notwithstanding the fierco hostilities which were then raging between the two nations.
In the month of December Captain Flinders made Cape Leuwen, the south-east coast of Australia; and commencing operations, ho gradually surveyed and examined the coast to the eastern extremity of Bastes Straits, where, in Encounter Bay, he met the French ships, which, instead of going round the world, had made straight for Aus tralia, and devoted their whole care to the examination of Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales, evidently with a view to the formation of a French colony. Capt. Baudin had had the start of Flin ders by nine months ; but he had been delayed in collecting shells and catching butterflies, and at the moment of their meeting he had done little in the way of discovery or survey ; and Flinders says that by assiduity and favourable circumstances he had anticipated him in the most interesting parts of the southern coast. He says that he gave Baudin an account of his discoveries. Baudin afterwards said that he found Captain Flinders not very communicative, but that he obtained intelligence of all that had been done on the southern coast from some of his people. From Bass's Straits Flinders sailed to Port Jackson, where he arrived on the 9th of May 1802. Having refitted, he set off again on the 22nd of July. He then steered northerly along the cast coast, exploring Northumberland and Cumberland Islands, and sur veying the great Barrier Reef of coral rocks—a long and dangerous tract, most necessary to lay down. In fourteen days he conducted the Investigator through these perilous mazes, where he had nothing to guide him but his own vigilance and skill; then bearing still north, he made Torres Straits, and surveyed the vast gulf of Carpentaria, which had been very imperfectly examined by General Carpenter, its first discoverer. While engaged in this duty the Investigator was reported to be "quite rotten," and in such a state that she could not possibly last above six months in flue weather. Three of these months Flinders kept her in the gulf; he then stood away for the island of Timor, where he refreshed his sick and over-fatigued crew. From Timor he made his way with the leaky bark to Cape Leuwen. Sailing again along the southern coast, he anchored in the Archipelago of the Recherche ; then passing Bass's Straits a second time, he made for Port Jackson, where he arrived on the 9th of June 1803, having lost many of his best men, and among others Good, the botanical gardener. The Investigator was immediately condemned ; she was in such a leaky state that people could scarcely conceive how she had been kept afloat.