Trim

Trim (1799–1804) was a ship's cat who accompanied Matthew Flinders on his voyages to circumnavigate and map the coastline of Australia in 1801–1803. Biography Trim was born in 1799 aboard the ship on a voyage from the Cape of Good Hope to Botany Bay. The kitten fell overboard, but managed to swim back to the vessel and climb aboard by scaling a rope; taking note of his strong survival instinct and intelligence, Flinders and the crew made him their favourite. Trim sailed with Flinders on on his voyage of circumnavigation around the Australian mainland and survived the shipwreck of on Wreck Reef in 1803. When Flinders was accused of spying and imprisoned by the French in Mauritius on his return voyage to England, Trim shared his captivity until his unexplained disappearance, which Flinders attributed to his having been stolen and eaten by a hungry slave. Description Trim was a bicolour cat, being black with white paws, chin and chest. He was named after the butler in Laurence Sterne's novel Tristram Shandy, because Flinders considered him to be a faithful and affectionate friend. During his imprisonment, Flinders wrote a biographical tribute to Trim in which he described him as "one of the finest animals I ever saw... [his] robe was a clear jet black, with the exception of his four feet, which seemed to have been dipped in snow and his under lip, which rivaled them in whiteness. He had also a white star on his breast."