Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/322
trait de bienfaisance qui doit être connu, et que j'ai plaisir de publier." The sailor Governor was greatly moved at the ingratitude of the French soldier. Flinders sent a letter, commenced at sea in the Cumberland in Nov. 1803, and concluded in close confinement nearly a year afterwards at the Mauritius. He told King how he had "waited on the Captain-General, and after being kept two hours in the street had an audience, but it was to be told that I was an impostor, the improbability of Captain Flinders coming in so small a vessel being thought so great as to discredit my passport and commission." He told how disease had preyed upon him, and how even speech with him, except under Governor De Caen's permission, had been for a time forbidden.
"This account will not a little surprise you, my dear Sir, who have so lately shown every attention to the Geographe and the Naturaliste, but a military tyrant knows no law or principle but what appears to him for the immediate interest for his government, or the gratification of his own private caprices. Passports, reciprocal kindness, and national faith, are baits to catch children and fools with, and none but such consider the propriety of the means by which their plans are to be put in execution. Men of genius, heroes (that is, modern French Generals), are above these weaknesses. I can give you no further explanation of General De Caen's conduct, except that he sent me word, 'I was not considered a prisoner of war,' and also, 'that it was not any part of my own conduct that had occasioned my confinement.' What I am suffering in promotion, peace of mind, fortune, fame, and everything that man holds dear, it is not my intention to detail, nor have I room.
King wrote a vigorous letter to De Caen, and enclosed it, open, to Rear-Admiral Sir E. Pellew for transmission, if approved. He called to mind that Flinders had a French passport like that which insured friendliness to Baudin in Sydney.
"Nor was there a British subject that lessened the duties of hospitality natural to Englishmen by a recollection that war existed between the two nations. Their passport and distresses were the most powerful claims on my duty in receiving them, and on the humanity of all descriptions of His Majesty's subjects in contributing to render their stay comfortable and agreeable."
Therefore, De Caen might guess King's feelings when he found that Flinders,
"when he at least expected to be treated as a gentleman, was treated in every respect as a spy, except in not being executed as one. This undeserved, unprecedented, and, I may add (considering his and Captain Baudin's relative situations), ungrateful treatment, which that meritorious officer has met with, must be a subject of concern to every man of science and humanity."