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, in his great work, when describing 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, which Mr. Arrowsmith pronounced the most perfect that had come before him, 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 a 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.
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."
So miserably slow was the progress of the first Australian colony that at this period, thirteen years after its foundation, it was found necessary 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
