The surgeon's house at Donington stood in the market square. It remained
in existence till 1908, when it was demolished to give place to what is
described as "a hideous new villa." It was a plain, square, one-story
building with a small, low surgery built on to one side of it. Behind the
door of the surgery hung a slate, upon which the elder Flinders was
accustomed to write memoranda concerning appointments and cases. The lad,
wishing to let his father know how keen was his desire to enter the Navy,
and dreading a conversation on the subject--with probable reproaches,
admonitions, warnings, and a general outburst of parental
displeasure--made use of the surgeon's slate. He wrote upon it what he
wanted his father to know, hung it on the nail, and left it there to tell
its quiet story.

He got his way in the end, but not without discouragement from other
quarters also. He had an uncle in the Navy, John Flinders, to whom he
wrote asking for counsel. John's experience had not made him enamoured of
his profession, and his reply was chilling. He pointed out that there was
little chance of success without powerful interest. Promotion was slow
and favouritism was rampant. He himself had served eleven years, and had
not yet attained the rank of lieutenant, nor were his hopes of rising
better than slender.

From the strictly professional point of view it was not unreasonable
advice for the uncle to give. A student of the naval history of the
period finds much to justify a discouraging attitude. Even the dazzling
career of Nelson might have been frustrated by a long protracted minority
had he not had a powerful hand to help him up the lower rungs of the
ladder--the "interest" of Captain Suckling, his uncle, who in 1775 became
Comptroller of the Navy, "a civil position, but one that carried with it