#9. Baudin.#--As Flinders sailed down towards Bass Strait he met with a French expedition, under M. Baudin, who had been sent out by Napoleon to make discoveries in Australia. He had loitered so long on the coast of Tasmania that Flinders had been able to complete the examination of the southern coast before he even approached it. Yet Baudin sailed into the very bays which had already been mapped out, gave them French names, and took to himself the honour of their discovery. Some months later the two expeditions met one another again in Port Jackson. Flinders showed his charts, and the French officers allowed that he had carried off the honours of nearly all the discoveries on the south coast; but, in spite of that, a report was published in France in which Flinders' claims were quite ignored, and Baudin represented as the hero of Australian discovery. The colonists at Port Jackson, however, treated the French sailors with much kindness. Many of them were suffering from scurvy, and these were carried to the Sydney hospital and carefully tended; and though the colonists had themselves eaten only salt meat for months before, in order to preserve their cattle, yet they killed these very cattle to provide fresh meat for the sick sailors. Baudin and his officers were feasted, and everything was done both by Flinders and the people of Sydney to make their stay agreeable.
#10. Imprisonment of Flinders.#--Flinders continued his voyage northwards, rounded Cape York, and examined the northern coasts, making an excellent chart of Torres Strait; but his vessel becoming too rotten to be longer used, he was forced to return to Sydney. Desiring to carry his charts and journals to England, he took his passage in an old store-ship, but she had not sailed far before she struck on a coral reef; the crew with difficulty reached a small sandbank, from which they were not released till two months after. Flinders saved his papers, and brought them back to Sydney. A small schooner, the _Cumberland_, was given him in which to sail for England; but she was too leaky, and too small a vessel to carry food for so long a voyage; so that he was forced to put into the Mauritius, which then belonged to France. He fancied that his passport from Napoleon would be his protection; but the Governor, De Caen, a low and ignorant fellow, seized him, took his papers from him, and cast him into prison.