On the three preceding days many tacks had been made from the shore, and I had frequently taken bearings just before the helm was put down; and so soon as the ship was round and the compass steady, they were again taken. Differences always took place; and without any exception the bearings required a greater allowance of variation to the right after tacking, when the head was westward, than before, when eastward; agreeing with the differences so frequently found in the azimuths and amplitudes, which had always been to show a greater east or less west variation when the head was on the west side of the meridian. The least average difference in any one of five sets of bearings was 5°, the greatest 6½°, and the mean 5° 54'; and according to the system adopted in correcting the variations, explained in the Appendix No. II. to the second volume, the mean difference arising from the five changes in the direction of the ship's head, should be 5° 33'.
The eastern wind died away at noon of the 16th, and the ship scarcely had steerage way until after midnight; a breeze then sprung up from the north-westward, and we steered north-east to make the land near Cape Buffon. At half-past seven [SATURDAY 17 APRIL 1802] the cape bore N. 1° W. seven miles, and was ascertained to be in nearly 37° 36' south and 140° 10' east. There is a bight in the coast on its north side where the land was not distinctly seen all round, owing probably to its being a low beach. At nine o'clock we bore away southward, keeping at the distance of two or three miles from the shore. It was the same kind of hummock-topped bank as before described; but a ridge of moderately high hills, terminated to the southward by a bluff, was visible over it, three or four leagues inland; and there was a reef of rocks lying in front of the shore. At noon, two larger rocks were seen at the southern end of the reef, and are those called by the French the Carpenters. They lie one or two miles from a sandy projection named by them Cape Boufflers; and here a prior title to discovery interferes.
On arriving at Port Jackson I learned, and so did captain Baudin, that this coast had been before visited. Lieutenant (now captain) James Grant, commander of His Majesty's brig Lady Nelson, saw the above projection, which he named Cape Banks, on Dec. 3, 1800; and followed the coast from thence through Bass Strait.* The same principle upon which I had adopted the names applied by the French navigators to the parts discovered by them will now guide me in making use of the appellations bestowed by captain Grant.
[* See A Voyage in the Lady Nelson to New South Wales, by James Grant. London, 1803. This voyage was published four years previously to M. Peron's book; but no more attention was paid at Paris to captain Grant's rights than to mine; his discoveries, though known to M. Peron and the French expedition in 1802, being equally claimed and named by them.]
The termination to the west of that part of the South Coast discovered by captain Baudin in Le Géographe has been pointed out; and it seems proper to specify its commencement to the east, that the extent of his Terre Napoléon may be properly defined. The beginning of the land which, of all Europeans, was first seen by him, so far as is known, cannot be placed further to the south-east than Cape Buffon; for the land is laid down to the northward of it in captain Grant's chart, though indistinctly. The Terre Napoléon is therefore comprised between the latitudes 37° 36' and 35° 40' south, and the longitudes 140° 10' and 138° 58' east of Greenwich; making, with the windings, about fifty leagues of coast, in which, as captain Baudin truly observed, there is neither river, inlet nor place of shelter, nor does even the worst parts of Nuyts' Land exceed it in sterility.
At noon of the 17th we were in
Latitude observed, 37° 47½'
Longitude by time keepers, 140 16½
Cape Buffon bore N. 26 W.
Reef of rocks, (nearest part dist. 2½ miles) N. 51° to S. 42 E.
Hills behind the coast, N. 38 to N. 79 E.
Sandy hummock on West* Cape Banks S. 44 E.
[* The addition of West is made to the name, to distinguish it from Cape Banks on the East Coast, named by captain Cook. It is to be regretted, that
navigators often apply names in so careless a manner as to introduce confusion into geography.]
In the afternoon the wind veered to the southward, and we tacked from the shore, not being able to weather the Carpenters at the south end of the reef. A long swell rolled in at this time, and seemed to announce a gale from the southward, yet the wind died away in the night, and at daybreak [SUNDAY 18 APRIL 1802] a light breeze sprung up at north-west, and enabled us to close in with the land. We passed the Carpenters at the distance of four miles; but at two in the afternoon the wind again died away. A cliffy point, which proved to be the Cape Northumberland of captain Grant, was then in sight, as also were two inland mountains lying to the north-east; the nearest is his Mount Schanck, of a flat, table-like form; the further one, Mount Gambier, is peaked. The following bearings were taken whilst lying becalmed.