been in town on my arrival,
believing it would have been in his power to have turned the tide of
consequences; and obligingly offered to supply me with money, if in want.

During a fortnight from this time, no incident occurred worth notice. My
scorbutic sores being much better, the surgeon came but seldom; and the
visits of the interpreter being less frequent than before, our solitude
was rarely interrupted. The Gulph of Carpentaria and Torres' Strait being
finished, my time had since been employed in writing an explanatory
memoir upon the latter chart; Mr. Aken was occupied in copying the
journal of bearings for the Admiralty, and my servant in transcribing the
two first volumes of the log, which had been torn and defaced in the
shipwreck; so that our time did not pass wholly in vain. It was the
completion of the charts, however, that I had most at heart; and although
the success of an application for more materials were very doubtful, an
essay to obtain them was made on the 27th, in the following letter to the
captain-general.

Sir,

The term of my imprisonment being lengthened out much beyond my
expectation, puts me under the necessity of making another application to
Your Excellency for more books and charts, that I may still proceed in
completing the account of my observations and discoveries. If the whole
were put into my possession it would be of much service to my labour, and
save Your Excellency from being troubled with any further application on
this head; but if this will not be complied with, I beg to make a small
selection from them, which will principally consist of a roll of charts.
I am not however to deceive Your Excellency--this roll contains the
greater part of my original fair charts, and I am desirous to have them
principally for the purpose of making an abridgment of my discoveries
upon a single sheet. With all due consideration, I am

Your Excellency's prisoner,

Matthew Flinders.

This letter was no more fortunate than the last, and it seemed that
general De Caen had determined upon giving me no answer to any thing.

The Admiral Aplin, an extra-indiaman outward bound, on board of which
were several officers of the army and four ladies, had been brought in as
a prize; the ladies with their husbands were suffered to remain at a
tavern in the town, at the instance of captain Bergeret, by whose
privateer, La Psyche, they had been taken; the others were sent to a
house at a little distance i