The _Investigator_ sailed, and Flinders made Cape Leeuwin on September
7th, 1801. He ran along the south and east coasts, met the Baudin
expedition in Encounter Bay, and entered Port Phillip on April 26th, 1802,
and found that the _Lady Nelson_ had preceded him in the February before.
Arriving in Sydney in May, he sailed again a couple of months later to the
northward, surveying the Great Barrier Reef, Torres Straits, the Gulf of
Carpentaria, and the coast of Arnhem's Land. By this time the ship was too
unseaworthy to prosecute further work, so Flinders sailed round the entire
continent by way of the Leeuwin, and finally arrived in Sydney harbour
again in June, 1803.
In these voyages he performed exploring work that is now a part of English
history, and his charts of the Australian coasts were the foundation of
all others that have since been made. He either first used the name of
Australia or adapted it to the great continent, and New Holland, after the
publication of his charts, began to be a name of the past.
Most of the remainder of this story can best be told in the words of
Flinders and from the narratives of his officers.
The long and rough voyage of the _Investigator_ had shaken her poor old
carcase terribly, as the following summary of [Sidenote: 1805]
an examination by the captains of the men-of-war then in Sydney Harbour
and others will show:--
"On the port side out of ninety-eight timbers, eleven were sound,
and sixty-three were uncertain if strained a little; on the
starboard five out of eighty-nine timbers were good, fifty-six
were uncertain, and twenty-eight rotten; the planking about the
bows and amidships was so soft that a stick could be poked through
it."
Considering all these defects it was not worth while to keep her, so she
was converted into a hulk in Sydney Harbour. But later on it was found
that by cutting her down it might be possible to navigate her to England.
This was done, and the old ship sailed from Sydney on May 24th, 1805,
under the command of Captain Kent, who managed with the greatest
difficulty to reach Liverpool on the 14th of October following. In his
despatch announcing her arrival he says:--
"A more deplorable, crazy vessel than the _Investigator_ is,
perhaps, not to be seen. Her maintopmast is reefed a third down;
we have been long without topgallantmasts, being necessitated to
take the topgallant rigging for running gear."
And Governor King, anxious to do Flinders justice, says:--"I hope no
carping cur will cast any reflection on him respecting the _Investigator_
... should it be so it will be an act of great injustice," and then he
alludes to the thoroughly rotten condition of the ship. He was quick, too,
to recognize the immense value of the work accomplished by Flinders, and
made him every offer of help that lay within his power to continue the
survey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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