ome enterprising
individuals, no part of it beyond 30 leagues from the coast had been seen
by an European. Various conjectures were entertained upon the probable
consistence of this extensive space. Was it a vast desert? Was it
occupied by an immense lake--a second Caspian Sea, or by a Mediterranean
to which existed a navigable entrance in some part of the coasts hitherto
unexplored? or was not this new continent rather divided into two or more
islands by straits communicating from the unknown parts of the south to
the imperfectly examined north-west coast or to the Gulf of Carpentaria,
or to both? Such were the questions that excited the interest and divided
the opinion of geographers."

Apart from particular directions in which enquiry needed to be pursued,
it was felt in England that the only nation which had founded a
settlement on the Australian continent was under an obligation to
complete the exploration of the country. The French had already sent out
two scientific expeditions with instructions to examine the unknown
southern coasts; and if shipwreck had not destroyed the first, and want
of fresh water diverted the second, the credit of finishing the outline
of the map of Australia would have been earned for France. "Many
circumstances, indeed," wrote Flinders, "united to render the south coast
of Terra Australis one of the most interesting parts of the globe to
which discovery could be directed at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. Its investigation had formed a part of the instructions to the
unfortunate French navigator, Laperouse, and afterwards of those to his
countryman Dentrecasteaux; and it was not without some reason attributed
to England as a reproach that an imaginary line of more than two hundred
and fifty leagues' extent in the vicinity of one of her colonies should
have been so long suffered to remain traced upon the charts under the
title of Unknown Coast. This comported ill with her reputation as the
first of maritime powers."

We shall see how predominant was the share of Flinders in the settlement
of these problems, the filling up of these gaps.

CHAPTER 6. THE RELIANCE AND THE TOM THUMB.

Apart from Admiral Pasley, two officers who participated in Lord Howe's
victory on "the glorious First of June," had an important influence upon
the later career of Flinders. The first of these, Captain John Hunter,
had served on the flagship Queen Charlotte. The second, Henry Waterhouse,
had been