shing that object was to report to Paris, and allow the case to
be determined by the Government, instead of settling it himself
forthwith. Here again Flinders was well informed. His journal for May
24th, 1806, contains the following entry:* (* Flinders' Papers.) "It has
been said that I am detained a prisoner here solely because I refused the
invitation of General Decaen to dine; that to punish me he referred the
judgment of my case to the French Government, knowing that I should
necessarily be detained twelve months before an answer arrived." Or, as
he stated the matter in his published book (2 489): "My refusal of the
intended honour until set at liberty so much exasperated the
Captain-General that he determined to make me repent it."

It will be seen presently that the term of detention, originally intended
to endure for about a year, was lengthened by circumstances that were
beyond Decaen's control; that the punishment which sprang from the hasty
ire of a peppery soldier increased, against his own will, into what
appeared to all the world, and most of all to the victim, to be a piece
of malevolent persecution. The ball kicked off in a fit of spleen rolled
on and on beyond recovery.

There was, it must be admitted, quite enough in the facts brought under
Decaen's notice to warrant a reference to Paris, if he chose to be
awkward. In the first place, Flinders was carrying on board the
Cumberland a box of despatches from Governor King for the Secretary of
State. As pointed out in Chapter 12, the Admiralty instructions for the
Investigator voyage cautioned him "not to take letters or packets other
than those such as you may receive from this office or the office of His
Majesty's Secretary of State." Governor King was well aware of this
injunction. Yet he entrusted to Flinders this box of despatches,
containing material relative to military affairs. It is true that a state
of war was not known to exist at the time when the Cumberland sailed from
Port Jackson in September, 1803, although as a matter of fact it had
broken out in the previous May. But it was well known that war was
anticipated. It is also true that Flinders knew nothing of the contents
of the despatches. But neither, as a rule, does any other despatch
carrier in war time. When the Cumberland's papers were examined by
Decaen's officers, and these despatches were read and translated, there
was at once a prima facie ground for saying, "this officer is not engag