the relationship between him who wrote of "the long wash of Australasian seas" and him who knew them as discoverer:
The Flinders papers also contain a note suggesting a distant connection between Matthew Flinders and the man who above all others was his choice friend, George Bass, the companion of his earliest explorations. Positive proof is lacking, but Flinders' daughter, Mrs. Petrie, wrote "we have reason to think that Bass was a connection of the family," and the point is too interesting to be left unstated. The following table shows the possible kinship:
John Flinders of Donington, born 1682, died 1741 (great-grandfather of the navigator) had:
Mary Flinders, third and youngest daughter, born 1734, married as her third husband, Bass, and had:
