The Life of Captain Matthew FlindersScott, Ernest, Sir
History
The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders
Scott, Ernest, Sir
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Flinders, Matthew, 1774-1814
Cook, on his Endeavour voyage in 1770, first sighted the Australian coast
at Point Hicks, called Cape Everard on many current maps. His second
officer, Lieutenant Zachary Hicks, at six in the morning of April 20,
"saw ye land making high," and Cook "named it Point Hicks because
Lieutenant Hicks was the first who discovered this land." Point Hicks is
a projection which falls away landward from a peak, backed by a sandy
conical hill, but Bass passed it without observing it. The thick haze
which he mentions may have obscured the outline. At all events, by dusk
on January 1st he found that he had filled up the hitherto unexplored
space between Point Hicks "a point we could not at all distinguish from
the rest of the beach," and the high hummocky land further west, which he
believed to be that sighted by Captain Tobias Furneaux in 1773. It is,
however, to be observed that Flinders pointed out that all Bass's
reckonings after December 31st were ten miles out. "It is no matter of
surprise," wrote his friend indicating an error, "if observations taken
from an open boat in a high sea should differ ten miles from the truth;
but I judge that Mr. Bass's quadrant must have received some injury
during the night of the 31st, for a similar error appears to pervade all
the future observations, even those taken under favourable
circumstances." The missing of Point Hicks, therefore, apart from the
thick haze, is not difficult to understand.
On Tuesday, January 2nd, Bass reached the most southerly point in the
continent of Australia, the extremity of Wilson's Promontory. The bold
outlines were sighted at seven o'clock in the morning. "We were surprised
by the sight of high hummocky land right ahead, and at a considerable
distance." Bass called it Furneaux Land in his diary, in the belief that
a portion of the great granite peninsula had been seen by the captain of
the Adventure in 1773. Furneaux' name is still attached to the group of
islands divided by Banks' Strait from the north-east corner of Tasmania.
But the name which Bass gave to the Promontory was not retained. It is
not likely that Furneaux ever saw land so far west. "It cannot be the
same, as Mr. Bass was afterwards convinced," wrote Flinders. Governor
Hunter, "at our recommendation," named it Wilson's Promontory, "in
compliment to my friend Thomas Wilson, Esq., of London." It has been
stated that the name was given to commemorate William Wilson, one of the
whaleboat crew, who "jumped ashore first."* (* Ida Lee, The Coming of the
British to Australia, London 1906 page 51.) Nobody "jumped ashore first"
on the westward voyage, when the discovery was made, because, as Bass
twice mentions in his diary, "we could not land." Doubly inaccurate is
the statement of another writer that "the promontory was seen and named
by Grant in 1800 after Admiral Wilson."* (* Blair, Cyclopaedia of
Australia, 748.) Grant himself, on his chart of Bass Strait, marked down
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account