Enterprise and Adventure/Adventures of Matthew Flinders and George Bass
ADVENTURES OF MATTHEW FLINDERS AND GEORGE BASS.
The astonishing progress recently made by our Australian colonies renders it difficult to conceive that, even up to the close of the last century, its coasts were unexplored, and a very large proportion altogether unknown to Europeans. In the year 1788, Captain, afterwards Admiral Philip, arrived at Botany Bay in the brig "Supply," followed by the "Syrius," with six sail of transports and three store-ships, the object of the expedition being to establish a colony at that port, which, however, was afterwards abandoned for Port Jackson. Some trifling surveys were made by the expedition; but it was reserved for two young men, who accompanied Captain Hunter, to make the first systematic exploration of the vast continent of Australia—or Terra Australis, as it was then generally called—a labour which was finally completed by one of them, in spite of obstacles which must have exhausted the patience of any discoverer less enthusiastic in the cause of science.
One of these young men, Matthew Flinders, was, at the time of sailing of Captain Hunter's vessel (1795), a simple midshipman in the navy. He had not long before returned from a voyage to the South Seas, when he was led, as he says, by his passion for exploring new countries to embrace this opportunity of going out upon a station, which of all others seemed to him to present the most ample field for his favourite pursuit. Flinders, as may be supposed, did not give these as his reasons, for his messmates would doubtless have treated with ridicule the idea of a young officer, in so humble a position, setting up as an explorer; but an opportunity soon arrived for putting his favourite schemes in execution. On arriving at Port Jackson in September of the same year, he learned that the investigation even of this portion of the coast had been only very slightly extended, and was still little further known than from Captain Cook's general chart, and none of the more distant openings marked, but not explored by that celebrated navigator, had been seen.
While meditating upon these facts, Flinders was fortunate in having a young friend whose zeal for science was scarcely less than his own. This was George Bass, the surgeon of the ship, a man, as his friend describes him, "whose ardour for discovery was not to be repressed by any obstacles, nor deterred by danger." Bass and his midshipman friend conferred many a night on these schemes, and formed the grand resolution of completing the examination of the east coast of New South Wales, by all such opportunities as the duty of the ship and procurable means would admit. "Projects of this nature," says Flinders, "when originating in the minds of young men, are usually termed romantic, and, so far from any good being anticipated, even prudence and friendship join in discouraging, if not in opposing them." So the two friends indeed found. Their schemes, when they disclosed them, were laughed at, and their zeal regarded as a sort of harmless mania. This being the case, it may be supposed that they could obtain little aid in carrying out their plans; but, having obtained some leisure for the purpose, they determined at once to start on their explorations with such scanty preparations as were within their reach.
The only boat which their slender means enabled them to obtain was a diminutive craft of only eight feet long, which they called the "Tom Thumb," and their crew consisted simply of themselves and a boy, whom they hired to accompany them. With this equipment they proceeded from Port Philip to Botany Bay, and, ascending George's River, explored its winding course about twenty miles above where Governor Hunter's survey had been carried. The sketch which they made of the river, and presented to the governor, with their favourable report of the land on its borders, induced the latter to examine the locality himself shortly afterwards, and led to his establishing there a new branch of the colony; but the little expedition was not successful in procuring the two explorers any additional help, or even recognition of their services. Nothing daunted, however, they again started in their boat, "Tom Thumb," to explore another large river, of which there was no indication in Captain Cook's chart. Flinders' narrative of this voyage will convey a good idea of their method of exploring.
They sailed out of Port Jackson early in the morning of March 25, 1796, and stood a little off to sea, to be ready for the sea breeze. On coming in with the land in the evening, instead of being, as they expected, near Cape Solander, they found themselves under the cliffs six or seven leagues to the southward, whither the boat had been drifted by a strong current. Not being able to land, and the sea breeze coming in early next morning from the northward, they steered for two small islets, six or seven miles further on, in order to get shelter; but, being in want of water, and seeing a place on the way where, though the boat could not land, a cask might be obtained by swimming, the attempt was made, and Bass went on shore. Whilst getting off the cask, a surf suddenly arising farther out than usual, carried the little boat before it to the beach, and left them there with their arms, ammunition, clothes, and provisions thoroughly drenched, and partly spoiled. The boat was emptied, and launched again immediately; but it was late in the afternoon before everything was rafted off, and they proceeded to the islets. Here they found it impossible to land, and they went on to two larger isles, which proved to be Captain Cook's Red Point. The isles were inaccessible as the others, and, it being dark, the two adventurers were constrained to pass a second night in "Tom Thumb," and dropped the large stone which they used for an anchor in seven fathoms of water, under the lee of the point.
The sea breeze on the next day still opposed their return, and, learning from two natives that no water could be procured at Red Point, the voyagers accepted their offer of piloting them to a river which, they said, lay a few miles further southward, and where not only fresh water was abundant, but also fish and wild ducks. These men were natives of Botany Bay, whence it was that Flinders and his companion understood a little of their language, whilst that of some others was altogether unintelligible. Their river proved to be nothing more than a small stream, which descended from a lagoon under Hat Hill, and forced a passage for itself through the beach, so that they entered it with difficulty even in "Tom Thumb." Their two conductors then quitted the boat to walk along the sandy shore abreast, with eight or ten strange natives in company.
After rowing a mile up the stream, and finding it to become more shallow, the explorers began to entertain doubts of securing a retreat from these people, should they be hostilely inclined, and they had at that time the reputation at Port Jackson of being exceedingly ferocious, if not cannibals. The muskets were not yet freed from rust and sand, and there was a pressing necessity to procure fresh water before attempting to return northward. Under these embarrassments they agreed upon a plan of action, and went on shore directly to the natives. Bass employed some of them to assist in repairing an oar which had been broken in their disaster, 
FLINDERS AND BASS EMBARKING IN THE "TOM THUMB"
whilst Flinders spread the wet powder out in the sun. This met with no opposition, for the natives did not know what the powder was; but when they proceeded to clean the muskets, it excited so much alarm that it was necessary to desist. On inquiring of the two friendly natives for water, they pointed upwards to the lagoon, but, after many evasions, their little barrel was filled at a hole not many yards distant.
After making careful observations of the coast, in the course of which they discovered an important stratum of coal running through the cliffs, they began to turn homeward. On the 29th, by rowing hard, they got four leagues nearer home, and at night dropped their stone under another range of cliffs. The wind, which had been unsettled and driving electric clouds in all directions, burst out that night in a gale from the south, and obliged them to get up the anchor immediately, and run before it. In a few minutes the waves began to break, and the extreme danger to which this exposed the little barque was increased by the darkness of the night, and the uncertainty of finding any place of shelter. The shade of the cliffs over their heads, and the noise of the surfs breaking at their feet, were the directions by which their course was steered parallel to the coast.
Bass kept the sheet of the sail in his hand, drawing in a few inches occasionally, when he saw a particularly heavy sea following. His friend was steering with an oar, and it required the utmost exertion and care to prevent "broaching to" they knew that a single wrong movement, or a moment's inattention, would have sent them to the bottom. Meanwhile, the task of the boy was to bale out the water which, in spite of every care, the sea threw in upon them.
After running nearly an hour in this critical manner, some high breakers were distinguished ahead, and behind them there appeared a range of cliffs. It was necessary to determine, on the instant, what was to be done, for their barque could not live ten minutes longer. On coming to what appeared to be the extremity of the breakers, the boat's head was brought to the wind in a favourable moment, the mast and sail taken down, and the oars got out. Pulling them towards the reef during the intervals of the heaviest seas, they found it to terminate in a point, and in three minutes they were in smooth water under its lee. A white appearance, further back, kept them a short time in suspense; but a nearer approach showed it to be the beach of a well-sheltered cove, in which they anchored for the rest of the night. "So sudden a change," says Flinders, "from extreme danger to comparatively perfect safety, excited reflections which kept us some time awake. We thought 'Providential Cove' a well-adapted name for this place; but by the natives, as we afterwards learned, it is called Watta-Mowlee."
In the course of this little expedition, they had no other means of ascertaining the situation of places than by pocket-compass bearings and computed distances; but, notwithstanding this, they brought back very careful accounts both of the latitude and longitude of the spots examined.
In December of the following year, Bass was so fortunate as to obtain leave to make an expedition to the southward, and for this purpose he was furnished with a boat very much better than "Tom Thumb," but still ludicrously unadapted to the importance of the undertaking. It was an open whale-boat, which was furnished by the governor with a crew of six seamen from the ships, and six weeks' provisions. With the assistance of occasional supplies of petrels, seals' flesh, and a few geese and black swans, and by great economy and abstinence, he was enabled to prolong this voyage beyond eleven weeks. In spite of contrary winds and other obstacles, his ardour and perseverance were crowned with extraordinary success. "A voyage," says his friend Flinders in his narrative, "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 all the annals of maritime discovery." Such perseverance could not fail at length to attract attention. A sloop was furnished to the discoverers to continue their useful labours, in the course of which Flinders continued the examination of the great strait, now universally known as Bass's Strait, a name which Flinders himself gave to it with the sanction of Governor Hunter, deeming this, as he said, a just tribute to his faithful friend and companion for the dangers and fatigues he had undergone in first entering it in the whale-boat, and to the correct judgment he had formed from various indications of the existence of a wide opening between Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales. Bass had, in fact, with remarkable sagacity, inferred the existence of this strait when running down the eastern coast in an open whaleboat, the heavy sea which rolled in from the westward having satisfied him that such a swell could proceed only from the great southern ocean. In the sloop, Bass and Flinders completely circumnavigated the coasts of Van Diemen's Land which previous navigators had declared to be part of the continent, returning in three months with an interesting account of the survey. Unhappily, Bass died shortly after this period, and Flinders was left almost alone to pursue his discoveries; but his merits as a scientific explorer had now become recognized. In 1801 he was furnished by the Government with a vessel fully equipped for a systematic exploration of the Australian coasts, and comprising among its voyagers an astronomer, a botanist, a mineralogist, and other scientific persons. In the course of this expedition he encountered a great variety of interesting adventures; meeting with shipwreck, but saving his journal and other precious records of the voyage. His chief misfortune occurred after his labours in completing the discovery of the vast continent of Australia were ended. During his absence war had again broken out with France, a fact of which Flinders was ignorant. Calling at the island of Mauritius, on his return to England, for water and provisions, the French governor of that island meanly insisted on detaining him a prisoner, on the trifling ground that his passport related to the "Investigator," the vessel in which he had set sail from England, and not to the "Cumberland," in which he was returning. On this miserable pretext the unfortunate discoverer was detained in an irksome captivity for six years and a half. A narrative of these voyages, and of the hardships thus inflicted on him, were published by him, in two large volumes, in 1814. Flinders was the first to suggest the name of Australia for the new continent, "as being," as he said, "more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth.