Unable to continue the survey (there being no disposable vessel in the colony), Captain Flinders embarked as passenger in the Porpoise, a store-ship, in order, he says, " to lay his charts and journals before the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, and obtain, if such should be their pleasure, another ship to complete the examination of the Terra Australia." The Porpoise was accompanied by two trading vessels—the Bridgewater, Captain Palmer, and the Cato of London. The route chosen was by Torres Straits. On the 17th of August, at night, the Porpoise suddenly found herself among breakers, and the very next instant "striking upon a coral-reef, she took a fearful heel over her larboard beam-ends." A minute or two after, the Cato struck on the same reef, about two cable-lengths off, and went over. The Bridgewater, which was close by, cleared the rocks, and was perfectly safe in smooth water ; but Palmer basely "bore away round all," and then pursued his course without doing so much as sending a boat to ascertain the fate of the two crews. As morning dawned, Flinders, who acted with admirable self-possession, contrived to get the meta safely landed on a sand-bank, which at all stages of the tide remained a little above water-mark. They removed some portion of the stores from the wrecks, and made themselves as comfortable as men could be in such a situation. There is scarcely a more interesting case of shipwreck upon record; and the methods adopted, and the admirable order preserved, show that there was a master-mind among them. On the 26th of August Flinders left the reef in a small open boat, to make a voyage of 750 miles. He however got safely to Port Jackson on the 6th of September, and procured a small schooner, the Cumber land, which was only twenty nine tons, and when she got to sea it was found that she was very leaky. She was accompanied as far as the wrecks by another schooner, and by a trading-vessel which was bound for China. Flinders reached the reef on the 7th of October, and was received with three cheers. In the meanwhile the poor sailors on Wreck Reef Bank had planted oats, maize, and pumpkins, and the young plants were up and flourishing. Captain Flinders regretted that he had no cocoa-nuts with him to plant on the bank. Some of the men went back to Port Jackson in the schooner, some embarked in the trading-ship bound for China, the rest cheerfully remained with Flin ders, to make, in the ill-conditioned Cumberland, which was not quite eo large as a Gravesend sailing-boat, the circumnavigation of half the globe ; for Flinders intended to reach England with this miserable craft.
He mentions that not a man refused to share the risk with him except his clerk. Having gone through Torres Straits, and touched again at
Timor, Flinders stretched boldly across the Indian Ocean, and made the Isle of France, which was not yet taken by the English. Though the war had beet) renewed, be relied on his French pass, and indeed he could scarcely choose, for the little Cumberland was in a sinking state when he got her into the French port. To his astonishment the authorities of the Isle of France seized the vessel and n11 his papers, and declared him and his people to be prisoners of war. The governor even chose to consider Flinders as a spy, and treated him with a brutal severity which, united with his uneasiness of mind, certainly had the effect of shortening his valuable life. Flinders knew that Baudin was returning to Franco, and he saw with a prophetic eye that the Frenchman would 'claim the merit of all his discoveries ou the southern coast of Australia. He thought the governor De Caen too Illiterate to know or care much about the matter, otherwise he says that be should have been induced to suspect that he was detained a prisoner in order that Baudin might have the start of him in publish ing, and make the world believe that it was to the French nation alone they were indebted for the complete discovery and examination of those parts. Some English writers did not hesitate to take this view of the case, and what followed in Franco settled the question. A volume and an atlas were published ; the whole of the southern coast, including not only all the discoveries of Flinders and Bass, but also those of Nitre, Vancouver, Grant, and Dentrecasteaux, was laid down as new land, and called ' Terre Napol6on.' Every point which had been named by Flinders and his precursors was named afresh, and there were all aorta of significant names given, from Cape Marengo and Cape Rivoli to Talleyrand Bay. Baudin had made about fifty leagues of real discovery ; he claimed or seemed to claim nearly nice hundred leagues.
After pining six years a prisoner in the Isle of France, Flinders was liberated, and he reached England at the end of the year 1810. His charts and plans were restored to him, but one of his log-books was kept or destroyed. His health was completely broken, but as long as there was work to do ho kept up his energy, correcting his maps, and writing out his descriptions. After revising his last sheet for press he drooped ; he died in the month of July 1814, on the very day his book was published.
(A Voyage to Terra Australia, dc., in the years 1801, 1S02, and 1603, in II. M. Ship Inrestigator, and subsequently in the armed vessel Porpoise and Cumberland schooner, 2 vole., with Atlas, London, 1814; also Quarterly Perkin, vela xii)