Provenance note

The documents in this series were previously located at ML A79-5. These papers, purchased in 1884 from Lord Brabourne by Sir Saul Samuel, the Agent-General for New South Wales, were transferred to the Mitchell Library in 1910. They were part of the accession which became known as the Brabourne collection.

Background note

When Matthew Flinders finally returned to England after circumnavigating the Australian continent, and six and a half years imprisonment on Mauritius, he faced the arduous task of preparing the account of his voyage for publication.

As with the publication of James Cook's third voyage, Sir Joseph Banks superintended the work of the engravers and draughtsmen. The drawings and engravings were prepared at public expense, and the paper and printing paid for out of the proceeds of the work.

Flinders' monumental work, A Voyage to Terra Australis; undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country, and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802, and 1803, in His Majesty's Ship the Investigator, and subsequently in the Armed Vessel Porpoise and Cumberland Schooner..., was published in two quarto volumes, plus an atlas, shortly before his death in 1814. It is illustrated with engravings by landscape artist William Westall and plates of botanical specimens by natural history artist Ferdinand Bauer. The botanical appendix was written by botanist Robert Brown.