Matthew Flinders joined the British Royal Navy aged just 15.
He served with William Bligh for a time, transporting breadfruit from Tahiti to Jamaica.
In 1795 he headed for New South Wales. On the way, he would have a fateful meeting with the surgeon George Bass. After arriving in New South Wales, the pair would proceed to sail together and make discoveries along the Australian coast.
In 1795, Flinders embarked on his Tom Thumb I expedition. Accompanied by Bass, their boat was just 2.4 meters long. They explored Botany Bay and the Georges River.
The following year, they set out of their Tom Thumb II voyage. This time they explored the Illawarra coast.
In 1798-9, he sailed around Van Diemen’s Land, proving that it was indeed an island and conducting coastal surveys
In 1800, he set out in HMS Investigator. His mission was to chart the entire Australian coastline.
In 1801 he surveyed the southern coast (South Australia). He named Port Lincoln and Kangaroo Island.
In 1802 he travelled back up the eastern coast.
In 1803 he surveyed the Gulf of Carpentaria and the north coast.
He was the first to prove that Australia was a continent and he popularised the name “Australia” instead of New Holland.
In early 1803, he sailed the Cumberland from Sydney to explore the Queensland coast.
It was on this voyage, in February 1803, that the ship was wrecked off the Queensland coast.
Flinders and his crew survived and made it to the mainland.
In travelling back to Britain, Flinders needed to traverse the Indian Ocean. It was common for sailors to head to one of the resupply points dotted in the Indian Ocean. The ship in which Flinders was sailing, The Cumberland, was a sloop and around 20 meters in length. It was leaking and Flinders needed somewhere to do repairs. Flinders headed for Île de France (present-day Mauritius). This territory was held by France, but Flinders didn’t anticipate that this would be a problem. The British and the French were both exploring the Pacific and ships from each nation encountered each other from time to time. Flinders had even met Nicolas Baudin at Encounter Bay in 1802. The two had got on well. Flinders had expected to make a brief stop, make repairs and be on his way to Europe. But things didn’t go the way Flinders had planned.
Although unknown to Flinders until he arrived, England and France were at war.
The passport he had been issued had been for the Investigator and not the Cumberland. This raised suspicions.
Governor Charles Decaen, thought that Flinders may have been spying for the British. In Decaen’s view, the fact that there were few scientists travelling with Flinders reinforced the point.
Additionally, Flinders was transporting papers from the Governor of New South Wales.
Flinders was taken into custody. Initially, he was confined to prison, but he was soon paroled and permitted to roam about the island.
Decaen referred the matter of Flinder’s release to the authorities in France. This would take a substantial amount if time.
Napoleon would eventually green-light Flinder’s release in 1806.
The island was at a crucial inflection point in its history. The British Royal Navy would begin a blockade of the island in 1809 and by 1810, the island would be under British control.
Flinders was 27 when he arrived on the island and was a prisoner there for one-third of his adult life.
He was able to visit much of the western part of the island, south of Port Louis.
He kept a daily journal, which he began from his first day on the island.
Initially he was detained at Maison Despaux (Garden Prison), along with other British prisoners.
Every naval officer had a servant – even in prison. This person would lay the table for breakfast.
While he was a Maison Despaux, Flinders recorded the ships entering port and noted their nationality.
There were early concerns about his health. The authorities thought it would be better to move him outside of Port Louis. He was placed on parole and so began his ingratiation into “farming gentry”.1
During his parole, Flinders was to live at the plantation of Madame D’Arifat. He taught mathematics and navigation to her 2 boys.
A Monsieur Chazal lived very close by.
According to Witgar Hitchcock, Flinders got to know more than thirty people of substance in his first 10 months on parole.2 In many ways, Flinders’ imprisonment resembled a calendar of social occasions rather than hard time. Still, in the back of his mind, he knew that he was not free to leave. The date of his departure was not up to him. His fate was in the hands of others. There were many moments of happiness during his detention, but sometimes he would be overcome by his situation and fall into spells of depression.
Flinders had a flute which he played at parties.
He didn’t usually drink alcohol.
It took Flinders 2 years to become conversant in French.3
The island was divided up into plantations. Around the D’Arifat plantation, there were no large towns.
Flinders was very disciplined. He worked on his French. He went fishing, but often returned empty-handed. He also went for walks in the forest.
There was a very active social scene. Madame D’Arifat had visitors. Flinders was often invited to breakfasts, suppers, and parties with neighbouring families.
He became well acquainted with the Chevreau family.
He played cards and attended dances. He went out hunting deer – usually unsuccessfully.
There were different micro-climates on the island. The low-lying coastal plains tended to be hotter. Here, cotton crops dominated. The plantations at higher elevations were cooler.
There were periodic hurricanes.
Flinders had newspapers available to him. There was the local rag. He also had British and French newspapers, but received them months after they had been printed.
It appears that he suffered from bouts of depression or “melancholy”.4
It was during his time on Île de France that a famous portrait of Flinders was painted – by his friend Monsieur Chazal. It was completed on 10 January 1807 and stayed in the Chazal family for some time. I was surprised to discover that the painting was bought by Australian businessman Alan Bond in the 1980s for a large sum of money.5
There was frequent rain. It hindered travel on the island. Roads into and around the plantations were basic. Rain presented a real barrier to travel. Trips often had to be delayed or cancelled due to the weather.
During hurricanes, maize crops were flattened and fruit trees were ripped out of the ground. Bridges were carried away by swollen rivers.
Flinders was aware of the Bay of Tamarin. He was also familiar with the Seven Cascades or Tamarind Falls. He also visited Mare aux Vacoas.
The smaller island of Bourbon (present-day Réunion) was close by. There were strong connections between the 2 islands. Often, there were extended families on both islands.
On Île de France, families living on plantations at higher elevations would move between their properties and the coast, depending on the time of year. The highlands were considered quite cold in winter, so it was common for planters to have a residence somewhere on the coast.
Flinders would play tric-trac (backgammon) and chess.
He read an account of the history of Ratsimilaho, a king from the northern region of Madagascar. One of the slaves Flinders became acquainted with had been transported from that island. He read of M. Dumaine’s travels into the interior of Madagascar.
As the war dragged on, it became more and more difficult to purchase imported articles. Accordingly, the cost increased.
By 1806, Flinders was told that he would have to be accompanied by a soldier everywhere he went. No doubt this was inspired by increasing war tensions and this lasted for a time.
There were marriages in the local community – sometimes of girls in their mid-teens.
We are told, “What had cost an importer $150, sold for more than $3500.”6 Products grown on the island, such as maize, were more plentiful and cost less in the countryside than in town.
During the war, the cost of insuring cargo also increased.
Masses of sugar was being produced. The biggest problem local growers had was that there were not enough ships to export it.
Slaves were central to the economy and they often carried trunks and luggage between the plantations and town.
Sometimes Flinders did make unauthorised trips into town. On one occasion he met the English captain, Woolcombe. The captain chastised Flinders for breaking parole. But for the main part, Flinders followed the instructions he was given. He would submit requests to visit town. He didn’t always receive speedy replies and at times he was refused.
His French developed well enough for him to be able to write a 58-page account of his voyage and imprisonment.
English ships were patrolling the area between Île de France and Bourbon (Réunion), disrupting French transport and communication between the 2 islands.
The influence of the English was becoming more apparent. There were fears about the French ability to repel an attack on the island. An idea was floated to form a regiment of 600 slaves – 1 in 20 of all male slaves. This would mean that there were around 12,000 slaves on the island.7
In Bourbon, the planters refused to create such a battalion. Medicine was running out on the island – including vaccines for smallpox. The disease had broken out amongst the slave population.
Saint-Paul had been attacked by the British on 21-22 September 1809. The English now held the town and 600 soldiers were stationed there. General De Bruly committed suicide.
By and large, the French inhabitants of Bourbon did not resist the English attack.
The slaves of Saint-Paul had revolted, but the English did not free them. Instead, they had the leaders executed. The English victory at Saint-Paul was all about replacing one European power with another – it was not about upending the existing social order.
After the experience in Bourbon, the inhabitants of Île de France were convinced that they did want to arm their slaves.
Flinders started making out his will, thinking that he may never make it back to England.
There was no much less social activity on the island and Flinders’ movements were much more restricted.
At last he was told that he was to leave the island on an English cartel (prisoner-swap vessel).
This seems to have improved his disposition somewhat. It allowed him to think more about the future. He began to imagine possible future voyages. He began learning Malay, which he believed would be useful in any future voyages to Timor / New Guinea.8
He read William Marsden’s “The History of Sumatra: Containing an Account of the Government, Laws, Customs, and Manners of the Native Inhabitants, with a Description of the Natural Productions, and a Relation of the Ancient Political State of That Island, published in 1783.
Hitchcock notes that while Flinders’ earlier shipwreck off the Queensland coast seems to have had a negative impact on his health, it would not be accurate to describe his whole time on Île de France as one of ill-health.9
Flinders finally returned to Britain in 1810. He died four years later at the tender age of 40.
He had packed a lot into his relatively short life.
In Australia, the Flinders Ranges bear his name. He also has a university, and a federal electorate named after him.
Australia and the World Past and Present 
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