masts that
stayed themselves up against the war-ruin, shaking out their ensigns
through the thunder, till sail and ensign drooped, steeped in the
death-stilled pause of Andalusian air, burning with its witness clouds of
human souls at rest--surely for these some sacred care might have been
left in our thoughts, some quiet resting place amidst the lapse of
English waters? Nay, not so, we have stern keepers to trust her glory to,
the fire and the worm. Never more shall sunset lay golden robe on her,
nor starlight tremble on the waves that part at her gliding. Perhaps,
where the gate opens to some cottage garden, the tired traveller may ask,
idly, why the moss grows so green on its rugged wood; and even the
sailor's child may not answer nor know, that the night-dew lies deep in
the war-rents of the wood of the old Temeraire."

But even the decline of might and dignity into decrepitude and oblivion
described in that luminous passage is less pathetic than the conversion
of the glorious Bellerophon, with her untarnished traditions of historic
victories, into a hulk for the punishment of rascals, and the changing of
her unsullied name to an alias significant only of shame.

During this preliminary period Flinders learnt the way about a ship and
acquired instruction in the mechanism of seamanship, but there was as yet
no opportunity to obtain deep-water experience. He was transferred to the
Dictator for a brief period, but as he neither mentions the captain nor
alludes to any other circumstance connected therewith, it was probably a
mere temporary turnover or guardship rating not to lose any time of
service.* (* Naval Chronicle 1814.)

His first chance of learning something about the width of the world and
the wonder of its remote places came in 1791, when he went to sea under
the command of a very remarkable man. William Bligh had sailed with James
Cook on his third and fatal voyage of discovery, 1776 to 1780. He was
twenty-three years of age when he was selected by that sagacious leader
as one of those young officers who "under my direction could be usefully
employed in constructing charts, in taking views of the coasts and
headlands near which we should pass, and in drawing plans of the bays and
harbours in which we should anchor;" for Cook recognised that constant
attention to these duties was "wholly requisite if he would render our
discoveries profitable to future navigators."* (* Cook's Voyages edition
of 1821 5 page