"The great quantity of new plants &c. Mr. Banks & Dr. Solander collected in this place occasioned my giving it the name Botany Bay it is situated in the Latde 34°. 11 S. Long 208°."
The Admiralty Log notes what none of the old Cook's Logs knew.
"Abreast of a Bay or Harbour wherein there appeared to be safe anchorage which I called Port Jackson it lies 3 Legs to the northwd of Botany Bay."
Other Logs only notice it as an inlet, but add no name.
CORNER'S LOG.
Around this production the battle has raged awhile. As it was exposed for sale more than once, failing to attract attention, and had evidently been manipulated, suspicion was naturally excited, and one well known official expert assured me it was practically worthless. A bad impression was made by the assertion of Mr. Corner that the Log was in Cook's handwriting. As the Record Office, as well as the British Museum, could show a number of Cook's own letters, official and private, experts could not be deceived.
It may, nevertheless, have proceeded from the same source as some others of a later date, as that one in Royal Possession, and the one in the keeping of the Admiralty. In fact, the latter is very similar in its text to Corner's Log, always excepting the reference to Botany Bay instead of Cook's own appellation of Stingray Harbour, and the insertion of the name of New South Wales, or New Wales, instead of the total absence of those words in ALL the Logs of Cook and his officers.
It was evident to me, as to others, that several copies, more or less similar, had been sent to England after the last day's record in any Log upon leaving New Holland, the name of which is alone the heading of any page of a Log.
I have not seen the so-called Queen's Log, but any one who examined Corner's Log, as many did, would see that it came here originally with blank spaces for certain days, and others were vacant to receive the proper names of places, which had, it is to be presumed, to be added in this country!!
It is, however, not a little puzzling to find that Cook, who is reported to have sent these copies from Batavia, while staying there, should have allowed a copy for the Admiralty to go off with New South Wales as the name of the new territory, and send another (Corner's) bearing the denomination of New Wales. Still more extraordinary that Cook's own well ascertained Logs, two in the British Museum and one at Sunderland—the only ones extant—should have neither New South Wales, New Wales, nor Botany Bay mentioned.