"So I have lately sent a boat to that part of the coast, in which went Mr. Bass, surgeon of the Reliance. He was fortunate in discovering the place, and informed me he found a stratum six feet deep in the face of a steep cliff, which was traced for eight miles in length; but this was not the only coal they discovered, for it was seen in various places."
The place was named Coalcliff, and this was the first discovery of the great southern coalfields of New South Wales. Hunter, writing to the Duke of Portland under date of March 1st, 1798, shall tell the next incident of Bass' career:—
"The tedious repairs which His Majesty's ship [a]1798]
Reliance necessarily required before she could be put in a condition for again going to sea having given an opportunity to Mr. George Bass, her surgeon, a young man of a well-informed mind and an active disposition, to offer himself to be employed in any way in which he could contribute to the benefit of the public service, I inquired of him in what way he was desirious of exerting himself, and he informed me nothing could gratify him more effectually than my allowing him the use of a good boat and permitting him to man her with volunteers from the King's ships. I accordingly furnished him with an excellent whale-boat, well fitted, victualled, and manned to his wish, for the purpose of examining along the coast to the southward of this port, as far as he could with safety and convenience go. His perseverance against adverse winds and almost incessant bad weather led him as far south as the latitude of 40°00 S., or a distance from this port, taking the bendings of the coast, of more than 600 miles." (This, remember, was accomplished in a whale-boat.) "He coasted the greatest part of the way, and sedulously examined every inlet along the shore, which does not in these parts afford a single harbour fit to admit even a small vessel, except a bay in latitude 35°06, called Jarvis' Bay, and which was so named by one of the transport ships, bound here, who entered it, and is the same called by Captain Cook Longnose Bay. He explored every accessible place until he came as far as the sourthermost [sic: southernmost] parts of this coast seen by Captain Cook, and from thence until he reached the northernmost land seen by Captain Furneaux, beyond which he went westward about 60 miles, where the coast falls away in a west-northwest
direction. Here he found an open ocean westward, and by the mountainous sea which rolled in from that quarter, and no land discoverable in that direction, we have much reason to conclude that there is an open strait through, between the latitude of 39 and 40'12 S., a circumstance which, from many observations made upon tides and currents thereabouts, I had long conjectured.
"It will appear by this discovery that the northermost [sic: northernmost] land seen by Captain Furneaux is the southernmost extremity of this coast, and lays in latitude 39.00 S. At the western extremity of Mr. Bass' coasting voyage he found a very good harbour; but, unfortunately, the want of provision induced him to return sooner than he wished and intended, and on passing a small island laying off the coast he discovered a smoke, and supposed it to have been made by some natives, with whom he wished to have an opportunity of conversing. On approaching the shore he found the men were white, and had some clothing on, and when he came near he observed two of them take to the water and swim off. They proved to be seven of a gang of fourteen convicts who escaped from hence in a boat on the 2nd of October last, and who had been treacherously left on this desolate island by the other seven, who returned northward. The boat, it seems, was too small for their whole number, and when they arrived at Broken Bay they boarded another boat [lying] in the Hawkesbury with fifty-six bushels of wheat on board; then they went off with her to the northward, leaving their old boat on shore.
"These poor distressed wretches" (the seven convicts discovered by Bass), "who were chiefly Irish, would have
endeavoured to travel northward and thrown themselves upon His Majesty's mercy, but were not able to get from this miserable island to the mainland. Mr. Bass' boat was too small to accommodate them with a passage, and, as his provision was nearly expended, he could only help them to the mainland, where he furnished them with a musket and ammunition and a pocket compass, with lines and fish-hooks. Two of the seven were very ill, and those he took into his boat, and shared his provisions with the other five, giving them the best directions in his power how to proceed, the distance" (to Sydney) "being not less than five hundred miles. He recommended them to keep along the coast the better to enable them to get food. Indeed, the difficulties of the country and the possibility of meeting hostile natives are considerations which will occasion doubts of their ever being able to reach us.
"When they parted with Mr. Bass and his crew, who gave them what cloaths they could spare, some tears were shed on both sides. The whale-boat arrived in this port after an absence of twelve weeks, and Mr. Bass delivered to me his observations on this adventur'g expedition. I find he made several excursions into the interior of the country wherever he had an opportunity. It will be sufficient to say that he found in general a barren, unpromising country, with very few exceptions; and, were it even better, the want of harbours would render it less valuable.
"Whilst this whale-boat was absent I had occasion to send the colonial schooner to the southward to take on board the remaining property saved from the wreck of the ship Sydney Cove, and to take the crew from the island she had been cast upon. I sent in the schooner
Lieutenant Flinders, of the Reliance (a young man well qualified), in order to give him an opportunity of making what observations he could amongst those islands; and the discoverys which was made there by him and Mr. Hamilton, the master of the wrecked ship, shall be annexed to those of Mr. Bass in one chart and forwarded to your Grace herewith, by which I presume it will appear that the land called Van Dieman's, and generally supposed to be the southern promontory of this country, is a group of islands separated from its southern coast by a strait, which it is probable may not be of narrow limits, but may perhaps be divided into two or more channels by the islands near that on which the ship Sydney Cove was wrecked."
The exploring cruise in a whale-boat had lasted from December 3rd, 1797, to February 25th, 1798, and we have before us a log kept by Bass of the voyage. Bass describes in detail all that Hunter tells in his despatch, but the intrepid explorer scarcely mentions the hardships and dangers with which he met. Incidentally he tells how the boat leaked, what heavy seas were often successfully encountered, and how "we collected and salted for food on our homeward voyage stormy petrels" and like luxuries.
Flinders meanwhile, as Hunter says in his despatch, had been sent in the colonial schooner Francis to bring back the castaways [a]1799] from the
Sydney Cove, who remained anxiously waiting for succour on Preservation Island. On the way down the young lieutenant discovered and named many islands and headlands—the Kent group, the Furneaux group, and Green Cape are only a few names, to wit—and he came back fully convinced that the set of the tide west "indicated a deep inlet or passage through the Indian Ocean." He had no time on this trip to make surveys, but on his return to Sydney he found that George Bass had just come in in his whale-boat with his report. Hunter and the two young men agreed that the existence of the strait was certain, and that the next thing to do was to sail through it.