Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/312

 2S4 FRENCH SHIPS **NATURALISTE» AND •^GEOOEAPHE/' ment) recommending Captain Baudin to the favourable hospitalities of Britieh establishments. As early as in 1810 an article in the Edinburgh Review pointed out that science was merely a pretest, and that the real motive was to spy the state of English possessions, obtain ** foothold for the French, and rear the standard of Bonaparte, then First Consul, on the first convenient spot." Governor King's suspicions were aroused. It was the bm'den of several of his despatches that foreigners should be debarred from settling in Australia* He excluded them from fishing within the ten'itories and straits included in his government, and the historian of the French expedition under Baudin complained bitterly of the exclusion as grasping and unjust to the Americans and others. At the same time he stated that the hospitality extended to the French discoverer was bounded only by the means of the Governor and of the colony. Having thus glanced at the special difficulty created by the French, it is well to turn to the discoveries made during King's terra of office. At the beginning of 1800 the English Government sent out for service in the colony the brig Ladif Ndsiuij under command of Lieut. Grant, She was of sixty tons burden, and was originally built for the Transport Department ; but, by the Duke of Portland's direction, was sent out to explore and survey the coast of New Holland under the Governor*s orders. After Grant had sailed, the Duke of Portland, find- ing that Basses Strait had been discovered, sent instructions to the Cape of Good Hope, ordering Grant to sail through the straits. Grant sighted Australia on the Brd Dec. 1800, named Cape Northumberland, Mount Gambler, Cape Bridgewater, Cape Nelson, Portland Bay, Cape Albany Otway (after Captain Otway, E.N,, Commissioner of the Transport Board), and passing at night from Cape Otway to Cape Liptrap, missed the opportunity of exploring Port Phillip, though he described the coast as trending north- ward from Cape Otway, and called the indentation Governor King*s Bay, He anchored at Sydney 16th Dec. 1800. King at once re-appointed Grant as commander, and ordered him to survey Western Port, and examine the wide bay or indentation between Capes Otway and Schanck,