His colleague, Captain Clerke, who attended him through all his expeditions, did not long survive him. Resolved to complete his instructions, he remained in the neighbourhood of Kamschatka, which hastened the crisis of a consumption. He was buried beneath a tree at the harbour of St. Peter and St. Paul, and an inscription pointed to his grave.[18] This was found by M. Perouse defaced, who restored it. On his arrival at Botany Bay, he interred the naturalist of his expedition: the memorial he set up was destroyed by the natives, and Governor Phillip repaid, by the substitution of another, the honor done to his own countryman.[19]
De L'Angle, the companion of Perouse, with eleven officers and men, lost their lives by a misunderstanding at the Navigators' Isles: the manner of his own death may be inferred from the native tradition.[20]
The end of D'Entrecasteaux and Huon, was hardly less melancholy: both commanders were buried by their crews; the admiral at Louisiade, and Huon at New Caledonia. The vessels were detained by the Dutch at Java, and many of the seamen died in captivity. There the calamities of their country became known to them: some sided with the royalists, others with the jacobins, but few regained their native land; among these, however, was Labillardière.[21]
The fate of Captain Flinders is already told; that of Dr. Bass is involved in obscurity. A rumour that he was alive in 1812, in South America, was circulated in London.[22] In the colonies it was reported, that the vessel in his charge foundered at sea; others alleged that he attempted a contraband trade in the Spanish colonies, was taken prisoner, and with his companions sent to the quicksilver mines, and there died.[23]
The whale-boat of Bass, which first swept the waters of the strait, was long preserved at Port Jackson. Of its keel snuff boxes were wrought, and regarded as valuable relics. A fragment, mounted with silver, engraven with the particulars of the passage, was presented to M. Baudin, as a memorial of the man whose example had stimulated colonial discovery.
Flinders[24] predicted that the name of Bass would be conspicuous among the benefactors of mankind: the glory of his own will enlarge with the value of his discoveries. They resulted not from accident, which may give reputation to success without merit, but were the reward of prudent enthusiasm. A small community cannot, indeed, rear a monument worthy the destinies of their names: private memorials may be perishable, like the sympathies which inscribed them, but a future and opulent era will display the moral grandeur of their enterprise, and posterity will pay public honors to their fame.
At the cost of £250, Sir John Franklin erected an obelisk on the rock of Stamford Hill, Port Lincoln, with the following inscription:—
This place,
from which the gulf and its shores
were first surveyed,
on the 26th of Feb., 1802, by
MATTHEW FLINDERS, R. N..
commander of H.M.S. Investigator,
and the discoverer of the country now called South Australia,
was
on 12th Jan., 1841,
with the sanction of Lieut.-Colonel Gawler, K.H.,
then Governor of the Colony, then set apart for,
and in the first year of the
Government of Captain G. Grey,
adorned with this monument,
to the perpetual memory of the illustrious navigator,
his honoured commander,
by John Franklin, Captain R.N., K.C.H., K.R., Lt.-Governor of
Van Diemen's Land.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The following is its title:—Journal of Discovery, by me, Abel Jans Tasman, of a Voyage from Batavia for making discoveries of the unknown South Land, 1642.—Burney's Chronological History, 1813.