Bass, the governor of the English
colony sent out him and Captain Flinders, then employed as a lieutenant of
one of His Majesty's ships on the New South Wales station, with a view to
ascertain whether Mr. Bass's belief of the separation of Van Dieman's Land
was well founded. They embarked on board a small-decked boat of 25 tons,
built of the fir of Norfolk island. In three months they returned to Port
Jackson, after having circumnavigated Van Dieman's Land, and completed the
survey of its coasts. The strait that separates it from New Holland was
named by the governor, Bass's Strait. The importance of this discovery is
undoubted. In voyages from New Holland to the Cape of Good Hope,
considerable time is gained by passing through it, instead of following the
former course. In the year 1800, Captain Flinders was again sent out by the
governor, to examine the coast to the northward of Port Jackson; of this
nothing more was known but what the imperfect notices given of it by
Captain Cook supplied. In this voyage he completely examined all the creeks
and bays as far to the northward as the 25th degree of latitude, and more
particularly Glasshouse and Harvey's Bays. The English government at length
resolved that they would wipe off the reproach, which, as Captain Flinders
observes, was not without some reason attributed to them, "that an
imaginary line of more than 250 leagues of extent, in the vicinity of one
of their colonies, should have been so long suffered to remain traced upon
the charts, under the title of UNKNOWN COAST," and they accordingly
appointed him to the command of an expedition fitted out in England for
this purpose.
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