The Naval Pioneers of Australia Part 9

"On Monday keep shop, In two hours' time stop To relax from such kingly fatigue, To pillage the store And rob Government more Than a host of good thieves--by intrigue.

"For infamous acts from my birth I'd an itch, My fate I foretold but too sure; Tho' a rope I deserved, which is justly my due, I shall actually die in a ditch, And be d.a.m.ned."

By way of reply, Lord Hobart, then at the Home Office, informed King, that although the Government had the fullest appreciation of the good service he had done, yet the unfortunate differences between himself and the officers would best be ended by relieving him of his [Sidenote: 1805]

command as soon as a successor could be chosen. The successor, in the person of Bligh, was chosen in July, 1805, and King a few months later returned to England.

In Hobart's letter to King informing him of the decision to recall him, the former refers not only to the unfortunate difference "between you and the military officers," but to the fact that these disputes "have extended to the commander of H.M.S. _Glatton_." Highly indignant, King replied to this in the following paragraph of a despatch dated August 14th, 1804:--

"In what relates to the commander of His Majesty's s.h.i.+p _Glatton_, had I, on his repeated demands, committed myself, by the most flagrant abuse of the authority delegated to me, by giving him a free pardon for a female convict for life, who had never landed from the _Glatton_, to enable her to cohabit with him on his pa.s.sage home, I might, in that case, have avoided much of his insults here and his calumnious invective in England; but after refusing, as my bounden duty required, to comply to his unwarrantable demands, which, if granted, must have very justly drawn on me your lords.h.i.+p's censure and displeasure, with the merited reproach of those deserving objects to whom that last mark of His Majesty's mercy is so cautiously extended, from that period, my lord, the correspondence will evidently show no artifice or means on his part were unused to insult not only myself as governor of this colony, but the military and almost every other officer of the colony."

There is, of course, another side to this. Captain Colnett, of the _Glatton_, asked for the woman's pardon on the ground that she had supplied him with information which enabled him to antic.i.p.ate a mutiny of the convicts on the pa.s.sage out. On the return of the _Glatton_ to England, the _St. James Chronicle_ informs its readers that at a dinner at Walmer Castle Colnett dined with William Pitt. Perhaps over their wine the two discussed Governor King, and hence perhaps Hobart's letter of recall.

During King's period of office there were, besides the Irish rebels, many prisoners whose names are famous, or infamous, in story. Pickpocket George Barrington, who came out in Governor Phillip's time, once the Beau Brummel of his branch of rascality, had settled down into a respectable settler, and was in King's government, superintendent of convicts, at 50 a year wages. Sir Henry Browne Hayes, at one time sheriff of Cork city, was sent out for life in King's time for abducting a rich Quaker girl; he was pardoned, and returned to England in 1812, leaving behind him a fine residence which he had built for himself, and which [Sidenote: 1808]

is still one of the beauty spots at the entrance of Sydney harbour.

Margarot, one of the "Scotch martyrs," also fell foul of King, who sent him to Hobart for seditious practices. The governor seems to have punished Scotch and Irish pretty impartially, for Hayes and Margarot were coupled together as disturbing characters and both sent away.

The "martyrs," it will perhaps be remembered, were Muir, Palmer, Skirving, Gerald, and Margarot, transported at Edinburgh for libelling the Government in August, 1793, and most harshly dealt with, as everyone nowadays admits.

King was a Cornishman, a native of Launceston. When he went home in 1790 he married a Miss Coombes, of Bedford. By this lady he had several children. The eldest of them, born at Norfolk Island in 1791, he named Phillip Parker, after his old chief. This youngster was sent into the navy to follow his father's footsteps, and in a later chapter of this book he will be heard of again.

The ex-governor wrote in September, 1808, a letter from Bath.

"As this letter may probably reach you before you sail, I just write to say that I came here on Tuesday with Mr. Etheridge, on his return to London, merely to see Admiral Phillip, whom I found much better than I possibly could expect from the reports I had heard, although he is quite a cripple, having lost the entire use of his right side, though his intellects are very good, and his spirits are as they always were."

This letter was to the boy Phillip, then a year-old sailor, on the eve of his departure on a cruise in the Channel. Seven days later the writer had slipped his moorings, and years earlier than his old comrade had "gone before to that unknown and silent sh.o.r.e."

CHAPTER VIII.

Ba.s.s AND FLINDERS

The details of Australian sea exploration are beyond the scope of this work, but in a future chapter some reference will be made to the marvellous quant.i.ty and splendid quality of naval surveying in Australian waters.

The story of Flinders and Ba.s.s, of the work they performed, and the strange, sad ending to their lives is worth a book, much more the small s.p.a.ce we can devote to it. Much has been written about these two men, but the best work on the subject, that written by Flinders himself, has now become a rare book, to be found only in a few public libraries, and too expensive for any but well-to-do book-lovers to have upon their shelves.

The printing in New South Wales by the local Government of the records of the colony has led to the discovery of a quant.i.ty of interesting material never before published, and in this there is much relating to Flinders and Ba.s.s--so much, in fact, that the work of the two men could be described from contemporary letters and despatches, material, if not new to everyone, certainly known to very few.

The dry technicalities of the surveying work, interesting enough to the people of those places on the coasts of Australia which are now flouris.h.i.+ng seaports, but where not a century ago Ba.s.s and Flinders landed for the first time, are too local in their interests to warrant more than a pa.s.sing reference here. The bold explorers met with so many stirring adventures that the present writers can only "reel off the yarn," and let lovers of topography go, if they are so inclined, to the charts, and study how much valuable map-making, as well as exciting incident, these young men crowded into their lives.

When Hunter returned to New South Wales in the _Reliance_ to take office as governor, he brought with him Matthew Flinders as second lieutenant; and to Sir Joseph Banks, whose influence secured the appointment, this is only one of the many debts of grat.i.tude owed by New South Wales for his foresight and honesty in making such selections. Flinders was then twenty-one years of age. His father was a surgeon at Donington, a village in Lincolns.h.i.+re.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE Ba.s.s. From a miniature. From "The Historical Records of New South Wales" [Sydney, 1889, etc.]. _To face p._ 168.]

_Robinson Crusoe_, so he himself tells us, sent him to sea, and his departure from home was soon followed by that of his brother Samuel.

Matthew served first in the _Scipio_ under Pasley; then he accompanied Bligh in the _Providence_ to Tahiti, and thence to the West Indies (this was Bligh's successful bread-fruit voyage); then he was in the _Bellerophon_, and was present at Lord Howe's victory, "the glorious 1st of June." Two months later he left in the _Reliance_ for Sydney.

The surgeon of the _Reliance_ was George Ba.s.s. From his boyhood Ba.s.s wanted to be a sailor, but was apprenticed, sorely against his will, to a Boston apothecary. His father was a farmer at Sleaford, in Lincolns.h.i.+re; but his mother was early left a widow. The lad served his apprentices.h.i.+p, duly walked the hospitals, and his mother spent most of her small substance in starting him in business as a village apothecary in his native county. Then, like so many before and since his time, unable to overcome his first infatuation, he threw all his sh.o.r.e affairs to the wind and obtained an appointment to the _Reliance_.

Governor Hunter, it will be remembered, took a keen interest in the exploration of Australia, and he had for some time suspected the existence of a strait between Van Diemen's Land and the main continent.

Full of desire for adventure and tired of the routine life of a penal settlement, Flinders and Ba.s.s, soon after they landed in the colony, found a new occupation in the pursuit of fresh discoveries, and Hunter willingly lent them such poor equipment as the limited resources of the colony afforded.

A month after the arrival of the _Reliance_ at Sydney the two friends set to work, and in an eight-foot boat, which they appropriately named the _Tom Thumb_, went poking in and out along the coast-line, making discoveries of the greatest local value. Then began work destined to be of world-wide importance.

Take the map of Tasmania and look at a group of islands at its north-east corner; they are in what was later on to be called Ba.s.s' Straits. Among them are two named Preservation and Clarke Islands; these and Armstrong Channel commemorate the wreck of the _Sydney Cove_, which occurred on February 9th, 1797. The _Sydney Cove_ was an East Indiaman bound from Bengal to Sydney; she sprang a leak, was with difficulty navigated to the spot named Preservation Island, and there beached.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAPTAIN MATTHEW FLINDERS, R.N. From the "Naval Chronicle"

for 1814.] [Sidenote: _To face p_. 170.]

The crew, many of whom were Lascars, were saved, with a few stores. Then the long-boat, with the mate, supercargo, three European seamen, and a dozen Lascars, was despatched in an endeavour to reach Port Jackson, the only occupied part of the great continent, and bring succour to their starving s.h.i.+pmates. They set out on the 28th February, were driven ash.o.r.e; their boat was battered to pieces on the rocks, and they escaped only with their lives. This happened on the 1st of March, the scene of this second misfortune being a little distance to the north of Cape Howe, 300 miles from Sydney. These castaways were the first white men to land in what is now the colony of Victoria. (The spot where the boat was lost is just over the border.) After resting the men then all set out to march along the coast to Sydney.

Sixty days later three exhausted creatures reached Wattamolla harbour, near what is now the National Park of New South Wales, about 18 miles south of Sydney. The remainder of the castaways had dropped and died of exhaustion on the march, or had been speared by the blacks. Those who survived had purchased their lives from the savages with shreds of cloth and b.u.t.tons from their ragged clothing, and had kept themselves alive with such sh.e.l.l-fish as they could find upon the beaches. At Wattamolla they had halted to cook a scanty meal of sh.e.l.l-fish, and the smoke of their fire revealed their presence to a fis.h.i.+ng boat from the settlement at Port Jackson. The fire by which this cooking was done was made from coal found on the beach there; so reported brave Clarke, the supercargo of the _Sydney Cove_, who found it.

As soon as Hunter heard of the discovery he determined to examine the place. In a despatch home he says:--

"So I have lately sent a boat to that part of the coast, in which went Mr. Ba.s.s, 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 Ba.s.s' career:--

"The tedious repairs which His Majesty's s.h.i.+p [Sidenote: 1798]

_Reliance_ necessarily required before she could be put in a condition for again going to sea having given an opportunity to Mr. George Ba.s.s, 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 s.h.i.+ps. 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 lat.i.tude of 4000 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 sh.o.r.e, which does not in these parts afford a single harbour fit to admit even a small vessel, except a bay in lat.i.tude 3506, called Jarvis' Bay, and which was so named by one of the transport s.h.i.+ps, 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 lat.i.tude of 39 and 40'12 S., a circ.u.mstance 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 lat.i.tude 39.00 S. At the western extremity of Mr. Ba.s.s' 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 pa.s.sing 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e.

"These poor distressed wretches" (the seven convicts discovered by Ba.s.s), "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.

Ba.s.s' boat was too small to accommodate them with a pa.s.sage, 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 compa.s.s, 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. Ba.s.s 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. Ba.s.s 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 s.h.i.+p _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 s.h.i.+p, shall be annexed to those of Mr. Ba.s.s 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 s.h.i.+p _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 Ba.s.s of the voyage. Ba.s.s describes in detail all that Hunter tells in his despatch, but the intrepid explorer scarcely mentions the hards.h.i.+ps 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 [Sidenote: 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 pa.s.sage through the Indian Ocean." He had no time on this trip to make surveys, but on his return to Sydney he found that George Ba.s.s 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.

The colonial sloop _Norfolk_, built at Norfolk Island, a few months before, to carry despatches, was selected for the service. She was very small, only 25 tons burden. Flinders was given the command, and Ba.s.s was sent with him. The sloop was accompanied by a snow called the _Nautilus_, which was bound to the Furneaux group on a sealing expedition. The voyage lasted from October 7th, 1798, till January 12th, 1799, and in that period the explorers circ.u.mnavigated Van Diemen's Land, making so many discoveries and naming so many places, that a mere mention of them would fill a chapter. At the end of his log, Flinders tells us that on arrival at Port Jackson--

"to the strait which had now been the great object of research, and whose discovery was now completed, Governor Hunter, at my recommendation, gave the name of Ba.s.s' Straits. This was no more than a just tribute to my worthy friend and companion for the extensive dangers and fatigues he had undergone in first entering it in the whale-boat, and to the correct judgment he had formed from various indications of the existence of a wide opening between Van Dieman's Land and New South Wales."

Six months later the _Norfolk_, with Flinders on board, sailed along the north coast, making many discoveries, but missing the important rivers.

Then he returned to England in the _Reliance_. His tried comrade and friend, Ba.s.s, had already left the colony when the _Norfolk_ entered Sydney Heads, and _his_ after-adventures and still mysterious fate, so far as can be conjectured, are told in what follows.

A company was floated in England to carry stores to Port Jackson on the outward trip, and load for return at the islands in the Pacific or such ports as could be entered on the South American coast. A s.h.i.+p called the _Venus_ was purchased for the purpose, and Ba.s.s and his father-in-law (he had just married) and their relations held the princ.i.p.al shares in her.

The s.h.i.+p was under the command of one Charles Bishop; but Ba.s.s sailed in her as managing owner and supercargo.