Matthew Flinders

“ The poor woman at first thought an evil spirit was playing pranks in her cupboard;-she opens the door with fear and trembling; when to her infinite dismay, out jumps my black gentleman upon her shoulder: she was well nigh dead with fear. ”

“ How many men are there, who have no claim either from birth, fortune, or acquirements, personal or mental, whose vanity is not to be confined within such harmless bounds, as was that of Trim! And I will say for him, that he never spoke ill of or objected to the pretensions of others, which is more than can be said for very many bipeds. ”

“ His zeal, however, never carried him beyond a sense of dignity: he did not lay out on the yard like a common seaman, but always remained seated upon the cap, to inspect like an officer. This assumption of authority to which, it must be confessed, his rank, though great as a quadruped, did not entitle him amongst men, created no jealousy; for he always found some good friend ready to caress him after the business was done, and to take him down in his arms.
In harbour, the measuring of log and lead lines upon deck, and the stowage of the holds below, were the favourite subjects of his attention. ”

“ I am afraid of losing him: He goes out into the streets in the middle of the day, and rubs himself against the legs of people passing by. Several have taken him up to caress him, but I fear someone will be carrying him off."
I took him onboard the Spyall to make a second voyage to the South Seas. Trim now found himself at home; and his gentleness and extraordinary confidence, joined to the amusement his droll antics furnished them soon made him a great favourite with his new shipmates as he had been onboard the Roundabout. ”

“ We had several dogs on board the Spyall, but Trim was undisputed master of them all. When they were at play upon the deck, he would go in amongst them with his stately air; and giving a blow at the eyes of one, and a scratch on the nose to another, oblige them to stand out of his way. He was capable of being animated against a dog, as dogs usually may be against a cat ”

“ He was equally fond of making experiments upon projectile forces and the power of gravity: if a ball was thrown gently along the deck, he would pursue it; and when the gravitating principle combined with the friction overcame the impelling power, he would give the ball a fresh impetus, but generally to turn its direction into an elliptic curve (at other times form of the earth appeared to be the project of his experiments, and his ball was made to describe an oblate spheroid) . The seamen took advantage of this propensity to making experiments with globular bodies ”