The room is then to be resealed, and Captain Flinders to be taken
back to the house where he has already been confined as prisoner.
The crew of the schooner are meanwhile to be kept prisoners on the
prison-ship."
Flinders wrote repeatedly by every vessel into which he could smuggle a
letter, to Banks, to King, and to his superiors in England. Many of these
letters never arrived, but what letters did reach home aroused the
indignation of his friends; and Sir Joseph Banks in England, King in
Sydney, and many others worked hard to effect the release of the prisoner.
To de Caen Flinders wrote several letters, giving him some "straight
talk." Here are some extracts:--
"If you say it is a breach of neutrality to come here for the
reasons I did, how is it that when your discoverers put into Port
Jackson, etc., they were received well? In war-time Baudin and
Hamelin took notes, and were not interfered with.... I was chosen
by Sir Joseph Banks to complete Cook's work, and am not a spy. If
I had come as a spy, what have I done? Why not wait till the eve
of sailing to arrest me? I have been a prisoner since the first
hour I landed."
[Illustration: A DIRECT SOUTH VIEW OF THE TOWN OF SYDNEY. _F. Heath
sculpt._ Taken from the brow of the hill leading to the Flagstaff. From
Collins' "An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales" [London,
1798].
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