cure food, without any
view to private commerce or any other view whatsoever."

Notwithstanding the terms of this certificate, however, there is clear
evidence that Governor King was fully aware of the nature of the trade
conducted with the Spanish-American colonies by vessels using Port
Jackson; and though it may be that Bass did not tell him in so many words
what his whole intentions were, King knew that Bass had a large stock of
commodities to sell, and could hardly have been ignorant that a
considerable portion of them were re-shipped on the Venus for this
voyage. In a later despatch he alluded to vessels which carried goods
"from hence to the coasts of the Spanish possessions on the west side of
America," and he observed "that this must be a forced trade, similar to
that carried on among the settlements of that nation and Portugal on the
east side of America, and that much risk will attend it to the
adventurers."

Bass sailed from Sydney on February 5th, 1803. He never returned, and no
satisfactory account of what became of him is forthcoming.* (* The writer
of the article on Bass in the Dictionary of National Biography says that
"except that he left Australia in 1799 to return to England nothing
certain is known of Bass's subsequent history." But we know fairly fully
what he was doing up till February, 1803, as related above. The Bass
mystery commences after that date. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th
edition) finds no space for a separate article on this very remarkable
man.) Later in 1803 the brig Harrington, herself concerned in the
contraband trade, reported that the Venus had been captured and
confiscated by the Spaniards in Peru, and that Bass and the mate, Scott,
had been sent as prisoners to the silver mines. In December, 1804,
Governor King remarked in a despatch to the Secretary of State that he
had been "in constant expectation" of hearing from Bass, "to whom, there
is no doubt, some accident has occurred." The Harrington had reported the
capture of the Venus before King wrote that. Why did he not mention the
circumstance to the British Government? Why did he not allude to the
country to which he well knew that Bass intended to sail? It would seem
that King carefully avoided referring in his official despatches to an
enterprise upon which he had good reason to be aware that Bass had
embarked.

War between Great Britain and Spain did not break out till December,
1804, after the seizure of the Spanis