In 1797 – so about 10 years after the First Fleet – Bass and Flinders made a series of shorter expeditions from Port Jackson. This post I’m going to write about what I think was the overall strategy behind these expeditions.
Bass 1797-1798
The first of these short expeditions was by Bass. In 1797-1798 he followed the coast line southwards from Port Jackson almost all the way to current-day Melbourne.
The world was historically divided by European colonisers into two hemispheres. The Treaty of Saragossa runs through the New Holland continent, and Alexander Darlymple’s writings show the British had their eyes on parts of New Holland that lay in the western hemisphere.
The Treaty of Saragossa is where the border that separates two hemispheres is described. There are two descriptions of the line given in the treaty text. One description gives a number of leagues west of the Maluku Islands. Another description says it runs through the Islands of the Sails – and these are today called the Mariana Islands where Guam is.
What I think Bass was doing on this expedition was surveying to find the southern-most point of the New Holland mainland that is still in the western Hemisphere. Bass turned his boat around when he reached the same longitude of Guam, and headed back to Port Jackson.
Flinders 1798
In 1798, Flinders also went on an expedition in the Bass Strait and around the Furneaux Islands.
I think this expedition was to answer some questions raised by Tobias Furneaux’s voyage. Tobias Furneaux was the captain of the Adventure – the second ship on Cook’s second voyage. This voyage by Flinders seems to retrace parts of the path that I hypothesised (pink line in the chart) Furneaux to have taken.
Flinders+Bass 1798-1799
Flinders and Bass then together went on a longer voyage where they circumnavigated Van Diemen’s land. They charted some sections in a lot of detail, up in the Derwant River (near Hobart) and the Tamar River (leads to Launceston).
These specific sections of survey have been chosen to scout out places for future settlements that will help quarter up Van Deimens land into chunks, to shrink Dutch territory and displace Tasman’s first discovery.
1799 Flinders “Queensland” expedition.
Flinders was off again – this time for less than a month where he visited two areas in particular on what is now the Queensland coast (although at the time Queensland didn’t exist). Here is a rough map of the entire voyage – in just over a month. Note how much other coast was just skipped-over, and the voyage made a bee-line to two areas.
The first area was Moreton Bay – where Brisbane is today. The fruit/milk icons shows the places he stopped.
The white line is the exact halfway latitude between Cape York – the northernmost point of Australia and South Cape – the southernmost point of Tasmania. Flinders even went inland and climbed up some of the Glasshouse Mountains. He named Redcliffe as some cliffs near the current-day bridge, but today the whole peninsular is called Redcliffe. This area ended up becoming a penal colony which was later relocated up the Brisbane River to the current Brisbane CBD.
The second area was Hervey’s Bay – today called Hervey Bay – on the west side of Fraser Island. The white line on this chart marks exactly half way between the latitude of Cape York and Wilsons Promontory. Wilsons Prom was surveyed by Bass (1797 voyage) to be the southern-most point of New Holland that lay in the western hemisphere of the world.
The reason to survey these areas of Moreton Bay and Hervey’s Bay is to find strategic places just in case of a conflict with the Dutch. For example – by placing a settlement in Moreton Bay makes a northern boundary marker in case the territory is halved along a north-south Dutch-British line. If Van Diemen’s Land is lost to the Dutch, a settlement near Hervey’s Bay would serve the same purpose.