There were at this time only six officers in the Garden Prison, Mr. Aken being still at the hospital; lieutenant Manwaring of the Bombay marine, before commander of the Fly packet, with two of his officers had possession of one part of the house, and Messrs. Dale and Seymour, midshipmen of the Dedaigneuse, lived with me in the other.  These two young gentlemen, the first in particular, aided me in making copies of charts and memoirs, in calculating astronomical observations, etc.; and I had much pleasure in furnishing them with books and assisting their studies.

MARCH 1805

In the beginning of March, I was surprised to see in the official gazette of the French government, the Moniteur of July 7, 1804, a long letter from Dunkirk addressed to the editor; containing many particulars of my voyage, praising the zeal with which it had been conducted, and describing my detention in Mauritius as a circumstance which had originated in a mistake and was understood to be terminated.  In the succeeding Moniteur of the 11th, some observations were made upon this letter on the part of the government, which afforded some insight into what was alleged against me; and these being important to the elucidation of general De Caen’s policy, a translation of them is here given.

MONITEUR, No. 292.

Wednesday 22 Messidor, year 12; or July 11, 1804.

In a letter from Dunkirk, addressed to the editor of the Moniteur, and inserted in the paper of the 18th of this month, No. 288, we read an account of the voyage of Mr. Flinders, an English navigator, who arrived at the Isle of France the 24 Frimaire last, in the schooner Cumberland.  The author of the letter in the Moniteur says, that Mr. Flinders, "not knowing of the war, stopped at the Isle of France which was in his route, to obtain water and refreshments:  that some secret articles in his instructions gave rise to suspicions upon which the captain-general at first thought it his duty to detain him prisoner; but that, nevertheless, the passports he had obtained from the French government and all other nations, the nature even of his expedition which interested all civilized people, were not long in procuring his release."

The fact is, that Mr. Flinders not knowing of, but suspecting the war, ventured to come to the Isle of France; where having learned its declaration, he doubted whether the passport granted him by the French government in the year 9, would serve him.  In reality, the passport was exclusively for the sloop Investigator, of which it contained the description; and it is not in the Investigator that he has been arrested, but in the Cumberland.