when
looking for Adventure Bay, they discovered the channel which bears the
name of D'Entrecasteaux. They remained a month, when they departed on
their search, and returned on the 20th January, 1793, to complete their
observations. They found that the channel extended to the Storm Bay of
Tasman: they entered and named the Huon, and the Rivere du Nord, now the
Derwent, and examined the different harbours. Their charts are said to
exhibit the finest specimen of marine surveying ever made in a new
country.[9] Of D'Entrecasteaux's Channel, then deemed the most important
discovery since the time of Tasman, Rossel, who recorded the events of
the voyage, writes with rapture:--"A harbour, twenty-four miles in
length, and equally safe in every part. Such a retreat, in a gulph which
bears the menacing name of Storm Bay, is a luxury that, to be able to
express, must be felt."

Captain John Hayes, of the Bombay marine, with the private ships _Duke_
and _Duchess_, examined Storm Bay and D'Entrecasteaux's Channel, in
1794. He passed up the Rivere du Nord much farther than the French,
which he called the Derwent; and in his passage affixed names to various
places, which have effaced those given by the original French
discoverers--whose survey, however, to the extent of their navigation,
was more correct than his own.

The form of Van Diemen's Land had long been a nautical problem. Captain
Hunter, observing the swell of the ocean, deemed the existence of a
strait highly probable. Mr. George Bass, surgeon of the royal navy, a
gentleman to whom his generous friend Flinders refers with great
admiration, resolved to test the conjecture. He had already given proof
of intrepidity: in company with Flinders and a boy, he embarked in a
boat, eight feet long, called _Tom Thumb_. After escaping great dangers,
they returned to Port Jackson with valuable information respecting the
coast.

In 1798, Bass obtained from Governor Hunter a six-oared whale boat, six
men, and six weeks provisions: with this outfit he proceeded along the
eastern coast of New Holland, occasionally landing and obtaining
supplies, which enabled him to prolong his absence to eleven weeks. He
continued his course until the agitation of the water convinced him that
the open sea was not far distant: he discovered Western Port, and a
country of great attraction. He explored six hundred miles of coast,
one-half of which was hitherto unknown; an enterprise beyond example in
naut