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DISCOVERY OF PORT PHILLIP.

55 hostile savages who surrounded them by clipping their beards, while Bass dried the powder, and obtained some much-needed fresh water.

In December, 1797, during the absence of Flinders, who had been despatched to Norfolk Island, Bass obtained leave to make an expedition to the southward, for which he was provided by the governor with a whale-boat, six seamen from the ships, and six weeks' provisions. With the assistance of occasional supplies of petrels, fish, seals' flesh, a few geese and black swans, and by abstinence, he managed to prolong his absence eleven weeks; and in a boisterous climate, with an open boat, in spite of foul winds, he explored six hundred miles of coast, discovered Western Port and the fine district now known as Port Phillip, and satisfied himself that Van Diemen's Land was separated from New South Wales by the straits that now bear his name.

Bass, having returned on the 24th March, in September following he sailed with Flinders, whom Governor Hunter had placed in command of the Norfolk, a colonial-built sloop of twenty-five tons, for the purpose of penetrating beyond Furneaux Islands, and, should a strait be found, passing through it and returning by the south of Van Diemen's Land. With a crew of eight men they went through the straits, and returned to Port Jackson in three months and two days, during which part of the coast of Van Diemen's Land, including Port Dalrymple and the River Tamar, was explored, and such information gained as led to founding a settlement there in 1803–1804.

From this time we hear no more of Bass. We cannot learn that, beyond inscribing his name on the straits between Port Phillip and Van Diemen's Land, he received either reward or honour: he left Sydney for England in 1802 as mate of a trading vessel, and there we lose all trace of him. Flinders, writing his account of the explorations made by his gallant and well-loved comrade, speaks of him as no more.

Flinders obtained the rank of lieutenant, and sailed again in 1799, in the same small vessel, on a short voyage to explore the coast to the north of Port Jackson, which he examined minutely as far as 25°. He says, "Of the assistance of my able friend Bass I was deprived, he having quitted the station to return to England."

On Lieutenant Flinders's return to England, in the latter end of 1800, the charts of the new discoveries were published, and a plan proposed to Sir Joseph Banks for completing the investigation of the coasts of Terra Australis was approved by him and Earl Spencer, the First Lord of the Admiralty.

In February, 1801, Flinders was promoted to the rank of commander,

and appointed to the Investigator sloop. A proof of the popularity of his character and the adventurous spirit of the British sailor was given, when eleven men being required to complete his crew, out of three hundred seamen on board the Vice-Admiral's ship Zealand, two hundred and fifty volunteered.

On July 18th he sailed from Spithead, furnished with the following passport from the French Government, which was granted after precedents of similar protection afforded to Admiral La Pérouse, and to Captain Cook, by the respective authorities in England and France :—

"Le Premier Consul de la République Française, sur la compte qui lui à été rendu de la demande faite par le Lord Hawkesbury, au citoyen Otto, commissaire du gouvernement Français à Londres, d'un passeport pour la corvette Investigator dont le signalment est ci-après, expediée par le gouvernement Anglais, sous le commandement du Capitaine Matthew Flinders, pour un voyage de découvertes dans la mer Pacifique, ayant decidé que ce le passeport seroit accordé, et que cette expedition, dont l'objet est d'etendre les connoissances humaines, et d'assurer d'avantage les progrès de la science nautique et de la geographie, trouveroit de la part du gouvernement Français la sûreté et la protection nécessaires.

"Le Ministre de la Marine et des Colonies ordonne en consequence à tout les commandants des bâtiments de guerre de la République, a ses agens dans toutes les colonies Françaises aux commandants des batements porteur de lettres de marque, et a tous autres qu'il appartiendra de laisser passer librement, et sans empêchment, ladite corvette Investigator, ses officiers, equipage, et effets pendant la durée de leur voyage; de leur permettre d'aborder dans les différents ports de la République, tant en Europe que dans les autres parties du monde, soit qu'ils soient forcés par le mauvais temps d'y chercher un refuge, soit qu'ils viennent y reclamer les secours et les moyens de reparation necessaires pour continuer leur voyage. Il est bien entendu, cependant, qu'ils ne trouverant ainsi protection et assistance, que dans le cas ou ils ne se seront pas volontairment dêtourné de la route qu'ils doivent suivre, qu'ils n'auront commis, ou qu'ils n'annoncerent l'intention de commettre aucune hostilité contre République Française et ses alliés, qu'ils n'auront procuré, on cherché a procuré aucun secours a ses enemis, qu'ils ne s'occuperont d'aucune espèce de commerce, ni de contrebande."

In consequence of this passport, Flinders received directions from the Admiralty" to act in all respects towards French vessels as if the two countries were not at war." Subsequent events render this passport and these directions noteworthy.

So miserably slow was the progress of the first Australian colony

DISCOVERY OF SPENCER'S GULF.

57

that at this period, thirteen years after its foundation, it was found advisable to take a supply of salt meat for eighteen months, and to have a general supply of provisions for twelve months more, to be sent after the departure of the Investigator, and lodged in storehouses at Port Jackson for the sole use of the Investigator.

Among the gentlemen who accompanied the expedition was William Westall, landscape-painter.

A passport was also applied for, and granted by the English Government, to Captain Baudin, who was said to be going round the world on a voyage of discovery.

In November, 1801, Captain Flinders sighted the coast of Australia, and proceeded to examine the coast line hitherto unexplored. In the course of his investigations he discovered and surveyed King George's Sound, on which the settlement of Swan River, or Western Australia, was planted in 1829, Port Lincoln, Kangaroo Island, Spencer's Gulf, and the coast line of the country which, principally from his report, was selected for the operations of the South Australian colonists, and sailed into and surveyed Port Phillip, which had been discovered ten weeks previously by a government schooner, the Lady Nelson, from Port Jackson. But Western Port, a bay in the district of Port Phillip, had previously been discovered by Bass in his whale-boat.

In April, 1802, immediately after discovering and surveying Spencer's Gulf, Port Lincoln, and Kangaroo Island, Captain Flinders fell in with Captain Baudin and his ship La Geographe,* which apparently, instead of sailing round the world, had sailed direct for Australia; but, instead of pursuing further discoveries from the point where the English navigators had ended, they repaired to Van Diemen's Land, following the track of their countryman, Admiral D'Entrécasteaux, and there remained many months, thus losing the opportunity of discovering and taking possession (which was the

"The situation of the Investigator when I hove to for the purpose of speaking Captain Baudin was 35° 40′ south and 138° 58' east. At the above situation, the discoveries by Captain Baudin upon the south coast have their termination to the west, as mine in the Investigator have to the eastward; yet Monsieur Peron, naturalist to the French expedition, has laid a claim for his nation to the discovery of all parts between Western Port, in Bass's Straits, and Nuyts' Archipelago; and this part of New South Wales is called Terre Napoléon; my Kangaroo Island, which they openly adopted in the expedition, has been converted into L'Isle Decrés Spencer's Gulf is named Golfe Bonaparte; the Gulf of St. Vincent, Golfe Josephine; and so on along the whole coast to Cape Nuyts, not even the smallest island being without some similar stamp of French discovery." Monsieur Freycinet, first lieutenant of the Géographe, said at the house of Governor King, Port Jackson, to Flinders, "Captain, if we had not been kept so ong picking up shells and catching butterflies at Van Diemen's Land, you would not have discovered the south coast before us." "I believe M. Peron wrote from overruling authority, and that smote him to the heart."-Flinders' Voyage to Terra Australis.

secret object of their voyage) of more than one site for a colony; ust as La Pérouse a very different man from Baudin-lost by a few days the chance of discovering Port Jackson.

From Port Phillip Bay, Flinders returned to Sydney, where he arrived the 9th of May, 1802. He sailed again the 22nd of July, and, steering north, surveyed the great Barrier Reef, and made the route clear and safe for future navigators through the Torres Straits and round the shores of the great Gulf of Carpentaria, and only ceased his labours on finding his ship "quite rotten." After refreshing at the Island of Timor, he returned to Port Jackson on the 9th of June, 1803, having lost many of his best men.

No suitable ship to complete his survey was to be found in Port Jackson: he, therefore, embarked in the Porpoise store-ship, "in order to lay his charts and journals before the Admiralty, and obtain, if possible, a ship to complete the examination of Terra Australis."

The Porpoise was accompanied by two trading vessels, the Cato and the Bridgwater. In passing through Torres Straits on the night of the 17th of August, 1804, the Porpoise struck on a coral reef, and "took a fearful heel over on her larboard beam-ends. The Bridgwater was on the point of following, but, the Cato giving way, the former, grazing, escaped, while the latter struck and went over two cables' length from the Porpoise. The coward captain of the Bridgwater, one Palmer, having escaped, sailed away, in spite of the remonstrances of his mate, without making an effort to aid his companions."

Flinders took the command, safely landed the crew of the two vessels on a sandbank, of which a narrow space was clear at high water, collected stores, erected tents, formed an encampment, and established a disciplined order of proceedings. The reef was a mere patch of sand, about three hundred yards long and one hundred broad, on which not a blade of vegetation was growing.

It was determined that two decked boats, capable of conveying all but one boat's crew, should be built from the materials of the wreck, and that the largest cutter should be repaired and despatched, under the charge of Captain Flinders, to Port Jackson, a voyage of 750 miles.

On the 26th of August, a Friday, the cutter was launched, named the Hope, and pushed off "amidst the cheers and good wishes of those for whom we were going to seek relief. An ensign with the union downwards had hitherto been kept hoisted as a signal to Captain Palmer of our distress; but, in this moment of enthusiasm, a seaman quitted the crowd, and, having obtained permission, ran to the flag

FLINDERS ARRESTED BY DU CAEN.

59 staff, hauled down the ensign, and rehoisted it with the union in the upper canton. This symbolical expression of contempt for the Bridgwater, and of confidence in the success of our voyage, I did not see without lively emotion."

Flinders safely reached Port Jackson on the 6th of September. He returned in the only vessel he could obtain for his purpose—a small leaky schooner, the Cumberland, of twenty-nine tons burdenaccompanied by two trading vessels, on the 6th of October; and was received by his crew with frantic cheers of joy, although his brother, Lieutenant Flinders, after hearing that the rescue-ships were in sight, "calmly continued his calculations of lunar observations until they came to anchor."

In his absence the sailors had planted the reef with pumpkins, oats, and maize, which were sprouting above the sand flourishingly; and Flinders expresses his regret that he had not "palm cocoa-nuts to plant, of which he thought ten thousand might be usefully set in these seas, as warning-marks and food for shipwrecked mariners, as they will flourish within the spray of the sea."

It is evident that Matthew Flinders in this instance, as in many others, displayed the stuff of which a colonial governor should be made. There have been very few among Australian governors who would have thought of the cocoa-nuts, especially at such. a moment; still less would they have inspired their men with the same spirit: witness the military colony in Northern Australia, where the soldiers were half starved, and, in the midst of good soil, had not a vegetable.

In the miserable Cumberland, Flinders, intent on laying the result of his researches before the Admiralty, set out on a voyage of sixteen thousand miles to England. Every man of his crew, except his clerk, volunteered to share the danger and accompany him; but the leaky state of his craft compelled him soon to seek shelter at the nearest port, and he put into the Mauritius, relying upon his passport. This would have been a sufficient protection had the government of the island been in the hands of a gentleman and man of honour; but the governor was one Du Caen, a low, malignant, envious, insolent wretch, who, to the infinite disgust of many of his countrymen and companions in arms, availed himself of the misfortune which had thrown Flinders into his power to vent his spite on a nation he detested.

Du Caen seized the Cumberland, took possession of the charts, journals, and log-books, and detained Captain Flinders for six years, during which period, in spite of the representations of the French

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