This book contained Flinders' "Journal of transactions and observations
on board the Investigator, the Porpoise, the Hope cutter, and
Cumberland
schooner," for the preceding six months.* (* Flinders, Voyage 2 378 and
463.) There was therefore nothing in it which could have been of any use
in relation to the so-called Terre Napoleon. The log-book embodying
Flinders' observations on those coasts pertained to a period before the
six months just mentioned, and was never seen by Decaen, nor did he see
any of Flinders' charts whatever.
Towards the end of December the whole of the remaining books and papers
of Flinders, even including his family letters, were, in his presence,
collected from the ship by M. Bonnefoy, an interpreter, and Colonel
Monistrol, Decaen's secretary - who "acted throughout with much
politeness, apologising for what they were obliged by their orders to
execute" - and sealed up in another trunk.* (* Ibid 2 367.) Later in the
same month (December 26), Flinders, wishing to occupy his time in
confinement by proceeding with his work, wrote to the governor,
requesting that he might have his printed volumes, and two or three
charts and manuscript books, for the purpose of finishing his chart of
the Gulf of Carpentaria, adding in explanation that some of his papers
were lost in the wreck of the Porpoise, and he wished to finish the work
from memory, with the aid of the remaining materials, before the details
faded from his recollection. Decaen acceded to his request, and Flinders
took out two log-books, such charts as were necessary, all his private
letters, and his journals of bearings and astronomical observations.
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