nging the first tidings. He commenced,
however, to write his great book, and worked with the utmost pains to
make all his maps scrupulously accurate. After about four years of
incessant labour, the three volumes were ready for the press; but he was
doomed never to see them. So many years of toil, so many nights passed
in open boats or on the wet sands, so many shipwrecks and weeks of
semi-starvation, together with his long and unjust imprisonment, had
utterly destroyed his constitution; and on the very day when his book
was being published, the wife and daughter of Flinders were tending his
last painful hours. He was, perhaps, our greatest maritime discoverer: a
man who worked because his heart was in his work; who sought no reward,
and obtained none; who lived laboriously, and did honourable service to
mankind; yet died, like his friend Bass, almost unknown to those of his
own day, but leaving a name which the world is every year more and more
disposed to honour.

CHAPTER IV.

NEW SOUTH WALES, 1800-1808.

#1. Governor King.#--Governor Hunter, who left Sydney in the year 1800,
was succeeded by Captain King, the young officer who has been already
mentioned as the founder of the settlement at Norfolk Island. He was a
man of much ability, and was both active and industrious; yet so
overwhelming at this time were the difficulties of Governorship in New
South Wales, that his term of office was little more than a distressing
failure. The colony consisted chiefly of convicts, who were--many of
them--the most depraved and hardened villains to be met with in the
history of crime. To keep these in check, and to maintain order, was no
easy task; but to make them work, to convert them into industrious and
well-behaved members of the community, was far beyond any Governor's
power. King made an effort, and did his very best; but after a time he
grew disheartened, and, in his disappointment, complained of the folly
which expected him to make farmers out of pickpockets. His chances of
success would have been much increased had he been properly seconded by
his subordinates. But, unfortunately, circumstances had arisen which
caused the officers and soldiers not only to render him no assistance
whatever, but even to thwart and frustrate his most careful plans.

[Illustration: THE EXPLORERS' TREE, KATOOMBA, N.S.W.]

#2. The New South Wales Corps.#--In 1790 a special corps had been
organised in the British army for service in