A long imprisonment in the Isle of France, and the mental anxiety inseparable from a strong sense of injustice, it is said, destroyed him. His case may be told in few words: the _Investigator_ was condemned as unfit for service, and Flinders embarked at Port Jackson on board the _Porpoise_, in company with the _Cato_ and the _Bridgewater_. When passing through Torres Straits, at between eight and nine knots, they saw breakers a-head. Before signals could be made, the other vessels were seen hastening to the same destruction. They hauled to the wind across each other; a collision seemed inevitable: a death-like silence prevailed during the awful crisis; but happily they passed off side by side. Instantly, however, the _Cato_ struck on the reef, and was totally lost. All hands were preserved, except three boys; of these, one spent the night on a spar, bewailing his unhappy lot: four times he had embarked in different vessels, and each time had been wrecked; this was the last, for before morning he disappeared. The _Bridgewater_ was yet safe: she was seen at dawn; but while awaiting her help, the captain, with a selfishness happily not common--without even sending a boat to pick up a cast-away--proceeded on his voyage.[15] He reached India in safety; sailed for Europe, and was never heard of more: the people he had abandoned were all rescued. This was effected by Flinders. A cutter was built and provisioned from the stores saved on the reef: in this, which he called the _Hope_, he set out for Port Jackson, 750 miles distant. There he obtained the assistance of two vessels, beside the _Cumberland_, a colonial schooner of 29 tons. The inhabitants, unsolicited, sent many presents to the sufferers, who soon hailed the arrival of Flinders with rapturous cheers. Having performed this duty, he proceeded towards England in the _Cumberland_, with seven men and three officers; but finding that she was unable to bear the voyage, he resolved to confide in the honor of the French, and present his passport at the Mauritius. There he was detained a prisoner six years; first charged with imposture, then treated as a spy; and when these imputations were refuted, he was accused of violating his passport. The French had found in his journal a wish dotted down to examine the state of that settlement, written when a stranger to the renewal of war. Some doubt seems to have been really entertained, for the moment, respecting him; but his long detention after his release was promised, was ascribed to the ambition of Napoleon, and the dishonesty of the French Institute, who from Flinders' papers were appropriating to Baudin the honor of discoveries he never himself claimed.