1805.
March.
of France the 24 Frimaire last, in the schooner Cumberland. The author of the letter in the Moniteur says, that Mr. Flinders, "not knowing of the war, stopped at the Isle of France which was in his route, to obtain water and refreshments: that some secret articles in his instructions gave rise to suspicions upon which the captain-general at first thought it his duty to detain him prisoner; but that, nevertheless, the passports he had obtained from the French government and all other nations, the nature even of his expedition which interested all civilized people, were not long in procuring his release."
The fact is, that Mr. Flinders not knowing of, but suspecting the war, ventured to come to the Isle of France; where having learned its declaration, he doubted whether the passport granted him by the French government in the year 9, would serve him. In reality, the passport was exclusively for the sloop Investigator, of which it contained the description; and it is not in the Investigator that he has been arrested, but in the Cumberland.
The same passport did not permit Mr. Flinders to stop at French colonies but on condition that he should not deviate from his route to go there; and Mr. Flinders acknowledges in his journal that he deviated voluntarily, (for the Isle of France was not in his passage, as the author of the above cited letter says). In fine, the passport granted to Mr. Flinders did not admit of any equivocation upon the objects of the expedition for which it was given: but we read in one part of his journal, that he suspected the war; and in another, that he had resolved to touch at the Isle of France, as well in the hope of selling his vessel advantageously, as from the desire of knowing the present state of that colony, and the utility of which it and its dependencies in Madagascar could be to Port Jackson.
As the passport given by the French government to Mr. Flinders, an English navigator, was far from admitting an examination of that nature in a French colony; it is not at all surprising that the captain-general of that colony has arrested him; and nothing announces as yet, that he has thought it necessary to release him.
