Autograph letter signed ('Mattw. Flinders') to Belle Tyler, HMS Investigator, Nore, 29 April 1801.

成交價英鎊 68,750

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英鎊 20,000 – 英鎊 30,000

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FLINDERS, Matthew (1774-1814)

Autograph letter signed ('Mattw. Flinders') to Belle Tyler, HMS Investigator, Nore, 29 April 1801.

成交價英鎊 68,750

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FLINDERS, Matthew (1774-1814)
Autograph letter signed ('Mattw. Flinders') to Belle Tyler, HMS Investigator, Nore, 29 April 1801.
One page, 203 x 162mm, contemporary annotation '15 Thousand Milles' [sic], integral address leaf ('Mr Hippins / No 6 Great St Helens / Bishops gate Street / For Miss Tyler'), docketed on receipt.

On board HMS Investigator preparing for the circumnavigation of Australia, Flinders sends a souvenir of 'New Holland'. 'Knowing your wish to possess something from New Holland, I have sent you the dried skeleton of a little, comical, fish; and as I now expect you to have some regard for me, I also send a Hope in a locket, to put you sometimes in mind of me. / I shall thank you to make kind remembrances and respects to Mr and Mrs Hippins and family ...'.

The 'comical fish' was a relic of Flinders's first period in Australia, 1795-1800, in which with George Bass he conducted a number of exploratory voyages from Port Jackson, most significantly the first circumnavigation of Van Diemen's Land [Tasmania], confirming that it was an island. The success of these surveys brought him to the attention of Sir Joseph Banks, who convinced the Admiralty to fund an expedition, under Flinders's command, to chart the entire coastline of New Holland. Flinders took command of the former collier HMS Investigator on 25 January, although they were not to embark for the circumnavigation of Australia until 18 July 1801. In the meantime, Flinders married Ann Chappelle on 17 April (12 days before this letter): she was however refused permission by the Admiralty to accompany him on the voyage. The recipient of the present letter, Isabella ('Belle') Tyler, was Ann's half-sister; the Hippins family were cousins of Belle's, with whom she and Ann Flinders were staying in London. The Nore, at the mouth of the Thames and Medway, was one of the three main naval anchorages. The 15,000 miles referred to in the contemporary annotation are presumably the expected distance of Flinders's voyage to Australia.

Very rare at auction: ABPC and RBH record only three separate letters by Flinders, the most recent in 1992, plus another two bound in to a copy of Terra Australis and one other sold as part of the George Bass papers (Christie's London, 8 April 1998, lots 130 and 134).

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Autograph letter signed ('Mattw. Flinders') to Belle Tyler, HMS Investigator, Nore, 29 April 1801.

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