Matthew Flinders - Attempted Return To England and Imprisonment

Attempted Return To England and Imprisonment

Unable to find another vessel suitable to continue his exploration, Flinders set sail for England as a passenger aboard HMS Porpoise. However the ship was wrecked on Wreck Reefs, part of the Great Barrier Reef, approximately 700 miles (1127 km) north of Sydney. Flinders navigated the ship's cutter across open sea back to Sydney, and arranged for the rescue of the remaining marooned crew.

Flinders then took command of the 29-ton schooner Cumberland in order to return to England, but the poor condition of the vessel forced him to put in at French-controlled Mauritius for repairs on 17 December 1803.

War with France had broken out again the previous May, but Flinders hoped his French passport (though for a different vessel) and the scientific nature of his mission would allow him to continue on his way. Despite this, and the knowledge of Baudin's earlier encounter with Flinders, the French governor, Charles Mathieu Isidore Decaen, was suspicious and detained Flinders. The relationship between the men soured: Flinders was affronted at his treatment, and Decaen insulted by Flinders' refusal of an invitation to dine with him and his wife. Decaen's search of Flinders' vessel uncovered a trunk full of papers from the governor of New South Wales that were not permitted under his scientific passport. Decaen referred the matter to the French government; this was delayed not only by the long voyage but also by the general confusion of war. Eventually, on 11 March 1806, Napoleon gave his approval, but Decaen still refused to allow Flinders' release. It has been suggested that by this stage Decaen believed Flinders' knowledge of the island's defences would have encouraged Britain to attempt to capture it. Nevertheless, in June 1809 the Royal Navy began a blockade of the island, and in June 1810 Flinders was paroled. Travelling via the Cape of Good Hope, he received a promotion to Post-Captain, before continuing to England.

Flinders had been confined for the first few months of his captivity, but he was later afforded greater freedoms to move around the island and access his papers. In November 1804 he sent the first map of the landmass he had charted (Y46/1) back to England. This was the only map made by Flinders where he used the name "Australia" (in all capitals) for the title, and the first known time he used the word "Australia".

Flinders finally returned to England in October 1810 in poor health and immediately resumed work preparing "A Voyage to Terra Australis" and his Atlas of maps for publication. The full title of this book, which was first published in London in July 1814, was given, as was common at the time, a synoptic description: "A Voyage to Terra Australis : undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country, and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802, and 1803 in His Majesty's ship the Investigator, and subsequently in the armed vessel Porpoise and Cumberland Schooner. With an account of the shipwreck of the Porpoise, arrival of the Cumberland at Mauritius, and imprisonment of the commander during six years and a half in that island" . Original copies of the "Atlas to Flinders' Voyage to Terra Australis" are held at the Mitchell Library in Sydney, Australia as a portfolio that accompanied the book and included engravings of 16 maps, and 4 plates of views, and 10 plates of Australian flora. The book was republished in 3 volumes in 1964, accompanied by a reproduction of the portfolio. Flinders' map of Terra Australia was first published in January 1814 and the remaining maps where published before his atlas and book. On 19 July 1814, the day after the book and atlas was published, Matthew Flinders died, aged 40.

On 12 April 1812 he and his wife had had a daughter who became Mrs William Petrie; in 1853 the governments of New South Wales and Victoria bequeathed a belated pension to her (deceased) mother of £100 per year, to go to surviving issue of the union. This she, Mrs Anne (née Flinders) Petrie (1812–1892), accepted on behalf of her young son, named William Matthew Flinders Petrie, who would go on to become an accomplished archaeologist and Egyptologist.