The Quarterly Reviewer Of 1817* Pointed Out
That The Few Charts In Freycinet's Atlas "ARE VERY LIKE THOSE OF CAPTAIN
FLINDERS, ONLY MUCH INFERIOR IN POINT OF EXECUTION." (* Volume 17 Pages
229 To 230; The Italics Are The Reviewer's. The Plagiarism Legend - For
Such It Is - Originated With This Quarterly Article.
The earliest
biographer of Flinders, in the Naval Chronicle 32 page 177, wrote very
strongly of General Decaen, considering
That he was "worthy of his
Corsican master," and that his name "will be consigned to infamy as long
as mankind shall consider it honourable to promote science and civilised
to practise hospitality," but alleged no improper use of the charts. C.A.
Walckenaer, who wrote the excellent life of Flinders in the Biographie
Universelle, published in 1856, said that the French Government was
"inexcusable d'avoir retenu Flinders en captivite," but denied that his
charts were improperly used, and promised that when he came to write the
life of Peron in a succeeding volume, he would by an analysis of the
evidence refute the story. But Walckenaer died in 1852, before his
Flinders article was published, and the author of the article on Peron
did not carry out his predecessor's undertaking. It is to be presumed
that Walckenaer would have exhibited the facts set out above. Alfred de
Lacaze, in his article on Flinders in the Nouvelle Biographie Generale 17
932, wrote that the excuses given for the imprisonment of Flinders formed
"pauvres pretextes"; but declared that the seals put on Flinders' papers
in Mauritius were "loyalement respecte pendant les six ans que dura la
captivite du navigateur anglais." That was true.
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