[Author unknown]

      Memoir of the official services of
          Captain Matthew Flinders

      Mr. Flinders entered the navy at the age of sixteen, and, at
the instance of the late Sir Thomas Pasley, embarked on board the Providence in
1791, with Cap^t. Bligh, on the well-known miƒsion of transporting the Bread-
fruit trees from the Pacific islands to the West Indies. On this voyage, young
Flinders proved eminently useful in rating & taking care of the chronometers; &
there took his early leƒsons in the construction of charts.
      On his return home, in the latter part of 1793, he joined the
Bellerophon, 74, bearing the broad pendant of Sir Thomas Pasley, – to
whom he acted as aid-de-camp in Lord Howe's glorious victory of the
1st June, 1794. Shortly after which, he joined the Reliance, then
commanded by one of the Bellerophon's, in order to convey Governor Hunter
to his New South Wales. Soon after their arrival in Port Jackson, Mr
Flinders & the surgeon of the Reliance, Mr George Baƒs, with no other
companion than a boy, embarked in a boat only 8-feet long, and
explored George's River 20 miles beyond the point where Governor Hunter's
survey had stopped; and they made several important discoveries. They
were then equipped with a larger boat, & ascertained the unexpected fact,
that Van Dieman's [sic] land was an island, by paƒsing through the grand straits
now bearing poor Baƒs's name.
      The complete examination of Australia, was now the
anxious desire of Flinders's mind, - & being well seconded by Sir Joseph
Banks when in England, he was regularly fitted for a voyage of discovery. In