as much as when I saw you."

At this time Bass was a young man of thirty-four, [Sidenote: 1817]
"six feet high, dark complexion, wears spectacles, very penetrating
countenance," says his father-in-law. Nothing more was heard of the
_Venus_ or her crew until there arose a rumour that the ship had been
taken by the Spaniards on the coast of Peru. A Captain Campbell, master of
the _Harrington_, is alleged to have made the statement that a Spanish
gentleman told him that Bass had been seized when landing from his boat
and carried to the mines, and that the ship was afterwards taken and the
crew sent to share the fate of their chief. The cause of this seizure was,
says one unauthenticated account, because Bass requested permission to
trade, was refused, and then threatened to bombard the town.

Lieutenant Fitzmaurice was at Valparaiso in 1803, and he states that all
British prisoners in Chili and Peru had been released, and that he had
heard of Mr. Bass being in Lima five or six years before. A letter in the
Record Office, London, dated Liverpool, New South Wales, December 15th,
1817, says:--

"I have just heard a report that Mr. Bass is alive yet in South
America. A capt'n of a vessel belonging to this port, trading
among the islands to the east, fell in with a whaler, and the
capt'n informed him he had seen such a person, and described the
person of Mr. Bass. The capt'n, knowing Mr. Bass well, is of a
belief that, [from] the description that the master of the whaler
gives of him, it's certainly Mr. Bass, being a doctor, too, which
is still a stronger reason.

I am, etc., THOS. MOORE."

And so in this sad fashion, his fate a mystery, perhaps the victim of
savages on some lonely Pacific island, perhaps dragging his life out a
broken-hearted prisoner in the mines of Peru, the gallant young explorer
passes out of history.

When Flinders returned to England he found an enthusiastic admirer and a
powerful friend in Sir Joseph Banks. The young lieutenant was getting
ready for publication a small book describing the circumnavigation of Van
Diemen's Land, and while he was doing this Banks induced the Admiralty to
prepare H.M.S. _Investigator_ for surveying service in Australian waters
and give Flinders charge of her, with the rank of commander. Banks had
everything to do with the arrangements for the expedition; and how much
was thought of his capacity for this work is shown by a