Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 1.djvu/462

236

opinion, as well as myself, that it would be unsafe to do this in the middle of the winter season; and that to remain six months in port waiting for the fine weather would be a sad waste of time; I had, besides, left very little of importance to be examined upon the South Coast, a circumstance which the instructions had not contemplated. Upon all these considerations, it was decided to proceed to the northward,—examine Torres' Strait and the east side of the Gulph of Carpentaria before the north-west monsoon should set in,—proceed as I might be able during its continuance,—and afterwards explore the North and North-west Coasts; returning to Port Jackson when, and by such route as might be found most advisable, and conducive to the general purposes of the voyage.

It was probable that the north-west monsoon would not set in before the beginning of November; I therefore intended to examine such parts of the east coast of New South Wales in my way to the northward, as had been passed by captain Cook in the night, and were not seen in my expedition with the Norfolk sloop in 1799. The openings of Keppel and Shoal-water Bays, and the still larger of Broad Sound, I was also anxious to explore; in the hope of finding a river falling into some one of them, capable of admitting the Lady Nelson into the interior of the country. These desirable objects I expected to accomplish before the approach of the monsoon would call me into the Gulph of Carpentaria.

The French ships were in no forwardness for sailing; and it was understood that captain Baudin intended sending back Le Naturaliste to France, by the way of Bass' Strait, so soon as the season should be favourable. He had purchased a small vessel of between thirty and forty tons at Sydney, to serve him as a tender; and he told me that we should probably meet in the Gulph of Carpentaria in December or January. I understood that he meant to return to the South Coast, and after completing its examination, to proceed northward, and enter the Gulph with the north-west monsoon; but it appeared to me very probable, that the western winds on the South