Young Flinders received his preparatory education at the Donington free
school. This was an institution founded and endowed in 1718 by Thomas
Cowley, who bequeathed property producing nowadays about 1200 pounds a
year for the maintenance of a school and almshouses. It was to be open to
the children of all the residents of Donington parish free of expense,
and in addition there was a fund for paying premiums on the
apprenticeship of boys.
At the age of twelve the lad was sent to the Horbling Grammar School, not
many miles from his own home. It was under the direction of the Reverend
John Shinglar. Here he remained three years. He was introduced to the
Latin and Greek classics, and received the grounding of that mathematical
knowledge which subsequently enabled him to master the science of
navigation without a tutor. If to Mr. Shinglar's instruction was likewise
due his ability to write good, sound, clear English, we who read his
letters and published writings have cause to speak his schoolmaster's
name with respect.
During his school days another book besides those prescribed in the
curriculum came into his hands. He read Robinson Crusoe. It was to
Defoe's undying tale of the stranded mariner that he attributed the
awaking in his own mind of a passionate desire to sail in uncharted seas.
This anecdote happens to be better authenticated than are many of those
quoted to illustrate the youth of men of mark. Towards the end of
Flinders' life the editor of the Naval Chronicle sent to him a series of
questions, intending to found upon the answers a biographical sketch. One
question was: "Juvenile or miscellaneous anecdotes illustrative of
individual character?" The reply was: "Induced to go to sea against the
wishes of friends from reading Robinson Crusoe."
The case, interesting as it is, has an exact parallel in the life of a
famous French traveller, Rene Caille, who in 1828, after years of
extraordinary effort and endurance, crossed Senegal, penetrated Central
Africa, and was the first European to visit Timbuctoo. He also had read
Defoe's masterpiece as a lad, and attributed to it the awaking in his
breast of a yearning for adventure and discovery. "The reading of
Robinson Crusoe," says a French historian, "made upon him a profound
impression." "I burned to have adventures of my own," he wrote later; "I
felt as I read that there was born within my heart the ambition to
distinguish myself by some important discovery."* (* Gaffarel, La
Politique coloniale en France, 1908 page 34.)
Here were astonishing results to follow from the vivid fiction of a gouty
pamphleteer who wrote to catch the market and was hoisted into immortal
fame by the effort: that his book should, like a spark falling on straw,
fire the brains of a French shoemaker's apprentice and a Lincolnshire
schoolboy, impelling each to a career crowded with adventure, and crowned
with memorable achievements. There could hardly be better examples of the
vitalising efficacy of fine literature.
A love of Robinson Crusoe remained with Flinders to the end. Only a
fortnight before his death he wrote a note subscribing for a copy of a
new edition of the book, with notes, then announced for publication. It
must have been one of the last letters from his hand. Though out of its
chronological order, it may be appropriately quoted here to connect it
with the other references to the book which so profoundly influenced his
life:
"Captain Flinders presents his compliments to the Hydrographer of the
Naval Chronicle, and will thank him to insert his home in the list of
subscribers in his new edition of Robinson Crusoe; he wishes also that
the volume on delivery should have a neat, common binding, and be
lettered.--London Street, July 5, 1814."
It seems clear that Flinders had promised himself the pleasure of
re-reading in maturity the tale that had so delighted his youth. Had he
lived to do so, he might well have underlined, as applicable to himself,
a pair of those sententious observations with which Defoe essayed to give
a sober purpose to his narrative. The first is his counsel of "invincible
patience under the worst of misery, indefatigable application, and
undaunted resolution under the greatest and most discouraging
circumstances." The second is his wise remark that "the height of human
wisdom is to bring our tempers down to our circumstances, and to make a
great calm within under the weight of the greatest storm without." They
were words which Flinders during strenuous years had good cause to
translate into conduct.
The edition of the book to which he thus subscribed was undertaken
largely on account of his acknowledgment of its effect upon his life. The
author of the Naval Chronicle sketch of his career* (* 1814 Volume 32.)
wrote in a footnote: "The biographer, also happening to understand that
to the same cause the Navy is indebted for another of its ornaments,
Admiral Sir Sydney Smythe, was in a great measure thereby led to give
another studious reading to that charming story, and hence to adopt a
plan for its republication, now almost at maturity;" and he commended the
new issue especially "to all those engaged in the tuition of youth."
One other anecdote of Flinders' boyhood has been preserved as a family
tradition. It is that, while still a child, he was one day lost for some
hours. He was ultimately found in the middle of one of the sea marshes,
his pockets stuffed with pebbles, tracing the runlets of water, so that
by following them up he might find out whence they came. Many boys might
have done the same; but this particular boy, in that act of enquiry
concerning geographical phenomena on a small scale, showed himself father
to the man.
"Against the wish of friends," Flinders wrote, was his selection of a
naval career. His father steadily but kindly opposed his desire, hoping
that his son would adopt the medical profession. But young Matthew was
not easily thwarted. The call of the sea was strong within him, and
persistency was always a fibrous element in his character.
The surgeon's house at Donington stood in the market square. It remained
in existence till 1908, when it was demolished to give place to what is
described as "a hideous new villa." It was a plain, square, one-story
building with a small, low surgery built on to one side of it. Behind the
door of the surgery hung a slate, upon which the elder Flinders was
accustomed to write memoranda concerning appointments and cases. The lad,
wishing to let his father know how keen was his desire to enter the Navy,
and dreading a conversation on the subject--with probable reproaches,
admonitions, warnings, and a general outburst of parental
displeasure--made use of the surgeon's slate. He wrote upon it what he
wanted his father to know, hung it on the nail, and left it there to tell
its quiet story.
He got his way in the end, but not without discouragement from other
quarters also. He had an uncle in the Navy, John Flinders, to whom he
wrote asking for counsel. John's experience had not made him enamoured of
his profession, and his reply was chilling. He pointed out that there was
little chance of success without powerful interest. Promotion was slow
and favouritism was rampant. He himself had served eleven years, and had
not yet attained the rank of lieutenant, nor were his hopes of rising
better than slender.
From the strictly professional point of view it was not unreasonable
advice for the uncle to give. A student of the naval history of the
period finds much to justify a discouraging attitude. Even the dazzling
career of Nelson might have been frustrated by a long protracted minority
had he not had a powerful hand to help him up the lower rungs of the
ladder--the "interest" of Captain Suckling, his uncle, who in 1775 became
Comptroller of the Navy, "a civil position, but one that carried with it
power and consequently influence." Nelson became lieutenant after seven
years' service, in 1777; but he owed his promotion to Suckling, who "was
able to exert his influence in behalf of his relative by promptly
securing for him not only his promotion to lieutenant, which many waited
for long, but with it his commission, dated April 10, to the Lowestofte,
a frigate of thirty-two guns."* (* Mahan, Life of Nelson edition of 1899
pages 13 and 14.)
That even conduct of singular merit, performed in the crisis of action,
was not sufficient to secure advancement, is illustrated by a striking
fact in the life of Sir John Hindmarsh, the first Governor of South
Australia (1836). At the battle of the Nile, Hindmarsh, a midshipman of
fourteen, was left in charge of the Bellerophon, all the other officers
being killed or wounded. (It was upon this same vessel, as we shall see
later, that Flinders had a taste of sea fighting). When the French
line-of-battle ship L'Orient took fire she endangered the Bellerophon.
The boy, with wonderful presence of mind, called up some hands, cut the
cables, and was running the ship out of danger under a sprit sail, when
Captain Darby came on deck from having his wounds dressed. Nelson,
hearing of the incident, thanked young Hindmarsh before the ship's
company, and afterwards gave him his commission in front of all hands,
relating the story to them. "The sequel," writes Admiral Sir T.S. Pasley,
who relates the facts in his Journal, "does not sound so well. Lord
Nelson died in 1805, and Hindmarsh is a commander still, in 1830, not
having been made one till June, 1814." A man with such a record certainly
had to wait long before the sun of official favour shone upon him; and
his later success was won, not in the navy, but as a colonial governor.
There was, then, much to make John Flinders believe that influence was a
surer way to advancement than assiduous application or natural capacity.
His own naval career did not turn out happily. A very few years
afterwards he received his long-delayed promotion, served as lieutenant
in the Cygnet, on the West Indies station, under Admiral Affleck, and
died of yellow fever on board his ship in 1793.
John Flinders' letter, however, concluded with a piece of practical
advice, in case his nephew should be undeterred by his opinion. He
recommended the study of three works as a preparation for entering the
Navy: Euclid, John Robertson's Elements of Navigation (first edition
published in 1754) and Hamilton Moore's book on Navigation. Matthew
disregarded the warning and took the practical advice. The books were
procured and the young student plunged into their problems eagerly. The
year devoted to their study in that quiet little fen town made him master
of rather more than the elements of a science which enabled him to become
one of the foremost discoverers and cartograhers of a continent. He
probably also practised map-making with assiduity, for his charts are not
only excellent as charts, but also singularly beautiful examples of
scientific drawing.
After a year of book-work Flinders felt capable of acquitting himself
creditably at sea, if he could secure an opportunity. In those days
entrance to the Royal Navy was generally secured by the nomination of a
senior officer. There was no indispensable examination; no naval college
course was necessary. The captain of a ship could take a youth on board
to oblige his relatives, "or in return for the cancelling of a
tradesman's bill."* (* Masefield's Sea Life in Nelson's Time 1905 gives a
good account of the practice.) It so happened that a cousin of Flinders
occupied the position of governess in the family of Captain Pasley
(afterwards Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley) who at that time commanded H.M.S.
Scipio. One of her pupils, Maria Pasley, developed into a young lady of
decidedly vigorous character, as the following incident sufficiently
shows. While her father was commander-in-chief at Plymouth, she was one
day out in the Channel, beyond the Eddystone, in the Admiral's cutter. As
the country was at war, she was courting danger; and in fact, the cutter
was sighted by a French cruiser, which gave chase. But Miss Pasley
declined to run away. She "popped at the Frenchman with the cutter's two
brass guns." It was like blowing peas at an elephant; and she would
undoubtedly have been captured, had not an English frigate seen the
danger and put out to the rescue.
Flinders' cousin had interested herself in his studies and ambitions, and
gave him some encouragement. She also spoke about him to Captain Pasley,
who seems to have listened sympathetically. It interested him to hear of
this boy studying navigation without a tutor up among the fens. "Send for
him," said Pasley, "I should like to see what stuff he is made of, and
whether he is worth making into a sailor."
Young Matthew, then in his fifteenth year, was accordingly invited to
visit the Pasleys. In the later part of his life he used to relate with
merriment, how he went, was asked to dine, and then pressed to stay till
next day under the captain's roof. He had brought no night attire with
him, not having expected to sleep at the house. When he was shown into
his bedroom, his needs had apparently been anticipated; for there, folded
up neatly upon the pillow, was a sleeping garment ready for use. He
appreciated the consideration; but having attired himself for bed, he
found himself enveloped in a frothy abundance of frills and fal-lals,
lace at the wrists, lace round the neck, with flutters of ribbon here and
there. When, at the breakfast table in the morning, he related how he had
been rigged, there was a shriek of laughter from the young ladies; the
simple explanation being that one of them had vacated her room to
accommodate the visitor, and had forgotten to remove her nightdress.
The visit had more important consequences. Captain Pasley very soon saw
that he had an exceptional lad before him, and at once put him on the
Alert. He was entered as "lieutenant's servant" on October 23rd, 1789. He
remained there for rather more than seven months, learning the practical
part of a sailor's business. On May 17th, 1790, he was able to present
himself to Captain Pasley on the Scipio at Chatham, as an aspirant of
more than ordinary efficiency; and remained under his command until the
next year, following him as a midshipman when he left the Scipio for the
Bellerophon in July, 1790.
This famous ship, which carried 74 guns, and was launched in 1786, is
chiefly known to history as the vessel upon which Napoleon surrendered to
Captain Maitland on July 15th, 1815, after the Waterloo debacle. She took
a prominent part in Nelson's great battles at the Nile and Trafalgar. But
her end was pitifully ignoble. After a glorious and proud career, she was
converted into a convict hulk and re-named the Captivity. A great prose
master has reminded us, in words that glow upon his impassioned page, of
the slight thought given by the practical English to the fate of another
line-of-battle ship that had flown their colours in the stress of war.
"Those sails that strained so full bent into the battle, that broad bow
that struck the surf aside, enlarging silently in steadfast haste full
front to the shot, those triple ports whose choirs of flame rang forth in
their courses, into the fierce avenging monotone, which, when it died
away, left no answering voice to rise any more upon the sea against the
strength of England, those sides that were wet with the long runlets of
English life-blood, like press-planks at vintage, gleaming goodly crimson
down to the cast and clash of the washing foam, those pale masts that
stayed themselves up against the war-ruin, shaking out their ensigns
through the thunder, till sail and ensign drooped, steeped in the
death-stilled pause of Andalusian air, burning with its witness clouds of
human souls at rest--surely for these some sacred care might have been
left in our thoughts, some quiet resting place amidst the lapse of
English waters? Nay, not so, we have stern keepers to trust her glory to,
the fire and the worm. Never more shall sunset lay golden robe on her,
nor starlight tremble on the waves that part at her gliding. Perhaps,
where the gate opens to some cottage garden, the tired traveller may ask,
idly, why the moss grows so green on its rugged wood; and even the
sailor's child may not answer nor know, that the night-dew lies deep in
the war-rents of the wood of the old Temeraire."
But even the decline of might and dignity into decrepitude and oblivion
described in that luminous passage is less pathetic than the conversion
of the glorious Bellerophon, with her untarnished traditions of historic
victories, into a hulk for the punishment of rascals, and the changing of
her unsullied name to an alias significant only of shame.
During this preliminary period Flinders learnt the way about a ship and
acquired instruction in the mechanism of seamanship, but there was as yet
no opportunity to obtain deep-water experience. He was transferred to the
Dictator for a brief period, but as he neither mentions the captain nor
alludes to any other circumstance connected therewith, it was probably a
mere temporary turnover or guardship rating not to lose any time of
service.* (* Naval Chronicle 1814.)
His first chance of learning something about the width of the world and
the wonder of its remote places came in 1791, when he went to sea under
the command of a very remarkable man. William Bligh had sailed with James
Cook on his third and fatal voyage of discovery, 1776 to 1780. He was
twenty-three years of age when he was selected by that sagacious leader
as one of those young officers who "under my direction could be usefully
employed in constructing charts, in taking views of the coasts and
headlands near which we should pass, and in drawing plans of the bays and
harbours in which we should anchor;" for Cook recognised that constant
attention to these duties was "wholly requisite if he would render our
discoveries profitable to future navigators."* (* Cook's Voyages edition
of 1821 5 page 92.)
Bligh's name appears frequently in Cook's Journal, and is also mentioned
in King's excellent narrative of the conclusion of the voyage after
Cook's murder. He was master of the Resolution, and was on several
occasions entrusted with tasks of some consequence: as for instance on
first reaching Hawaii, when Cook sent him ashore to look for fresh water,
and again at Kealakeakura Bay (January 16, 1779) when he reported that he
had found good anchorage and fresh water "in a situation admirable to
come at." It was a fatal discovery, for on the white sands of that bay, a
month later (February 14), the great British seaman fell, speared by the
savages.
On each of Cook's voyages a call had been made at Tahiti in the Society
group. Bligh no doubt heard much about the charms of the place before he
first saw it himself. He was destined to have his own name associated
with it in a highly romantic and adventurous manner. The idyllic beauty
of the life of the Tahitians, their amiable and seductive
characteristics, the warm suavity of the climate, the profusion of food
and drink to be enjoyed on the island with the smallest conceivable
amount of exertion, made the place stand out in all the narratives of
Cook's expeditions like a green-and-golden gem set in a turquoise sea, a
lotos-land "in which it seemed always afternoon," a paradise where love
and plenty reigned and care and toil were not. George Forster, the German
naturalist who accompanied Cook on his second voyage, wrote of the men as
"models of masculine beauty," whose perfect proportions would have
satisfied the eye of Phidias or Praxiteles; of the women as beings whose
"unaffected smiles and a wish to please ensure them mutual esteem and
love;" and of the life they led as being diversified between bathing in
cool streams, reposing under tufted trees, feeding on luscious fruits,
telling tales, and playing the flute. In fact, Forster declared, they
"resembled the happy, indolent people whom Ulysses found in Phaeacia, and
could apply the poet's lines to themselves with peculiar propriety:
'To dress, to dance, to sing our sole delight,
The feast or bath by day, and love by night.'"
In Tahiti grew an abundance of breadfruit. It was in connection with this
nutritious food, one of nature's richest gifts to the Pacific, that Bligh
undertook a mission which involved him in a mutiny, launched him upon one
of the most dangerous and difficult voyages in the annals of British
seamanship, and provided a theme for a long poem by one of the greatest
of English authors. Byron it was who, writing as though the trees
sprouted quartern loaves ready baked, said of it (The Island 2 11):
"The bread-tree, which without the ploughshare yields
The unreaped harvest of unfurrowed fields,
And bakes its unadulterated loaves
Without a furnace in unpurchased groves,
And flings off famine from its fertile breast,
A priceless market for the gathering guest."
Breadfruit had been tasted and described by Dampier in the seventeenth
century. His description of it has all the terse directness peculiar to
the writing of the inquisitive buccaneer, with a touch of quaintness that
makes the passage desirable to quote:* (* Dampier's Voyages edition of
1729 1 page 294.)
"The breadfruit, as we call it, grows on a large tree as big and as tall
as our largest apple trees. It hath a spreading head full of branches and
dark leaves. The fruit grows on the boughs like apples; it is as big as a
penny loaf when wheat is at five shillings the bushel. The natives of
this island (Suam) use it for bread. They gather it when full-grown; then
they bake it in an oven, which scorcheth the rind and makes it black; but
they scrape off the outside black crust and there remains a tender thin
crust and the inside is soft, tender and white, like the crumb of a penny
loaf. There is neither seed nor stone in the inside, but all is of a pure
substance like bread; it must be eaten new, for if it is kept above
twenty-four hours it becomes dry and eats harsh and chokey; but 'tis very
pleasant before it is too stale."
By Dampier, who in the course of his astonishing career had consumed many
strange things--who found shark's flesh "good entertainment," and roast
opossum "sweet wholesome meat"--toleration in the matter of things edible
was carried to the point of latitudinarianism. We never find Dampier
squeamish about anything which anybody else could eat with relish. To
him, naturally, the first taste of breadfruit was pleasing. But Cook was
more critical. "The natives seldom make a meal without it," he said,
"though to us the taste was as disagreeable as that of a pickled olive
generally is the first time it is eaten." That opinion, perhaps, accords
with the common experience of neophytes in tropical gastronomy. But new
sensations in the matter of food are not always to be depended on. Sir
Joseph Banks disliked bananas when he first tasted them.
The immense popularity of Cook's voyages spread afar the fame of
breadfruit as an article of food. Certain West Indian planters were of
opinion that it would be advantageous to establish the trees on their
islands and to encourage the consumption of the fruit by their slaves.
Not only was it considered that the use of breadfruit would cheapen the
cost of the slaves' living, but--a consideration that weighed both with
the planters and the British Government in view of existing relations
with the United States--it was also believed that it would "lessen the
dependence of the sugar islands on North America for food and
necessaries."* (* Bryan Edwards History of the British West Indies 1819 1
40.)
The planters petitioned the Government to fit out an expedition to
transplant trees from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Sir Joseph Banks
strongly supported them, and Lord Hood, then First Lord of the Admiralty,
was sympathetic. In August, 1787, Lieutenant Bligh was appointed to the
command of the Bounty, was directed to sail to the Society Islands, to
take on board "as many trees and plants as may be thought necessary," and
to transplant them to British possessions in the West Indies.
The vessel sailed, with two skilled gardeners on board to superintend the
selection and treatment of the plants. Tahiti was duly reached, and the
business of the expedition was taken in hand. One thousand and fifteen
fine trees were chosen and carefully stowed. But the comfortable
indolence, the luxuriant abundance, the genial climate, the happy
hospitality of the handsome islanders, and their easy freedom from
compunction in reference to restraints imposed by law and custom in
Europe, had a demoralising effect upon the crew of the Bounty. A stay of
twenty-three weeks at the island sufficed to subvert discipline and to
persuade some of Bligh's sailors that life in Tahiti was far preferable
to service in the King's Navy under the rule of a severe and exacting
commander.
When the Bounty left Tahiti on April 14, 1787, reluctance plucked at the
heart of many of the crew. The morning light lay tenderly upon the plumes
of the palms, and a light wind filled the sails of the ship as she glided
out of harbour. As the lazy lapping wash of the waters against the low
outer fringe of coral was lost to the ear, the Bounty breasted the deep
ocean; and as the distinguishable features of green tree, white sand,
brown earth, and grey rock faded out of vision, wrapped in a haze of
blue, till at last the only pronounced characteristic of the island
standing up against the sky and sea was the cap of Point Venus at the
northern extremity--the departure must have seemed to some like that of
Tannhauser from the enchanted mountain, except that the legendary hero
was glad to make his return to the normal world, whereas all of Bligh's
company were not. For them, westward, whither they were bound,
"There gaped the gate
Whereby lost souls back to the cold earth went."
The discipline of ship's life, and the stormings and objurgations of the
commanding officer, chafed like an iron collar. At length a storm burst.
On April 28 the Bounty was sailing towards Tofoa, another of the Society
Islands. Just before sunrise on the following morning Bligh was aroused
from sleep, seized and bound in his cabin by a band of mutineers, led out
by the master's mate, Fletcher Christian, and, with eighteen companions,
dropped into a launch and bidden to depart. The followers of Christian
were three midshipmen and twenty-five petty officers and sailors. They
turned the head of the Bounty back towards their island paradise; and as
they sailed away, the mariners in the tossing little boat heard them
calling "Hurrah for Tahiti!"
The frail craft in which the nineteen loyalists were compelled to attempt
to traverse thousands of miles of ocean, where the navigation is perhaps
the most intricate in the world, was but 23 feet long by 6 feet 9 inches
broad and 2 feet 9 inches deep. Their provisions consisted of 150 pounds
of bread, 16 pieces of pork, each about two pounds in weight, six quarts
of rum, six bottles of wine, and 28 gallons of water. With this scanty
stock of nourishment, in so small a boat, Bligh and his companions
covered 3618 miles, crossing the western Pacific, sailing through Torres
Strait, and ultimately reaching Timor.
That Bligh was somewhat deficient in tact and sympathy in handling men,
cross-grained, harsh, and obstinate, is probably true. His language was
often lurid, he lavished foul epithets upon his crew, and he was not
reluctant to follow terms of abuse by vigorous chastisement. He called
Christian a "damned hound," some of the men "scoundrels, thieves and
rascals," and he met a respectful remonstrance with the retort: "You
damned infernal scoundrels, I'll make you eat grass or anything you can
catch before I have done with you." Naval officers of the period were not
addicted to addressing their men in the manner of a lady with a pet
canary. Had Bligh's language been the head and front of his offending, he
would hardly have shocked an eighteenth century fo'c'sle. But his
disposition does not seem to have bound men to him. He generated dislike.
Nevertheless it is credible that the explanation which he gave goes far
to explain the mutiny. He held that the real cause was a species of
sensuous intoxication which had corrupted his crew.
"The women of Tahiti," Bligh wrote, "are handsome, mild and cheerful in
their manners and conversation, possessed of great sensibility, and have
sufficient delicacy to make them admired and loved. The chiefs were so
much attached to our people that they rather encouraged their stay among
them than otherwise, and even made them promises of large possessions.
Under these and other attendant circumstances equally desirable, it is
perhaps not so much to be wondered at, though scarcely possible to have
been foreseen, that a set of sailors, many of them void of connections,
should be led away; especially when in addition to such powerful
inducements they imagined it in their power to fix themselves in the
midst of plenty on one of the finest islands in the world, where they
need not labour, and where the allurements of dissipation are beyond
anything that can be conceived...Had their mutiny been occasioned by any
grievance, either real or imaginary, I must have discovered symptoms of
their discontent, which would have put me on my guard; but the case was
far otherwise. Christian in particular I was on the most friendly terms
with; that very day he was engaged to have dined with me; and the
preceding night he excused himself from supping with me on pretence of
being unwell, for which I felt concerned, having no suspicions of his
integrity and honour."
Support is given to Bligh's explanation by a statement alleged to have
been made by Fletcher Christian a few years later, the genuineness of
which, however, is open to serious question. If it could be accepted,
Christian acquitted his commander of having contributed to the mutiny by
harsh conduct. He ascribed the occurrence "to the strong predilection we
had contracted for living in Tahiti, where, exclusive of the happy
disposition of the inhabitants, the mildness of the climate, and the
fertility of the soil, we had formed certain tender connections which
banished the remembrance of old England from our breasts." The weight of
evidence justifies the belief that Bligh, though a sailor of unequivocal
skill and dauntless courage, was an unlikeable man, and that aversion to
service under him was a factor contributing to the mutiny which cannot be
explained away.
Bligh is the connecting link between Cook and Flinders. Bligh learned
under Cook to experience the thrilling pleasure of discovery and to
pursue opportunities in that direction in a scientific spirit. Flinders
learnt the same lesson under Bligh, and bettered the instruction. Cook is
the first great scientific navigator whose name is associated with the
construction of the map of Australia; so much can be said without
disparagement of the adventurous Dutchmen who pieced together the outline
of the western and northern coasts. Flinders was the second; and Bligh,
pupil of the one and teacher of the other, deserves a better fate than to
be remembered chiefly as a sinister figure in two historic mutinies, that
of the Bounty, and that which ended his governorship of New South Wales
in 1808. Much worse men have done much worse things than he, have less
that is brave, honourable, enterprising and original to their credit, and
yet are remembered without ignominy. It is said by Hooker: "as oftentimes
the vices of wicked men do cause other their commendable virtues to be
abhorred, so the honour of great men's virtues is easily a cloak to their
errors." Bligh fell short of being a great man, but neither was he a bad
man; and the merit of his achievements, both as a navigator and amid the
shock of battle (especially at Copenhagen in 1801, under Nelson), must
not be overlooked, even though stern history will not permit his errors
to be cloaked.
Notwithstanding the failure of the Bounty expedition, Sir Joseph Banks
pressed upon the Government the desirableness of transplanting breadfruit
trees to the West Indies. He also proved a staunch friend to Bligh. The
result was that the Admiralty resolved to equip a second enterprise for
the same purpose, and to entrust the command of it to the same officer.
We may now follow the fortunes of Matthew Flinders under the tutelage of
this energetic captain.