r, that the people with whom
they are placed are much affected with that disagreeable and contagious
disorder the itch; and that the provisions with which they are fed are
too scanty, except in the article of meat, the proportion of which is
large but of bad quality. Your Excellency will no doubt make such an
amendment in their condition as circumstances will permit.

"A compliance with the above requests will not only furnish me with a
better amusement in this solitude than writing letters to your
Excellency, but will be attended with advantages in which the French
nation may some time share. This application respecting the charts is not
altogether made upon a firm persuasion that you will return everything to
me, for if I could believe that they were never to be given to me or my
Government I should make the same request.

"Your prisoner,

"MATTHEW FLINDERS."

On the day when the letter was despatched, Colonel Monistrol called, and
promised that the books and papers requested should be supplied; and, in
fact, the trunk containing them was without delay brought to the inn. The
Colonel courteously expressed his regret that Flinders had adopted such a
tone in his letters to the General, thinking "that they might tend to
protract rather than terminate" his confinement. The complaint respecting
the seamen was attended to forthwith, and they were treated exactly on
the same footing as were French sailors on service.* (* St. Eleme le
Duc's manuscript History.)

The first thing Flinders did, when he received the trunk, was to take out
his naval signal-book and tear it to pieces. Next day he was conducted to
Government House, and was allowed to take from the second trunk all his
private letters and papers, his journals of bearings and observations,
two log-books, and such charts as were necessary to complete his drawings
of the Gulf of Carpentaria. All the other books and papers "were locked
up in the trunk and sealed as before."

Until the end of March, 1804, Flinders was kept at the inn, with a sentry
constantly on guard over the rooms. St. Elme le Duc, in the manuscript
history already cited, declares that "Captain Flinders was never put in
prison," and that his custom of addressing letters "from my prison" was
an "affectation." But a couple of inn rooms wherein a person is kept
against his will, under the strict surveillance of a military custodian,
certainly constitute a prison. It is true that the Governor allotted