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Murray, in the Lady Nelson, sailing close along-shore west from Westernport on January 5, 1802, saw a headland bearing west-north-west distant about twelve miles, and an opening in the land that had the appearance of a harbour north-west ten or twelve miles.
Was it originally Baudin's intention to ignore Bass's discovery of 1798, and, giving a French name to every feature of the coast in Terre Napoleon, to call Westernport "Port du Debut"? That would not have been an appropriate name for Port Phillip had it really been seen on the morning of March 30, as it most certainly was not.
On the other side of the bay he had climbed Arthur's Seat at the back of Dromana, saw behind him the waters of Westernport which Bass had discovered, and traced the curve of the coast as far into the blue distance as his eye could penetrate. He had warrant for saying that the country looked "pleasing and fertile."
In other words, Grant's eye-chart connected up the coast between the extremity of George Bass's exploration, Westernport, and Cape Banks to the east, while Flinders had traversed the coast between Nuyts Land and Encounter Bay to the west, leaving a gap of only about fifty leagues of sandy shore, upon which there is "neither river, inlet, or place of shelter," that was actually discovered by Baudin.
In fact, the chart shows more than could have been seen if the French had sailed close up to the heads and looked inside. "Du Debut" of what? Unquestionably Le Geographe did sight Westernport.
This chart was one which had been drawn from George Bass's sketch by Flinders himself, and incorporated with his own more scientific chart of the north coast of Tasmania and the adjacent islands. Bass had traversed, in his whale-boat, the southern coast of Victoria as far as Westernport, but not being a surveyor he had furnished only a rough outline of the lay of the shore.
"M. Peron should not have said that the south coast from Westernport to Nuyts Land was then unknown, but that it was unknown to them, for Captain Grant, of the Lady Nelson, had discovered the eastern part from Westernport to the longitude 140 degrees 14 minutes in the year 1800, before the French ships sailed from Europe, and on the west I had explored the coast and islands from Nuyts Land to Cape Jervis in 138 degrees 10 minutes."
"From appearances I at first judged this port to be Westernport, although many others did not answer; though Captain Baudin had met with no harbour after leaving that, and from his account he had fine weather and kept the shore close on board to the time of his meeting us." Imprisonment of Flinders in Mauritius. The French atlas of 1807. The French charts and the names upon them.
When Flinders was appointed to the command of the Investigator, he was only twenty-seven years of age. But he had already won distinction by his demonstration that Bass Strait was a strait, and not a gulf, a fact not proved by George Bass's famous voyage from Sydney to Westernport in a whale-boat.
His own letters and journal do not show that he did so at Botany Bay; but we have other evidence that he did, and that the signs of cultivation had not vanished at least ten years later. When George Bass was returning to Sydney in February, 1798, at the end of that wonderful cruise in a whaleboat which had led to the discovery of Westernport, he was becalmed off Botany Bay.
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