805

In the beginning of March, I was surprised to see in the official gazette
of the French government, the Moniteur of July 7, 1804, a long letter
from Dunkirk addressed to the editor; containing many particulars of my
voyage, praising the zeal with which it had been conducted, and
describing my detention in Mauritius as a circumstance which had
originated in a mistake and was understood to be terminated. In the
succeeding Moniteur of the 11th, some observations were made upon this
letter on the part of the government, which afforded some insight into
what was alleged against me; and these being important to the elucidation
of general De Caen's policy, a translation of them is here given.

MONITEUR, No. 292.

Wednesday 22 Messidor, year 12; or July 11, 1804.

In a letter from Dunkirk, addressed to the editor of the Moniteur, and
inserted in the paper of the 18th of this month, No. 288, we read an
account of the voyage of Mr. Flinders, an English navigator, who arrived
at the Isle of France the 24 Frimaire last, in the schooner Cumberland.
The author of the letter in the Moniteur says, that Mr. Flinders, _"not
knowing of the war, stopped at the Isle of France which was in his route,
to obtain water and refreshments: that some secret articles in his
instructions gave rise to suspicions upon which the captain-general at
first thought it his duty to detain him prisoner; but that, nevertheless,
the passports he had obtained from the French government and all other
nations, the nature even of his expedition which interested all civilized
people, were not long in procuring his release."_

The fact is, that Mr. Flinders not knowing of, but suspecting the war,
ventured to come to the Isle of France; where having learned its
declaration, he doubted whether the passport granted him by the French
government in the year 9, would serve him. In reality, the passport was
exclusively for the sloop _Investigator, of which it contained the
description_; and it is not in the Investigator that he has been
arrested, but in the Cumberland.

The same passport did not permit Mr. Flinders to stop at French colonies
but on condition that he should not deviate from his route to go there;
and Mr. Flinders acknowledges in his journal that he deviated
voluntarily, (for the Isle of France was not in his passage, as the
author of the above cited letter says). In fine, the passport granted to
Mr. Flinders did not admit of any equivocation upon t