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His relation of his trip is interesting, as being the earliest record of land exploration, and also as containing the account of the discovery of the Nepean River. An extract from his journal runs as follows:
Banks of this nature, if uplifted, would probably have nearly the same external form as the platform of the Blue Mountains, where it abruptly terminates over the Nepean. The strata of sandstone in the low coast country, and likewise on the Blue Mountains, are often divided by cross or current laminae, which dip in different directions, and frequently at an angle of forty-five degrees.
I have directed the commander of the Plymouth, hired lugger, after having landed this letter at Faro, to cruise off Cape St. Mary's to apprise any of his Majesty's ships of my rendezvous, giving them such further information as he may be possessed of. I am, sir, your most obedient servant, JAMES SAUMAREZ. Evan Nepean, Esq. &c. &c. &c. Admiralty. Cæsar, off Cadiz, 5th July 1801.
Vincent and Mr. Nepean: MY DEAR SIR, Admiralty, 4th June 1801. I am glad the Cæsar is in Cawsand Bay, because you will be the sooner informed of his Majesty's most gracious intentions towards you, in which I have greater pleasure than I can express, as you are to be placed at the head of a detached squadron destined for a very important service, at no great distance from home.
The passage between Point Hunter and Nepean Island is a very good one, there being three fathoms close to Nepean Isle, and eight fathoms in mid-channel. I sounded close along the back of the reef which runs along Sydney-Bay, and found four fathoms within a ship's length of the reef. I returned at sun-set, having caught thirty-six very fine fish, which were issued out as usual.
Not only is the outline very defective, but the "lay" of the Nepean peninsula is so grossly wrong that this alone would suffice to show that Freycinet did not merely correct his chart with the aid of that captured from the Fame, but that the whole drawing of Port Phillip was fitted in, like a patch.
But how did Freycinet come to select those words, "un aspect riant et fertile"? He was not there himself, and, as a matter of probability, it seems most unlikely that such terms would occur to a person who was there, either as applicable to the lands near Points Nepean and Lonsdale, with their bastions of rock and ramparts of sand, or to the scrubby and broken coast running down to Cape Otway, which, as a matter of fact, is not fertile, except in little patches, and, even after half a century of settlement, does not look as if it were.
Then we are taken in tow by a tug, up to the Heads, where we wait until sunrise for our pilot to come on board. The Heads are low necks of sandy hillocks, one within another, that guard the entrance to the extensive bay of Port Phillip. On one side is Point Lonsdale, and on the other Point Nepean. 21st May. Our pilot comes on board early, and takes our ship in charge.
Towards the southern and eastern parts of the cow pastures are numerous streams, which retain water even in dry weather, and which communicate with the Nepean River.
Sir T. Mitchell states that the great valley of the Cox river with all its branches, contracts, where it unites with the Nepean, into a gorge 2200 yards in width, and about 1000 feet in depth. Other similar cases might have been added.
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