Flinders
1799.
volunteer crew as before; and I was accompanied by Mr. S.W. Flinders, a midshipman of the Reliance, and by Bongaree, a native, whose good disposition and manly conduct had attracted my esteem. Of the assistance of my able friend Bass I was, however, deprived, he having quitted the station soon after our last voyage, to return to England. The time of my absence was limited by the governor to six weeks, some arrivals being then expected which might call the Reliance into active service.
(Atlas,
Plate VIII.)We sailed out of Port Jackson on July 8; and next morning came in with a part of the coast, north of Port Stephens, which captain Cook had passed in the night.[1] Off a projection which I called Sugar-loaf Point, in latitude 32° 29′, lie two rocks to the south-eastward, at the distances of two and four miles. We passed between these rocks and the point, and kept close in with the shore as far to the north as the hills called Three Brothers by captain Cook, of which the northernmost and highest lies in latitude 31° 43′ south.
(Atlas,
Plate IX.)July 10, the observed latitude of 31° 38′ shewed a set of 33′ to the south; whereas it had the day before been 8′ the contrary way. Our distance from the shore had then become six leagues, owing to a foul wind; but we got in with it again in the evening, and steered northward with a fair breeze. On the 11th we sailed amongst the Solitary Isles, of which five were added to the number before seen; and the space from thence to twelve leagues northward having been passed by captain Cook in the night, I continued to keep close in with the coast.
- ↑ The journal of this expedition, delivered to governor Hunter on my return, having been published in great part by colonel Collins, the account here given will be brief, and almost wholly confined to nautical subjects. The reader who desires more information upon the lands visited, and upon their productions and inhabitants, is referred to the Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol II. page 225 to 263.
