MATTHEW; a distinguished English navigator, was born at Donington, in Lincolnshire, in 1760. After serving in a variety of subordinate capacities, he was commissioned by the English government in 1801 to circumnavigate and explore New Holland, to our knowledge of which country he contributed more than any other discoverer of that day. He underwent the most dreadful hardships and successfully braved the greatest dangers in the course of this expedition. On his way home he was driven by stress of weather to Mauritius, where he was seized by the French authorities, and detained in confinement for six years. Reaching home at length in 1810, he began to prepare for press the narrative of his voyage and adventures. This work was published in 1814 (on the very day on which its author died), under the title of *A Voyage to Terra Australia, &c., in the years 1801, 1802, and 1803, in H.M. ship Investigator, and subsequently in the armed vessel Porpoise, and Cumberland schooner, in two vols., with Atlas*. For a detailed account of his discoveries, see art. AUSTRALIA, vol. iv., pp. 253–4.