What young officer would not have eagerly followed a gallant and warm-hearted Admiral who had first placed him upon a British quarterdeck and had made him an aide-de-camp?
As it was, the chance that came to Flinders about two months after the battle off Brest was one that ministered to his decided preference for service in seas where there was exploratory work to do.
Pasley's influence upon the life of Flinders was so important, that a characterisation of him by one who has perused his letters and journals must be quoted.* (* Memoir of Admiral Sir T.S.Pasley, by Louisa M.
Sabine Pasley.

Sir T.S.Pasley was the grandson of Flinders' Admiral.

It unfortunately happens that the Journals of "old Sir Thomas" which are extant do not cover the period when Flinders acted as his aide-de-camp.
Miss Sabine Pasley was kind enough to have a search made among his papers for any trace of Flinders' relations with him, but without success.) "It is impossible," writes Miss L.M.Sabine Pasley, "not to be impressed from these journals with a strong feeling of respect for the writer, so simple-minded, so kind-hearted, such a brave old sailor of his time--rough, no doubt, in manners and language, but with an earnest and genuine piety that shows itself from time to time in little ejaculations and prayers, contrasting, it must be owned, rather strongly with the terms in which the 'rascally Yankies' are alluded to in the same pages." What Howe thought of him is recorded in a letter which he sent to the Rear-Admiral a fortnight after the battle, regretting that "the services of a friend he so highly esteemed and so gallant an officer, capable of such spirited exertions, should be restrained by any disaster from the continued exertion of them." There is also on record a letter to Pasley from the Prime Minister, a model of grace and delicate feeling, in which Pitt signified that the King had conferred on him a baronetcy "as a mark of the sense which His Majesty entertains of the distinguished share which you bore in the late successful and glorious operations of His Majesty's fleet," and assured him "of the sincere satisfaction which I personally feel in executing this commission." On the south-western coast of Australia, eight years later, Flinders remembered his first commander when naming the natural features of the country.

Cape Pasley, at the western tip of the arc of the great Australian Bight, celebrates "the late Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley, under whom I had the honour of entering the naval service."* (* Flinders, Voyage to Terra Australis 1 87.) On some current maps of Australia the cape is spelt "Paisley," an error which obscures the interesting biographical fact with which the name is connected.
It is noteworthy that though the career of Flinders as a naval officer covers the stormiest period in British naval history, the whole of his personal experience of battle was confined to these five days, May 28 to June 1, 1794.

The whole significance of his life lies in the work of discovery that he accomplished, and in the contributions he made to geography and navigation.