company. The Frenchmen had not fared so well. One hundred and fifty
out of one hundred and seventy were down with scurvy and had to be
taken to the hospital at Sydney.

Before the end of July, Flinders was off again, sailing northwards
along the eastern coast of New South Wales. October found him passing
the Great Barrier reefs, and on the 21st he had reached the northernmost
point, Cape York. Three days of anxious steering took the
_Investigator_ through Torres Strait, and Flinders was soon sailing
into the great Gulf of Carpentaria. Still hugging the coast, he
discovered a group of islands to the south of the gulf, which he named
the Wellesley Islands, after General Wellesley, afterwards Duke of
Wellington. Here he found a wealth of vegetation; cabbage palm was
abundant, nutmegs plentiful, and a sort of sandal-wood was growing
freely. He spent one hundred and five days exploring the gulf; then
he continued his voyage round the west coast and back to Port Jackson
by the south. He returned after a year's absence with a sickly crew
and a rotten ship. Indeed, the _Investigator_ was incapable of further
service, and Flinders decided to go back to England for another ship.
As passenger on board the _Porpoise_, early in August 1802, he sailed
from Sydney for the Torres Strait accompanied by two returning
transports. All went well for the first four days, and they had reached
a spot on the coast of Queensland, when a cry of "Breakers ahead!"
fell on the evening air. In another moment the ship was carried amongst
the breakers and struck upon a coral reef. So sudden was the disaster
that there was no time to warn the other ships closely following. As
the _Porpoise_ rolled over on her beam ends, huge seas swept over her
and the white foam leapt high. Then the mast snapped, water rushed
in, and soon the _Porpoise_ was a hopeless wreck. A few minutes later,
one of the transports struck the coral reef: she fell on her side,
her deck facing the sweeping rollers, and was completely wrecked. The
other transport escaped, sailed right away from the scene of disaster,
and was never seen again by the crew of the _Porpoise_. The dawn of
day showed the shipwrecked crew a sandbank, to which some ninety-four
men made their way and soon set sailcloth tents on the barren shore.
They had saved enough food for three months. Flinders as usual was
the moving spirit. A fortnight later in one of the ship's boats, with
twelve rowers and food for three