of general De Caen’s permission to quit Mauritius, as the patent which constituted the existing Board of Admiralty would allow.  A more retrospective date could be given to it only by an order of the King in council; unhappily His Majesty was then incapable of exercising his royal functions; and when the Regency was established, my proposed petition did not meet with that official encouragement which was necessary to obtain success.  It was candidly acknowledged, that my services in the Investigator would have been deemed a sufficient title to advancement in 1804, had I then arrived in England and the Admiralty been composed of the same members; but no representation could overcome the reluctance to admitting an exception to the established rule; thus the injustice of the French governor of Mauritius, besides all its other consequences, was attended with the loss of six years post rank in His Majesty’s naval service.

One of my first cares was to seek the means of relieving some relations of my Mauritius friends, prisoners of war in England; and in a few months, through the indulgence of the Admiralty and of the earl of Liverpool, secretary of state for the colonies, I had the gratification of sending five young men back to the island, to families who had shown kindness to English prisoners.

The Board of Admiralty was pleased to countenance the publication of the Investigator’s voyage by providing for the charts and embellishments; and a strong representation was made by its directions to the French government, upon the subjects of my detained journal, the schooner Cumberland, and the parole exacted on quitting Mauritius.  A release from the parole was transmitted in April 1812, after three applications; but upon the other points it was answered, that “the vessel of captain Flinders was at the Isle of France at the capitulation of that colony, and returned in consequence to the power of the English government.  With respect to the journal of that navigator, as it did not make part of the papers brought from the Isle of France by the prefect of that colony, a demand has been made for it to the captain-general De Caen, who is with the army.  In default of an answer he will be again written to, and so soon as it shall be remitted, my first object will be to send it.”  The Cumberland had been seized in 1803, and the capitulation was made in 1810; in the interval, both vessel and stores, if not used, would be in great part rotten; but I saw the Cumberland employed in the French service, and believe that the stores were also.  General De Caen, it appeared, still kept the log book in his own hands; although, if considered to be private property, it was undoubtedly mine, and if as a public document it ought to have been given up at the capitulation, or at least to have been deposited in the office of the marine minister.  But the captain-general had probably his reasons for not wishing even the minister to see it; and up to this time, the commencement of 1814, he has so far persevered against both public and private applications, that neither the original nor a copy has been obtained.