Atlas Page 7
By F. J. Broomfield

AMONG the most determined and intrepid successors of Captain Cook and the earlier Australian navigators must be reckoned Captain Matthew Flinders and Surgeon Bass, to whose skill, courage, and perseverance we owe the discovery of the strait which separates the Australian continent from Tasmania, the discovery of Kangaroo Island, the hydrography of Tasmania, the exploration of the coasts of New South Wales and South Australia; of those portions of Western Australia known as Nuyt’s Land and Leeuwin Land; and the determination of numerous points in Torres Strait, the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the coast of Arnhem Land.

One of the first works undertaken by Captain Hunter after his arrival in New South Wales, in 1788, was a marine survey of Botany and Broken Bays and Port Jackson, with the greater number of the rivers emptying into them. Captain Cook had certainly examined Botany Bay, but he had seen the entrances only of the other two harbours. Hunter’s survey, the first that was made of these inlets, included the intermediate portions of the coasts, and was published shortly after the charts had been sent to England by Governor Phillip.

In 1795 Captain Hunter made his second voyage to New South Wales, taking with him H.M. armed vessels "Reliance " and "Supply"; among his crew was a midshipman, recently returned from a South Seas voyage, and who, moved by a passion for exploration and novel adventure, seized the opportunity for the indulgence of his leading characteristic on virgin soil. This adventurous midshipman was Matthew Flinders —the history of Australian coastal exploration had begun.

Matthew Flinders was born at Donington, in Lincolnshire, England, in the year 1760, and early entered the merchant service, but quitted it for the navy, which he joined as a midshipman in 1793. When he landed at Port Jackson in September, 1795, the knowledge possessed by the colonists of even the three previously mentioned harbours was of the most rudimentary and imperfect kind. Lieutenant Richard Bowen had indeed entered Jervis Bay, and to the north, the land surveyor of the colony Mr. C. Grimes, and Captain W. R. Broughton of H.M. ship "Providence," had lately examined Port Stephens; but of the intermediate parts of the coast, both in a northerly and southerly direction, little more was known than could be learnt from Cook’s general chart, while the exploration of the more remote coastal indentations indicated (though not examined) by the famous sailor had been entirely neglected.

The chance of adding something to hydrographical science fired the ardour of Flinders, and in George Bass, who came out with Captain Hunter as surgeon of the "Reliance," he found a brave and determined coadjutor. These courageous men resolved to complete the survey of the east coast of New South Wales to the best of their ability and to the utmost of their procurable means and opportunities.

In 1796, upon the return of Flinders from a voyage to Norfolk Island, the intrepid explorers sailed out of Port Jackson on the morning of the 25th of March in search of a reported river, which proved a miserable brook. They proceeded south-west past Red Point in safety, but were nearly drowned when making the return voyage in the night. In the graphic language of Flinders: —"The shade of the cliffs over our heads, and the noise of the surfs breaking at their feet, were the directions by which our course was steered parallel to the coast." While Bass held the sheet of the sail in his hand, occasionally drawing it in a few inches when he saw a more than usually heavy sea coming. Flinders, steering with an oar, had to keep the little boat from broaching to; in his own words, "a single wrong movement, or a moment’s inattention," would have sent them to the bottom. The boy’s duty was baling out the water, which not all their care and dexterity could prevent from breaking over their tiny skiff. At a favourable moment they shipped their mast and lay to at Watta-Mowlee (Providential Cove), about three or four miles southward of Port Hacking or Deeban. On April 2nd, after a voyage of a most perilous character, the "Torn Thumb" was safely brought to its moorings alongside H.M.S. "Reliance" in Port Jackson. Near Red Point, Tom Thumb’s Lagoon commemorates the voyage, and preserves in its name a memento of this preliminary expedition of the adventurous voyagers.

During the year 1797, while Flinders was occupied with his duties on shipboard, Bass made several excursions into the interior, one such resulting in the survey of the course of the Grose. In this same year the "Sydney Cove" was wrecked on the Furneaux Islands; and it was in the September of this year that Lieutenant John Shortland, when returning from a chase after some runaway convicts —who had seized a boat with the intention of reaching China —discovered the Hunter, upon the shores of which the settlement of Newcastle was some years afterwards established.

On December 3rd, 1797, Bass sailed southward in a whaling-boat, manned by six men and provisioned for six weeks. In this boat he discovered Twofold Bay on December 19th, doubled Cape Howe, and found himself on New Year’s day of 1798 coasting Long Beach. On January 4th, Bass made Western Port, the limit of his voyage southward, thence sailing for Port Jackson on the 18th, and arriving in Sydney Cove, after a long experience of foul weather, on the night of February 24th. By this voyage Bass supplemented the previous knowledge of the coast by discoveries reaching from the Ram Head to Western Port, the new coast being traced three hundred miles. In the language of Bass’ admirer, Flinders "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."

While Bass was prosecuting his explorations in the whaling-boat, Flinders, on board the schooner "Francis," was proceeding to the wreck of the "Sydney Cove" at Preservation Island, having left Port Jackson on February 3rd. After passing and naming Green Cape, Flinders followed Bass’ route and sighted Wilson’s Promontory. The Kent’s Group, the Babel Isles, and Cape Barren Island, were among Flinders’ discoveries during this voyage, from which he returned in March. On landing at Sydney on the 7th of that month, he found that Bass had arrived a fortnight before him.

On October 7th, 1798, Flinders and Bass again set sail from Port Jackson, and following the Tasmanian coast, discovered Port Dalrymple and surveyed the River Tamar. Resuming their course westward, the explorers discovered and named a number of capes and islands along the northern coast, and by doubling Cape Grim proved conclusively the existence of a strait between the Australian continent and what was then known a., Van Diemen’s Land. Voyaging southward they completed their survey of the Tasmanian coast as far as the Derwent, returning to Port Jackson on January 11th To the Passage between the continent and Tasmania, Governor Hunter gave the name of Bass’ Strait, and no honour was more deserved than that thus conferred on this intrepid and persevering mariner. Bass set sail for England shortly after his return to Port Jackson, and died, it is said, in South America. In July of the same year Flinders sailed on a voyage northward to survey the coast as far as Glasshouse and Hervey’s Bays. This voyage resulted in the discovery of Moreton Bay, and was conducted with the thoroughness characteristic of the man.