Their first attempt to penetrate to the southward of Port Jackson was made in a boat, eight feet long, called the "Tom Thumb," and of which they themselves and one boy formed the entire crew'. Attended with more dangers and providential escapes than advantages, this adventurous expedition was but the forerunner of a bolder and more successful enterprise. In the beginning of 1789, Mr. Bass ventured in a whale boat along a coast line of 300 miles; and reached and discovered the straits since named after him, and Port Western, while Mr. Flinders on his side visited in a small, leaky, and unseaworthy craft, the land seen by Furneaux, and discovered the chain of islands between Cape Portland and Wilson's promontory. About the end of the same year, both the voyagers embarked in the "Norfolk," a schooner of twenty-five tons, and discovered Port Dalrymple, the river Tamar, the inlets and bays of the river Derwent, and Tasman's peninsula, and succeeded in circumnavigating Van Diemen's Land, thus completely establishing the fact of its insularity.
The perusal of the details relating to these discoveries, which are here only summarily noticed, cannot but excite in every one acquainted with the boisterous climate of the region in which they were made, and with the slender means by which they were achieved, sentiments of unmingled respect and admiration for the memory of the enterprising voyagers. Indeed to both of them may be applied the eulogium which, in his work, Captain Flinders passed on the labours of his departed friend Mr. Bass: "The public will award to the high-spirited and able conductors of these voyages—alas!no more!—an honourable place in the list of those whose ardour stands most conspicuous for the promotion of useful knowledge."[1]
- ↑ No public act or expression of opinion has as yet occurred which can be viewed as a fulfilment of this anticipation ; but the more genuine
