There were two ships on on James Cook’s second voyage. But you hardly ever hear about the second ship – and for good reason.

Cook’s second voyage was after the “discovery of Australia”, and involved exploring very far south towards Antarctica. Tobias Furneaux was the captain of the second ship, the Adventure. In Antarctic fog, the Adventure was separated from Cook’s ship the Resolution, and Adventure made a rendezvous in Van Diemen’s Land. This post is an analysis of the movements of the Adventure on this detour to Van Diemen’s land.

After the voyage in 1777, a chart and account of Furneaux’s adventure in Van Diemen’s Land were published. At the time of publication, the only ships recorded to have visited Van Diemen’s land were Tasman’s and Furneaux’s. So Furneaux’s accounts were published before anyone else had visited Van Diemen’s Land to verify them in terms of geographical accuracy.

At the time of Cook’s second voyage, there was a high strategic motive for the British to verify the existence or non-existence of the Bass Strait. Evidence from Cook’s first voyage suggests likelihood of a strait. In 1642, Abel Tasman formally claimed possession of Van Diemen’s Land by the planting of a flag. If Van Diemen’s Land and New Holland are connected, then Tasman has also planted a flag on New Holland – as it is a single contiguous land mass. If Van Diemen’s Land and New Holland are separated by a strait, this means the Dutch have never formally claimed possession of New Holland. The existence of the strait implies New Holland large is still unclaimed.

As Furneaux was in the area and given the strategic importance, it is likely he was there to verify the existence of a strait. The published written accounts of Furneaux were not a day-by-day log, but a summary of the voyage. This means small details could be much easier controlled and fabricated after-the-fact. In these accounts, Furneaux does not find the Bass Strait despite him saying he was looking for it, and it existing in reality.

Furneaux’s published chart and accounts make sense on their own, but the moment these accounts are evaluated against current knowledge of the real coastlines – they are full of anomalies. The most obvious anomaly can be seen by simply looking at Furneaux’s chart and comparing it to a modern map of Tasmania. Furneaux’s chart is too skinny. I think this and other anomolies are evidence that Furneaux sailed through the Bass Strait in secret.

If this is true and the British knew of the existence of the Bass Strait before the First Fleet, this might be an important detail in terms of Aboriginal sovereignty. So important – I think it is the origin of the terra nullius doctrine and is evidence for premediated genocide.

Timeline

Abel Tasman 1642
3 December (Tasmania)	Tasman raises a Prince-Flag at Fredrick Henry Bay (Latitude 43° South, Longitude 167 degrees 55 minutes°)[1]
19 December (New Zealand)	Tasman in Murderer’s Bay (Latitude 40° 50′, Longitude South , 191° 41′ )[1]
	A longitudinal offset between Fredrick Henry Bay and Murderer’s bay can be calculated as 23 degrees, 43 minutes
James Cook’s first voyage 1770
1 April (New Zealand)	Cape Farewell in the Latitude of 40 degrees 30 minutes South and Longitude 185 degrees 58 minutes West from Greenwich[2]
18 April (Tasman Sea)	James Cook was on route between NZ and New Holland. One day before hitting the NH coast, Cook writes in his journal[2], that he is one degree to the west of the east coast of Van Diemen’s Land. So at this point, Cook calculates he is already directly above Van Diemen’s Land based on the longitudinal offset from Tasman’s coordinates. But he is not.
19 April (East Coast Australia)	Cook hits Point Hicks in the Latitude of 38 degrees 0 minutes South and in the Longitude of 211 degrees 7 minutes West[2].
	Longitudinal offset from Cape Farewell to Point Hicks is 25 degrees, 9 minutes
31 August (PNG)	Cook leaves uncharted lands and locates a known point “Caep Walsche” in New Guinea. (possible mistranslation of Dutch “Caep Valsche” meaning False Cape – because the feature is an island). Caep Walsche Latitude 8 degrees 24 minutes South, Longitude 222 degrees 55 minutes West
	Longitudinal offset from Caep Walsche to Point Hicks is 11 degrees 48 minutes
Furneaux on Cook’s second Voyage 1773
11 March (Tasmania)	Furneaux lands in Adventure Bay. “Just after we anchored, being a fine clear evening, had a good observation of the star Antares and the moon, which gave the longitude of 147° 34′ East, being in the latitude of 43° 20′ South.”
16-19 March (Tasmania)	Furneaux claims to proceed up the east coast of Tasmania to the Furneaux Islands
4 April (New Zealand)	Furneaux proceeds eastward across the Tasman sea where he “made the coast of New Zealand in 40° 30′ South, having made twenty-four degrees of longitude, from Adventure Bay, after a passage of fifteen days.” [3]

Furneaux’s charts are VERY odd

Furneaux’s chart has the southern coast of Tasmania perfectly positioned in relation to Point Hicks. Yet he has the east coast of Van Diemen’s land and the Furneaux Islands wrongly positioned in relation to Point Hicks, it has a longitudinal error of about 20 minutes.

At a glance of the chart alone and with no context, this looks like a classic longitudinal problem showing in a composite of two different charts.

But the navigational methods Furneaux used are the best high-tech methods available and should not produce such an error. Furneaux had a dedicated astronomer using celestial navigation by almanac method. He likely also used the brand new, game-changing technology – a chromometer. It is recorded that Cook’s second voyage carried 4 chronometers in total – so presumably the Adventure would carry at least one. Chronometers were insanely expensive at the time, so it would be very stupid to put all 4 chronometers on one ship lest that ship have an accident and sink. Furneaux’s measurements and charts should be very accurate with the gadgets he has on board.

The error makes even less sense when considering Furneaux’s accounts of travelling. Longitudinal problems arise when travelling long stretches eastward or westward while in open sea without reference points. Furneaux claims he left Adventure Bay (which is far south in Van Diemen’s land) and proceeded up the east coast of Van Diemen’s land – keeping visual sight of the land along the entire way. Upon leaving Adventure Bay, Furneaux somehow acquired an instant half a degree longitudinal problem whilst in sight of the coast, with a chronometer, an astronomer and up-to-date almanacs on board. Even if Furneaux had lost all of his navigational equipment – this error should not have happened.

I will leave this chart here for reference – this is from Furneaux and has a line showing his alleged path of travel. If you want to really appreciate how BS his story is, you can read his account here. Try following his story with modern maps and you will see the problem, there is something very wrong with his story.

What really happened?

Below is what I think happened – in 10 steps – see also the map with the 10 steps marked.

1. Furneaux uses Tasman’s chart to attempt to find Fredricks Henry Bay, approaching from the south west corner of Van Diemen’s Land
2. Furneaux fails, because Tasman’s chart strategically obscures a massive harbour system lying in “Storm Bay”. Furneaux goes into the wrong bay.
3. Furneaux charts the wrong bay – Adventure Bay, which he thinks is either Fredrick Henry Bay or a bay directly adjacent to Fredrick Henry Bay. Evidence of this is Furneaux’s description and chart of the “Maria Islands” – which are actually hills on the west half of the Tasman Peninsular. This deception becomes obvious when looking at a modern topographic chart of the Tasman peninsular – Furneaux looked at the hills on the peninsular through a telescope from a distance in Adventure Bay, and wrongly assumed they were Maria Island. He fabricated the Maria Islands using these distant observations without sailing near them. Furneaux writes that he stays in Adventure Bay “wooding and watering” for 5 days which is a total lie – he spends the 5 day alibi looking for the Bass Strait.
4. Furneaux departs Adventure Bay and heads WEST, not east as he claims. He sails up the WEST coast of Van Diemen’s Land. When he reaches Hunter Island in the north west corner of Van Diemen’s Land, he then dead-reckons towards “Point Hicks”.
5. Along the way across the Bass Strait, he spots Wilson’s Promontory – which he marks on his chart at the correct latitude, but incorrect longitude (as putting it in the correct place would blow his cover story). You can see this on Furneaux’s chart as a little phantom land mass at the same latitude as Wilsons Prom.
6. Furneaux locates and surveys the “Point Hicks” area. He is aware that Cook has fudged it’s location, and would have a ‘real’ chart to identify the right place. The colonial brains trust later uses this survey as a known reference area to correctly position parts in the final chart.
7. Furneaux dead-reckons a return towards to Adventure Bay, expecting to fall upon the east coast of Van Diemen’s Land on the way because he wrongly believes Adventure Bay is on the east coast.
8. During this dead-reckoning, he discovers Flinders Island/Furneaux Island group from the west side.
9. Furneaux hits the north coast of Van Diemen’s land and heads east. He follows the coast down along the Bay of Fires, St Helens etc. until he starts seeing landmarks that were described by Tasman.
10. Once he is sure he is on Tasman’s course, he plagiarises the rest of his chart down to Adventure Bay using Tasman’s chart, and doesn’t bother actually sailing the whole route. He is caught-out because he has missed Tasman’s Peninsular. He then goes to New Zealand.

After going back to England and crunching the data, and plotting the coordinates on a chart, the brains trust would have looked at the resulting plot and realised something was off.

The resulting Van Diemen’s Land plot would look too “fat” compared to Tasman’s skinny chart. Tasman’s chart has no problems so far, so there is no reason not to trust it. Besides, unlike Furneaux, Tasman actually went up around the bottom of Van Diemen’s Land – so Tasman’s account might be thought to be more reliable than coordinates from new and unknown technology, and the second-choice/second-class navigators (perhaps sub-par) on the second ship.

The overly “fat” chart manifests as a 20 minute ‘gap’ in longitude between Adventure Bay and the east coast. The colonial brains trust put Van Diemen’s Land on a weight-loss diet and make skinnier by 20 minutes. The south-west coast is positioned in relation to fake Point Hicks which Furneaux actually surveyed. The east coast and Furneaux Islands are shifted rather arbitrarily westwards to remove the 20 minute longitude gap and to put Adventure Bay on the east coast where it is supposed to be. This shift of the east coast of Van Diemen’s Land is coyly obscured in Furneaux’s longitudes when he hits the coast of New Zealand.

The problem is – the 20 minute fatness is not an error, and Van Diemen’s Land really is fatter. The British don’t realise that Tasman hid the Storm Bay harbour making all of Van Diemen’s Land skinnier than it really is. Furneaux would have known that if he had sailed up the east coast as he claims he did.

Cook came along later to Adventure Bay on 26 January 1777 in his third voyage, and I think he figured out what happened upon seeing the harbour in Storm Bay. He did his best to cover for Furneaux. But by that time, Furneaux’s fudged narratives and chart had already been published. The damage has already been done. A cleanup job was needed.

The Cover-up

Luckily for the British, Furneaux’s little adventure to Van Diemen’s Land was easily overshadowed by the celebrity of Cook. Perhaps the task of cover-up is as easy as emphasising other voyages, and allow this fraud to melt into obscurity.

Matthew Flinders came along later and smoothed things over by renaming a random bay near Hobart “Fredrick Henry Bay” which carries the name to this day. This is not Tasman’s Fredrick Henry Bay, but a bay that matches Furneaux’s story of lying north of Adventure Bay. But it is impossible to sail out of Flinders’ fake Fredrick Henry Bay, head north, and into the Tasman sea – as Tasman did from the real bay. The fake bay is landlocked in that direction. This rename helps confuse things for anyone trying to match up Furneaux’s stories with maps. If you know where Tasman’s Fredrick Henry Bay really is, and you read Furneaux’s story, you know Furneaux’s story is complete rubbish.

Another cover-up was the release of Burney’s chart[4]. Burney was the second in command on the ship. Apparently, he made his own chart for his own private use. The story goes – the Royal Navy etc. had no problem with him taking it home and showing all his friends. I call BS – normally there are specific voyage instructions that journals and charts are confiscated on return to home port as they may contain valuable strategic information. Burney’s chart has an inexplicably ‘fat’ Van Diemen’s Land. Below is an overlay where I have aligned the grid coordinates on Burney’s chart on Google Earth to show the chart is ‘fat’ like the real Van Diemen’s Land. Burney also has a margin with a list of handwritten coordinate points. Notably – these coordinates do not match coordinates published officially before Cook’s third voyage nor match anything resembling Furneaux’s written published accounts or chart. They are fabricated after-the-fact simply to make Van Diemen’s Land fat again.

The Maria Islands and Adventure Bay are misplaced, but everything else lines up better than the official chart with the real-life satellite image. At first I thought this could be an unadulterated raw data chart as it matches the satellite well, but the position of Adventure Bay is so off that it makes me think otherwise.

Here is Burney’s chart (red coastline) and Furneaux’s chart (blue coastline) overlayed using the coordinate grids on their charts. As both should be working from measurements from the same voyage, their charts should not be so different. But there are no points that line up. You would think at the least that Adventure Bay would line up, as they reckon they stopped for 5 days, and should have had plenty of time to do decent astronomical observations.

Why is this relevant to sovereignty?

The reason this matters is because it shows the British knew about the existence of the Bass Strait before the First Fleet. This means in 1788 the British knew that New Holland is not the same land as Van Diemen’s Land.

Tasman was instructed to claim lands under certain conditions. Abel Tasman implied that Van Diemen’s Land had no sovereign – as his instructions were to only claim by flag where 1. there is no sovereign or 2. with the consent of the sovereign or peoples. In case 2, Tasman was instructed to record details/names etc on obtaining consent. As he recorded no names, Tasman effectively declared that land terra nullius on behalf of the Dutch crown. This is in contrast to Tasman’s actions in New Zealand where he had diplomatic interaction with Maori and did not plant a flag. The British followed this lead of recognition – this is why the Maori got a treaty and we didn’t.

Furneaux – upon visiting Adventure Bay – perpetuated the story that the natives were “a very ignorant and wretched set of people”, or – without an effective sovereign. Furneaux also wrote that he believes there is no strait despite it’s existence and Furneaux admitting to looking for it. James Cook swung-by Adventure Bay on his third voyage (26 January 1777) before he was killed in Hawaii. Cook’s surgeon William Anderson claimed that the natives in Van Diemen’s Land used the same word Kangaroo as the natives in the Endeavour River in north Queensland. This was done to fabricate anthropological evidence that there was no strait between New Holland and Van Diemen’s Land. This helped set a narrative that we; the natives of Van Diemen’s Land and New Holland alike, are all a single wretched set of ignorant sub-humans with no sovereignty and impossible to treat with.

So upon the arrival of the first fleet in 1788, settlement was made without any treaty. A treaty was not necessary – because Abel Tasman and the Dutch have effectively already declared the single land (Van Diemen’s + New Holland joined) a terra nullius. So British figure they can blame the Dutch for the terra nullius ‘error’. However – the British cannot do this if they have prior knowledge of the Bass Strait. This is why the British denied the existence of the Bass Strait until after settlement had begun – when they sent Bass out to fake first-discover it.

British invasion was fully premeditated – there is no accidental misunderstanding. The British never had any intention to treaty with us from the start. This is a secret that remains to this day to save the Crown’s arrs – because it still needs to stay secret until the unfinished business of the “Aboriginal Problem” is solved.

References

[1] Dirk Rembrantse, A short Relation out of the Journal of Captain Abel Jan Tasman, upon the Discovery of Terra incognita ; not long since published in the Low Dutch. *This is the source of Tasman’s journal that Cook used

[2] Cook’s voyage https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/e00043.html

[3] Furneaux in Cook’s book

[4] Burney’s chart https://eprints.utas.edu.au/17605/