uring these years. Access to his charts and
papers, printed volumes and log-books (except the third log-book,
containing details of the Cumberland's voyage), having been given to him,
he wrote up the history of his voyages and adventures. By July, 1806, he
had completed the manuscript as far as the point when he left the Garden
prison. An opportunity of despatching it to the Admiralty occurred when
the French privateer La Piemontaise captured the richly laden China
merchantman Warren Hastings and brought her into Port Louis as a prize.
Captain Larkins was released after a short detention, and offered to take
a packet to the Admiralty. Finished charts were also sent; and Sir John
Barrow, who wrote the powerful Quarterly Review article of 1810, wherein
Flinders' cause was valiantly championed, had resort to this material. A
valuable paper by Flinders, upon the use of the marine barometer for
predicting changes of wind at sea, was also the fruit of his enforced
leisure. It was conveyed to England, read before the Royal Society by Sir
Joseph Banks, and published in the Transactions of that learned body in
1806.

The friendship of able and keen-minded men was not lacking during these
years. There existed in Ile-de-France a Societe d'Emulation, formed to
promote the study of literary and philosophical subjects, whose members,
learning what manner of man Flinders was, addressed a memorial to the
Institute of France relating what had happened to him, and eulogising his
courage, his high character, his innocence, and the worth of his
services. They protested that he was a man into whose heart there had
never entered a single desire, a single thought, the execution of which
could be harmful to any individual, of whatever class or to whatever
nation he might belong. "Use then, we beg of you," they urged, "in favour
of Captain Flinders the influence of the first scientific body in Europe,
the National Institute, in order that the error which has led to the
captivity of this learned navigator may become known; you will acquire,
in rendering this noble service, a new title to the esteem and the honour
of all nations, and of all friends of humanity."

The Governor-General of India, Lord Wellesley, took a keen interest in
Flinders' situation, and in 1805 requested Decaen's "particular
attention" to it, earnestly soliciting him to "release Captain Flinders
immediately, and to allow him either to take his passage to India in the
Thetis