It should be remembered, that Mr. Bass sailed with only six weeks provisions; but with the assistance of occasional supplies of petrels, fish, seal’s flesh, and a few geese and black swans, and by abstinence, he had been enabled to prolong his voyage beyond eleven weeks.  His ardour and perseverance were crowned, in despite of the foul winds which so much opposed him, with a degree of success not to have been anticipated from such feeble means.  In three hundred miles of coast, from Port Jackson to the Ram Head, he added a number of particulars which had escaped captain Cook; and will always escape any navigator in a first discovery, unless he have the time and means of joining a close examination by boats, to what may be seen from the ship.

Our previous knowledge of the coast scarcely extended beyond the Ram Head; and there began the harvest in which Mr. Bass was ambitious to place the first reaping hook.  The new coast was traced three hundred miles; and instead of trending southward to join itself to Van Diemen’s Land, as captain Furneaux had supposed, he found it, beyond a certain point, to take a direction nearly opposite, and to assume the appearance of being exposed to the buffetings of an open sea.  Mr. Bass, himself, entertained no doubt of the existence of a wide strait, separating Van Diemen’s Land from New South Wales; and he yielded with the greatest reluctance to the necessity of returning, before it was so fully ascertained as to admit of no doubt in the minds of others.  But he had the satisfaction of placing at the end of his new coast, an extensive and useful harbour, surrounded with a country superior to any other known in the southern parts of New South Wales.

A voyage expressly undertaken for discovery in an open boat, and in which six hundred miles of coast, mostly in a boisterous climate, was explored, has not, perhaps, its equal in the annals of maritime history.  The public will award to its high spirited and able conductor, alas! now no more, an honourable place in the list of those whose ardour stands most conspicuous for the promotion of useful knowledge.

FLINDERS. 1798.

During the time that Mr. Bass was absent on his expedition in the whale boat, the Francis schooner was again sent with captain Hamilton to the wreck of his ship the Sydney Cove; to bring up what remained of the cargo at Preservation Island, and the few people who were left in charge.  On this occasion I was happy enough to obtain governor Hunter’s permission to embark in the schooner; in order to make such observations serviceable to geography and navigation, as circumstances might afford; and Mr. Reed, the master, was directed to forward these views as far as was consistent with the main objects of his voyage.

(Atlas.  Plate VIII.)