His vessel after arrival was condemned, and Flinders determined to go to England to procure another ship to continue his surveys of the coast. On his way home, he was wrecked on a reef, and, returning to Sydney, obtained a small craft, in which he made another start, but, touching at Mauritius, was detained a prisoner for six years by the French, notwithstanding his passport as an explorer. After his release, he set about editing his journals and preparing an account of his researches. He completed this work, but died on the very day his book was published. No navigator or explorer has done more than Flinders in the matter of accurate surveys, or in the boldness of his undertakings, and his great work for Australia was entirely unrewarded. He spent his life in voyaging and discovery, and suffered many hardships, besides imprisonment.
One of the largest and most important rivers flowing into the Gulf of Carpentaria has been named after him “The Flinders.”
In 1823, an expedition was sent out from Sydney under the command of Lieutenant Oxley to survey Port Curtis, Moreton Bay, and Port Bowen, and to report upon a site for a penal establishment. The party went up the Tweed River some miles, and then went northward to Port Curtis harbour. After landing in several places, a river was discovered which was named the Boyne. The vessel employed on this service was the “Mermaid,” and finding nothing about Port Curtis suitable for a settlement, Oxley returned south, and anchored at the mouth of the Bribie Island passage, which had not been visited by Europeans since Flinders landed there in 1799, and called it Pumicestone River. Here they were joined by two white men, Pamphlet and Finnegan by name, who had, with one other, been cast away on Moreton Island a short time previously, and had since been living with the blacks. These men piloted Oxley into the Brisbane River, which was named by him after Sir Thomas Brisbane, Governor of New South Wales. They pulled up the river a long way above the present site of the city, and admired the beautiful scenery along its banks. This discovery led to the occupation of Moreton Bay as a penal settlement, and the foundation of the town of Brisbane.
Captain Wickham and Lieutenant Stokes of the “Beagle” were surveying the coast in that vessel, from 1838 to 1843, and Lieutenant Stokes afterwards wrote an account of their journeying. They named the Adelaide and Victoria Rivers on the north-west coast, both of which they located and explored. In 1841, the “Beagle” was on the east coast. She passed Magnetic Island, and sailed through Torres Straits into the Gulf of Carpentaria on an exploring cruise. In latitude 17 deg. 36 min., they entered a large river, which was followed up a long way in the boats, and was called the Flinders; it is one of the principal rivers entering the Gulf. Further west, in 1840, they had discovered and pulled the boats up the Albert River. Stokes was astonished at the open country found on the Albert. As far as the eye could reach, nothing was to be seen but open extensive plains, which he named “The Plains of Promise.” The fine stream of the Albert was followed until the boats were checked by dead timber about fifty miles from the entrance. The geography of northern tropical Australia owes a great deal to Stokes, who wrote most interesting accounts of his journeys.
Stokes surveyed and charted the estuaries of the Albert and Flinders Rivers, and he named Disaster Inlet, Morning Inlet, Bynoe Inlet, Accident Inlet, and the Van Diemen River, the latter he also examined and charted for some miles up from its mouth.
Mr. G. Phillips, in 1866-8, made the first examinations and surveys of Morning Inlet, Bynoe Inlet, (which he found to be a delta of the Flinders), Norman River, Accident Inlet, and the Gilbert River. Mr. Phillips was accompanied by the late Mr. W. Landsborough, the work being done in an open boat belonging to the Customs Department.
H.M.S. “Rattlesnake” left Portsmouth in 1846, under Captain Stanley, on a surveying and scientific cruise. She reached Queensland waters in 1847, and visited the Molle Passage, inside of Whitsunday Passage, where some of the most striking and charming scenery on the north coast of Queensland is to be found. They went as far as Cape Upstart, and failing to find water ashore, returned to Sydney. In 1848, they returned to the northern coasts, bringing the “Tam o’ Shanter,” barque, on board of which were all the members and outfit of Kennedy’s exploring party. Captain Stanley assisted Kennedy to land at Rockingham Bay and make a start on his ill-fated trip to Cape York.