Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/289

 AND HIS STAFF. 183 his account of the voyage with a remark which shows the 1787-92 opinion he had formed with respect to the existence of a The un- strait between New Holland and Van Diemen's Land — a rtrait" matter which had been a subject of speculation for many years among navigators. In passing (at a distance from the coast) between the Islands of Schouten and Funieaux and Point Hicks — the former being the northermost of Captain Furneaux^s observations here, and the latter the southermost part, which Captain Cook saw when he sailed along the coast — there has been no land seen; and from our having felt an easterly set of current, when the wind was from that quarter (north-west), we had an uncommon large sea, there is reason Heavy seas, thence to believe that there is in that space either a very deep gulf or a straight, which may separate Van Diemen's Land from New Holland.* The opinion then formed was afterwards confirmed by Bass's voyage in the whaleboat. In December. 1797, when Bass in the Hunter was Governor of the colony, he supplied Bass with the boat and a crew of volunteers from the men-of-war in port, for the purpose of exploring the coast to the south and south-west. The results were reported to the Secretary of State by Hunter in a despatch, in which ho said that Bass, when at Western Port, — found an open ocean westward, and by the mountainous sea which rolled from that quarter, and no land discoverable in that direc- tion, we have much reason to conclude that there is an open straight through, between the latitude 39" and 40° south, a circum- Hunter's 1 ' t e ' 1 ' 1 1 opinion stance which, from many observations made upon tides and currents conftnweti. thereabouts, I had long conjectured. eight gnns, with their caiTiages, and twenty-four rounds of shot for each gun, twenty half -barrels of powder, a spare anchor, and various other articles were put on shore at Sydney Cove. " These guns were probably mounted in the first instance at the redoubt built on Dawes' Point. The one now at the lighthouse is tlie only one re- maining of the whole number put on shore. Four of them were sent down to South Head by Governor Macquarie soon after his arrival and previous to the erection of the old Macquarie lighthouse, to be used as signal guns. Some time afterwards three of the guns were in course of removal to Sydney in a boat, when it sank ofif Bradley's Head, and the guns were never recovered. Digitized by Google
 * Journal, p. 125.