e up the difference in the expense to which he
would be put by living in town instead of in the country; but Barrow
assured him that the Admiralty would object "for want of a precedent." He
showed that he would be 500 or 600 pounds out of pocket, to say nothing
of the loss of chances of promotion by remaining ashore. It was to meet
this position that the Admiralty granted him 200 pounds; but as a matter
of fact he was still 300 pounds out of pocket,* and was put out of health
irrecoverably by intense application to the task. (* Flinders' Papers.)
His friend, Captain Kent, then of the Agincourt, advised him to abandon
the work. "I conjure you," he wrote "to give the subject your serious
attention, and do not suffer yourself to be involved in debt to gratify
persons who seem to have no feeling." But to have abandoned his beloved
work at this stage would have appeared worse to him than loss of life
itself. The consequence was that his expenses during this period, even
with the strictly economical mode of living which he adopted, entrenched
upon the small savings which he was able to leave to his widow. He was
compelled to represent that, unless a concession were made, he would have
to choose between abandoning his task or reducing his family to distress;
and it was for this reason that the Admiralty granted a special allowance
of 200 pounds, in supplement of his half-pay. This, with 500 pounds "in
lieu of compensation" on account of his detention in Ile-de-France was
the entire consideration that he received.

When he died, application was made to the Admiralty to grant a special
pension to Mrs. Flinders. The widow of Captain Cook had been granted a
pension of 200 pounds a year. (Mrs. Cook, by the way, was still living in
England at this time; she did not die till 1835). Stout old Sir Joseph
Banks declared that he would not die happy unless something were done for
the widow and child of Matthew Flinders. But his influence with the
Admiralty was not so great as it had been in Lord Spencer's time, and his
efforts were ineffectual. The case was at a later date brought under the
notice of William IV, who said that he saw no reason why the widow of
Captain Flinders should not receive the same treatment as the widow of
Captain Cook. The King mentioned the subject to Lord Melbourne; he,
however, was unsympathetic, and nothing whatever was done. Mrs. Flinders
was paid only the meagre pension of a post-captain's widow until she died