by Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutch
engineer of celebrity in his day, who undertook in 1621 to drain 360,000
acres of fen in Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. He was financed
by English and Dutch capitalists, and took his reward in large grants of
land which he made fit for habitation and cultivation. Vermuyden and his
Flemings were not allowed to accomplish their work of reclamation without
incurring the enmity of the natives. In a petition to the King in 1637 he
stated that he had spent 150,000 pounds, but that 60,000 pounds of damage
had been done "by reason of the opposition of the commoners," who cut the
banks of his channels in the night and during floods. The peasantry,
indeed, resisted the improvements that have proved so beneficent to that
part of England, because the draining and cultivation of so many miles of
swamp would deprive them of fishing and fowling privileges enjoyed from
time immemorial. Hardly any reform or improvement can be effected without
some disruption of existing interests; and a people deeply sunk in
poverty and toil could hardly be expected to contemplate with
philosophical calm projects which, however advantageous to fortunate
individuals and to posterity, were calculated to diminish their own means
of living and their pleasant diversions. The dislike of the "commoners"
to the work of the "participants" led to frequent riots, and many of
Vermuyden's Flemings were maltreated. He endeavoured to allay discontent
by employing local labour at high wages; and was courageous enough to
pursue his task despite loss of money, wanton destruction, and many other
discouragements.* (* See Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, for
1619, 1623, 1625, 1638, 1639 et seq; and White's Lincolnshire page 542.)
Ebullitions of discontent on the part of fractious Fenlanders did not
cease till the beginning of the eighteenth century.

A very simple calculation shows that the great-grandfather of the first
Matthew Flinders would probably have been contemporary with Sir Cornelius
Vermuyden's reclamation works. He may have been one of the "participants"
who benefited from them. The fact is significant as bearing upon this
conjecture, that no person named Flinders made a will in Lincolnshire
before 1600.* (* See C.W. Foster, Calendar of Lincoln Wills 1320 to 1600,
1902.)

It is, too, an interesting circumstance that there was a Flinders among
the early settlers in New England, Richard Flinders of Salem, b