abilities have been selected; their application is beyond what I have been accustomed to see."
Peter Good, appointed gardener to the expedition at a salary of £105, was a foreman at the Kew Gardens when he was selected for this service. Brown found him a valuable assistant, and an indefatigable worker. He died in Sydney in June, 1803, from dysentery contracted at Timor. Of John Allen, engaged as a miner at a salary of £105, nothing is known.
John Crossley was engaged to sail as astronomer, at a salary of £420, but he did not accompany the Investigator further than the Cape of Good Hope, where his health broke down, and he returned to England. The instruments with which he had been furnished by the Board of Longitude were, however, left on board, and Flinders undertook to do his work in cooperation with his brother Samuel, who had been assisting Crossley, and was able to take charge of the astronomical clocks and records.
The interest taken by the East India Company's Court of Directors in the expedition was manifested in their vote of £600 for the table money of the officers and staff.[1] They gave this sum "from the voyage being within the limits of the Company's charter, from the expectation of the examinations and discoveries proving advantageous, and partly, as they said"—so Flinders
- ↑ The East India Company, through its Court of Directors, actually voted £1200 in May, 1801; but only £600 of this sum was paid at the commencement of the voyage. The remainder was to be paid to the commander and officers as a reward if they successfully accomplished their task. Flinders' manuscript letter-book contains a copy of a letter dated November 14, 1810, wherein he reminds the Company of their promise. I have found no record of the payment of the remaining £600, but Flinders' Journal shows him to have dined with the directors a few weeks after the letter was sent, and a little later the Journal contains a record of a merry evening spent together by Flinders and a party of his old Investigator shipmates. It is a fair assumption that the money was divided up on that occasion.
