RS."

He appended a postscript which covertly alludes to the manner in which
Sir Joseph Banks might be expected to regard the marriage on the eve of
commencing the new voyage: "It will be much better to keep this matter
entirely secret. There are many reasons for it yet, and I have also a
powerful one: I do not know how my great friends might like it."

But, taking all the risks in this direction, he snatched the first
opportunity that presented itself to hurry down to Lincolnshire, get
married, and bring his bride up to London, stuffing into his boot, for
safe keeping, a roll of bank notes given to him by Mr. Tyler at the
moment of farewell.

In a letter* to his cousin Henrietta, (* Flinders' Papers.) he relates
how hurriedly the knot matrimonial was at length tied, on the 17th of
April:

"Everything was agreed to in a very handsome manner, and just at this
time I was called up to town and found that I might be spared a few days
from thence. I set off on Wednesday evening from town, arrived next
evening at Spilsby, was married next morning,* which was Friday; on
Saturday we went to Donington, on Sunday reached Huntingdon, and on
Monday were in town. Next morning I presented myself before Sir Joseph
Banks with a grave face as if nothing had happened, and then went on with
my business as usual. We stayed in town till the following Sunday, and
came on board the Investigator next day, and here we have remained ever
since, a few weeks on shore and a day spent on the Essex side of the
Thames excepted." (* Captain F.J. Bayldon, of the Nautical Academy,
Sydney, tells me an interesting story about the Flinders-Chappell
marriage registration. His father was rector of Partney, Lincolnshire, a
village lying two or three miles from Spilsby. When the Captain and his
brothers were boys, they found in the rectory a large book, such as was
used for parish registers. It was apparently unused. They asked their
father if they might have the blank pages for drawing paper, and he gave
them permission. But they found upon a single page, a few marriage
entries, and one of these was the marriage of Matthew Flinders to Ann
Chappell. Captain Bayldon, a student of navigation then as he has been
ever since, knew Flinders' name at once, and took the book to his father.
The marriage was celebrated at Partney, where the Tylers lived.)

In a letter* written on the day of the marriage to Elizabeth Flinders the
bride's fluttered and mixed emotions