lay awaiting an officer keen for discovery, coincided with his own
inclinations. He wrote that he was led by his passion for exploring new
countries to embrace the opportunity of going out upon a station which of
all others presented the most ample field for his favourite pursuit.

The sailing was delayed for six months, and in the interval young
Flinders was able to visit his home in Lincolnshire. Whatever opposition
there may have been to his choice of the sea as a profession before 1790,
we may be certain that the Donington surgeon was not a little proud of
his eldest son when he returned after a wonderful voyage to the isles of
the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, and after participation in the recent
great naval fight which had thrilled the heart of England with exultation
and pride. The boy who had left his father's house four years before as
an anxious aspirant for the King's uniform now returned a bronzed seaman
on the verge of manhood. His intelligence and zeal as a junior officer
had won him the esteem and confidence of distinguished commanders. He had
looked upon the strangeness and beauty of the world in its most remote
and least-known quarters, had witnessed fights with savages, threaded
unmapped straits, and had, to crown his youthful achievements, striven
amidst the wrack and thunder of grim-visaged war. We may picture his
welcome: the strong grasp of his father's hand, the crowding enthusiasm
of his brother and sisters fondly glorying in their hero's prowess. The
warnings of uncle John were all forgotten now. When the midshipman's
younger brother, Samuel Ward Flinders, desired to go to sea with him, he
was not restrained, and, in fact, accompanied him as a volunteer on the
Reliance when at length she sailed.

Hunter took not merely an official but a deep and discerning interest in
the colonisation of Australia. He foresaw its immense possibilities,
encouraged its exploration, promoted the breeding of stock and the