Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 1.djvu/365

Cape Catastrophe.]

Mr. Westall's view from the ship in Memory Cove, represents Thistle's Island and three of the small isles in front of it.

The reader will pardon me the observation, that Mr. Thistle was truly a valuable man, as a seaman, an officer, and a good member of society. I had known him, and we had mostly served together, from the year 1794. He had been with Mr. Bass in his perilous expedition in the whale boat, and with me in the voyage round Van Diemen's Land, and in the succeeding expedition, to Glass-house and Hervey's Bays. From his merit and prudent conduct, he was promoted from before the mast to be a midshipman, and afterwards a master in his Majesty's service. His zeal for discovery had induced him to join the Investigator when at Spithead and ready to sail, although he had returned to England only three weeks before, after an absence of six years. Besides performing assiduously the duties of his situation, Mr. Thistle had made himself well acquainted with the practice of nautical astronomy, and began to be very useful in the surveying department. His loss was severely felt by me; and he was lamented by all on board, more especially by his messmates, who knew more intimately the goodness and stability of his disposition.

Mr. William Taylor, the midshipman of the boat, was a young officer who promised fair to become an ornament to the service, as he was to society by the amiability of his manners and temper. The six seamen had all volunteered for the voyage. They were active and useful young men; and in a small and incomplete ship's company, which had so many duties to perform, this diminution of our force was heavily felt.

The latitude of our anchorage in Memory Cove was 34° 58′ south, and longitude 135° 56½′ east. The variation observed on the binnacle by lieutenant Flinders, when the ship's head was S. by W., was 2° 38′ east, or corrected for one point of western deviation from the magnetic meridian, 2° 0′ east. In the bearings taken on the eastern side of the high land behind the cove, the variation appeared