The circumstances attending the imprisonment of Flinders, and the precipitate haste with which Freycinet's work was pushed forward, undoubtedly furnished prima facie justification for the suspicion, indignantly voiced by contemporary English writers, and which has been hardened into a direct accusation since, that an act of plagiarism was committed, dishonest in itself, and doubly guilty from the circumstances in which it was performed. The Quarterly reviewer of 1817* pointed out that the few charts in Freycinet's atlas "ARE VERY LIKE THOSE OF CAPTAIN FLINDERS, ONLY MUCH INFERIOR IN POINT OF EXECUTION." (* Volume 17 pages 229 to 230; the italics are the reviewer's. The plagiarism legend--for such it is--originated with this Quarterly article. The earliest biographer of Flinders, in the Naval Chronicle 32 page 177, wrote very strongly of General Decaen, considering that he was "worthy of his Corsican master," and that his name "will be consigned to infamy as long as mankind shall consider it honourable to promote science and civilised to practise hospitality," but alleged no improper use of the charts. C.A. Walckenaer, who wrote the excellent life of Flinders in the Biographie Universelle, published in 1856, said that the French Government was "inexcusable d'avoir retenu Flinders en captivite," but denied that his charts were improperly used, and promised that when he came to write the life of Peron in a succeeding volume, he would by an analysis of the evidence refute the story. But Walckenaer died in 1852, before his Flinders article was published, and the author of the article on Peron did not carry out his predecessor's undertaking. It is to be presumed that Walckenaer would have exhibited the facts set out above. Alfred de Lacaze, in his article on Flinders in the Nouvelle Biographie Generale 17 932, wrote that the excuses given for the imprisonment of Flinders formed "pauvres pretextes"; but declared that the seals put on Flinders' papers in Mauritius were "loyalement respecte pendant les six ans que dura la captivite du navigateur anglais." That was true. It is a pleasure to acknowledge that all the references to Flinders which the author has seen in French works unanimously and strongly condemn the treatment of him, and do ample justice to his splendid qualities.) They are very like in one respect, namely, in the representation of Spencer's and St. Vincent's Gulfs and Kangaroo Island. In other particulars, at all events as far as relates to the Terre Napoleon coasts, the French charts are quite unlike those of Flinders. But contemporaries--knowing that Flinders' charts had been taken from him by Decaen, and that he had been held in captivity until the French could finish their work, and then, comparing his charts with Freycinet's, finding that parts of the coasts discovered by the English captain were well represented on the French charts, while other parts of the outline of Terra Australis were badly done or