The remainder was to be paid to the commander and officers as a reward if they successfully accomplished their task.

Flinders' manuscript letter-book contains a copy of a letter dated November 14, 1810, wherein he reminds the Company of their promise.

I have found no record of the payment of the remaining 600 pounds, but Flinders' Journal shows him to have dined with the directors a few weeks after the letter was sent, and a little later the Journal contains a record of a merry evening spent together by Flinders and a party of his old Investigator shipmates.

It is a fair assumption that the money was divided up on that occasion.) They gave this sum "from the voyage being within the limits of the Company's charter, from the expectation of the examinations and discoveries proving advantageous, and partly, as they said"-- so Flinders modestly observed--"for my former services." The Company's charter gave to it a complete monopoly of trade with the east and the Pacific, and it was therefore interested in the finding of fresh harbours for its vessels in the South Seas.

But, despite this display of concern, the East India Company had been no friend to Australian discovery and colonization.