It has been already mentioned that Bass Strait was named by Governor
Hunter on the recommendation of Flinders. There is no reason to suppose
that George Bass himself made any claim that his name should be applied
to his discovery. One derives the impression, from a study of his
character as revealed in his words and acts, that he would have been
perfectly content had some other name been chosen. He was one of those
rare men who find their principal joy in the free exercise of an intrepid
and masculine energy, especially in directions affording a stimulus to
intellectual curiosity. He did not even write a book or an essay about
the work he had done. The whaleboat voyage was tersely recorded in a
diary for the information of the Governor; his other material was handed
over to Collins for the purposes of his History of New South Wales, and
Bass went about his business unrewarded, officially unhonoured.
It is curiously significant of the modesty of this really notable man
that when, in 1801, he again sailed to Australia, he mentioned quite
casually in a letter that he had passed through Bass Strait without any
reference to his own connection with the passage. It was not, to him,
"the strait which I discovered," or "my strait," or "the strait named
after me," but simply Bass Strait, giving it the proper geographical name
scored on the map, just as he might have mentioned the name of any other
part of the globe traversed during the voyage. The natural pride of the
discoverer assuredly would have been no evidence of egotism; but Bass was
singularly free from all semblance of human weakness of that kind. The
difficulties battled with, the effort joyfully made, the discovery
accomplished, he appears hardly to have thought any more about his own
part in it. Not only his essential modesty but his affectionate nature
and the frank charm of his manner are apparent in such of his letters as
have been preserved.
The association of Bass with Flinders was fruitful in achievement, and
their friendship was perfect in its manliness; it is pathetic to realise
that when they parted, within a few weeks after the return of the Norfolk
to Sydney, these two men, still young in years and rich in hope, ability
and enterprise, were never to meet again.
As from this time Bass disappears from the story of his friend's life,
what is known of his later years may be here related. His fate is a
mystery that has never been satisfactorily cleared up, and perhaps never
will be. He returned to England "shortly after" the voyage of the
Norfolk. So wrote Flinders; but "shortly after" means later than April,
1799, for in that month Bass sat on a board of inquiry into the Isaac
Nicholls case, to be mentioned again hereafter.
In England, Bass married Elizabeth Waterhouse, sister of his old shipmate
Henry Waterhouse, the captain of the Reliance. With a wife to maintain,
he was apparently dissatisfied with his pay and prospects as a naval
surgeon. Nor was he quite the kind of man who would, in the full flush of
his restless energy, settle down to the ordinary practice of his
profession. Confined to a daily routine in some English town, he would
have been like a caged albatross pining for regions of illimitable blue.
Within three months of his marriage Bass had become managing owner of a
smart little 140-ton brig, the Venus, in a venture in which a syndicate
of friends had invested 10,890 pounds. In the early part of 1801 he
sailed in her with a general cargo of merchandise for Port Jackson. The
brig, which carried twelve guns--for England was at war, and there were
risks to be run
--was a fast sailer, teak-built and copper-sheathed, and was described as
"one of the most complete, handsome and strong-built ships in the River
Thames, and will suit any trade." She was loaded "as deep as she can swim
and as full as an egg," Bass wrote to his brother-in-law; and there is
the sailor's jovial pleasure in a good ship, with, perhaps, a suggestion
of the surgeon's point of view, in his declaration that she was "very
sound and tight, and bids fair to remain sound much longer than any of
her owners."
But the speculation was not an immediate success. The market was "glutted
with goods beyond all comparison," in addition to which Governor King,
who succeeded Hunter in 1800, was conducting the affairs of the
settlement upon a plan of the most rigid economy. "Our wings are clipped
with a vengeance, but we shall endeavour to fall on our feet somehow or
other," wrote Bass early in October, 1801.
A contract made with the Governor, to bring salt pork from Tahiti at
sixpence per pound, provided profitable employment for the Venus. Hogs
were plentiful in the Society Islands, and could be procured cheaply. The
arrangement commended itself to the thrifty Governor, who had hitherto
been paying a shilling per pound for pork, and it kept Bass actively
engaged. He was "tired of civilised life." There was, too, money to be
made, and he sent home satisfactory bills "to stop a few holes in my
debts." "That pork voyage," he wrote to his brother-in-law, "has been our
first successful speculation"; and he spoke again in fond admiration of
the Venus; "she is just the same vessel as when we left England, never
complains or cries, though we loaded her with pork most unmercifully."
While he was pursuing this trade, the French expedition under Baudin
visited Sydney, and they, on their chart of Wilson's Promontory gave the
name of Venus Bay to an inlet on the west side of Cape Liptrap. They also
bought goods to the extent of 359 pounds 10 shillings from "Mr. George
Basse."* (* Manuscript accounts of Baudin, Archives Nationales BB4 999.)
Bass now secured fishing concessions in New Zealand waters, from which he
hoped much. "The fishery is not to be put in motion till after my return
to old England," he wrote in January, 1803. Then, he said playfully, "I
mean to seize upon my dear Bess, bring her out here, and make a poissarde
of her, where she cannot fail to find plenty of ease for her tongue. We
have, I assure you, great plans in our heads, but, like the basket of
eggs, all depends upon the success of the voyage I am now upon." It was
the voyage from which he never returned.
There is another charming allusion to his wife in a letter written from
Tahiti: "I would joke Bess upon the attractive charms of Tahiti females
but that they have been so much belied in their beauty that she might
think me attracted in good earnest. However, there is nothing to fear
here." He speaks of her again in writing to his brother: "I have written
to my beloved wife, and do most sincerely lament that we are so far
asunder. The next voyage I have she must make with me, for I shall badly
pass it without her." The pathos of his reference to her in a letter of
October, 1801, can be felt in its note of manly sympathy, and is deepened
by the recollection that the young bride never saw him again. "Our dear
Bess talks of seeing me in eighteen months. Alas! poor Bess, the when is
uncertain, very uncertain in everything except its long distances. Turn
our eyes where we will, we see nothing but glutted markets around us."
The pork-procuring ventures continued till 1803. In that year Bass
arranged to sail beyond Tahiti to the Chilian coast, to buy other
provisions for the use of the colony. Whether he intended to force the
hand of fortune by engaging in the contraband trade can only be inferred.
That there was certainly a large amount of illicit traffic with South
America on the part of venturesome captains who made use of Port Jackson
as a harbour of refuge, is clear from extant documents.
The position was this. The persistent policy of Spain in the government
of her South American possessions was to conserve trade exclusively for
Spanish ships and Spanish merchants; and for this purpose several
restrictions were imposed upon unauthorised foreign traders. Nevertheless
the inhabitants of these colonies urgently required more goods than were
imported under such excessive limitations, and wanted to get them much
cheaper than was possible while monopoly and heavy taxation prevailed.
There was, consequently, a tempting inducement to skippers who were
sufficiently bold to take risks, to ship goods for Chili and Peru, and
run them in at some place along the immense coast-line, evading the lazy
eyes of perfunctory Spanish officials, or securing their corrupt
connivance by bribes. Contraband trade was, in fact, extensively
practised, and plenty of people in the Spanish colonies throve on it. As
a modern historian writes: "The vast extent of the border of Spain's
possessions made it impossible for her to guard it efficiently. Smuggling
could therefore be carried on with impunity, and the high prices which
had been given to European wares in America by the system of restriction,
constituted a sufficient inducement to lead the merchants of other
nations to engage in contraband trade."* The profits from success were
great; but the consequences of detection were disastrous. (* Bernard
Moses, Spanish Rule in America, 289.)
Now Bass, as already related, had brought out to Sydney in the Venus a
large quantity of unsaleable merchandise. He could not dispose of it
under conditions of glut. He had hoped that the Governor would take the
cargo into the Government store and let it be sold even at a 50 per cent
reduction. But King declined to permit that to be done. Here, then, was a
singularly courageous man, fond of daring enterprises, in command of a
good ship, with an unsaleable cargo on his hands. On the other side of
the Pacific was a country where such a cargo might, with luck, be sold at
a bounding profit. He could easily find out how the trade was done. There
was more than one among those with whom he would associate in Sydney who
knew a great deal about it.
One or two sentences in Bass's last letters to Henry Waterhouse contain
mysterious hints, which to him, with his experience of Port Jackson,
would be significant. He explained that he intended taking the Venus to
visit the coast of Chili in search of provisions, "and that they may not
in that part of the world mistake me for a contrabandist, I go provided
with a very diplomatic-looking certificate from the Governor here,
stating the service upon which I am employed, requesting aid and
protection in obtaining the food wanted. And God grant you may fully
succeed, says your warm heart, in so benevolent an object; and thus also
say I; Amen, say many others of my friends."
But was the diplomatic-looking paper intended rather to serve as a screen
than as a guarantee of bona fides? "In a few hours," wrote Bass at the
beginning of February, 1803, "I sail again on another pork voyage, but it
combines circumstances of a different nature also"; and at the end of the
same letter he added: "Speak not of South America to anyone out of your
family, for there is treason in the very name." What did he mean by that?
He spoke of "digging gold in South America," and clearly did not mean it
in the strict literal sense.
It is true that the Governor was anxious to get South American cattle and
beef for the settlement in Sydney, but can that have been the only motive
for a voyage beyond Tahiti? "If our approaching voyage proves at all
fortunate in its issue, I expect to make a handsome thing out of it, and
to be much expedited on my return to old England," Bass wrote in January.
He would not have been likely to make so very handsome a thing out of
beef in one voyage, to enable him to expedite his return to England.
The factors of the case are, then, that Bass had on his hands a large
quantity of goods which he had failed to sell in Sydney; that there was a
considerable and enormously profitable contraband trade with South
America at the time; that he expected to make a very large and rapid
profit out of the venture he was about to undertake; that he warned
Waterhouse against mentioning the matter outside the family circle, "for
there is treason in the very name"; and that he was himself a man
distinguished by dash and daring, who was very anxious to make a
substantial sum and return to England soon. The inference from his
language and circumstances as to the scheme he had in hand is
irresistible.
The "very diplomatic-looking certificate" which the Governor gave him was
dated February 3, 1803. It certified that "Mr. George Bass, of the
brigantine Venus, has been employed since the first day of November,
1801, upon His Britannic Majesty's service in procuring provisions for
the subsistence of His Majesty's colony, and still continues using those
exertions;" and it went on to affirm that should he find it expedient to
resort to any harbour in His Catholic Majesty's dominions upon the west
coast of America, "this instrument is intended to declare my full belief
that his sole object in going there will be to procure 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 Spanish treasure fleet by British frigates
off Cadiz (October 5th). But in previous years, while Spain, under
pressure from Napoleon, lent her countenance to his aggressive policy,
English privateers had freely plundered Spanish commerce in the south
Pacific, and some of them had brought their prizes to Sydney. That this
was done with the knowledge of the authorities cannot be doubted.
Everybody knew about it. When the French exploring ships were lying at
Sydney in 1802, Peron saw there vessels "provided with arms, fitting out
for the western coast of America, stored with merchandise of various
kinds. These vessels were intended to establish, by force of arms, a
contraband commerce with the inhabitants of Peru, extremely advantageous
to both parties."
It would not, therefore, be wonderful that the Spanish authorities in
Chili or Peru should regard Port Jackson as a kind of wasp's nest, and
should look with suspicion on any vessel coming thence which might fall
into their hands, however much her commander might endeavour to make of
his official certificate declaring the Governor's "full belief" in his
lawful intentions. The irritation caused by the use that was being made
of Sydney as a privateering and contraband base of operations can be well
imagined. As early as December, 1799, indeed, Governor Hunter related
that a captured Spanish merchant vessel had been brought into port, and
he acknowledged that "this being the second Spanish prize brought hither,
we cannot be surprised, should it be known that such captures make a
convenience of this harbour, if it should provoke a visit from some of
the ships of war from the Spanish settlements on that coast." The
Spaniards would naturally be thirsting for revenge; and a ship sailing
direct from the port of which the raiders made a "convenience" would be
liable to feel their ire, should there be the semblance of provocation.
The authorities would have been justified in holding up the Venus if they
suspected that she carried contraband goods; and their treatment of her
officers and crew might be expected to reflect the temper of their
disposition towards Port Jackson and all that concerned it.
If, as the Harrington reported, Bass and his companions were sent to the
mines, the Spanish officials managed their act of punishment, or revenge,
very quietly. But at that time there was not a formal state of
belligerency between England and Spain, though the tension of public
feeling in Great Britain concerning Spanish relations with France was
acute. If it were considered that such an act as the seizure of the Venus
would be likely to precipitate a declaration of war, the motive for
secrecy was strong. Secrecy, moreover, would have been in complete
conformity with Spanish methods in South America. It is not recorded
whether the seizure of the Venus occurred at Callao, Valparaiso or
Valdivia; but a British lieutenant, Fitzmaurice, who was at Valparaiso
five years later, heard that a man named Bass had been in Lima some years
before.
A friend of the Bass family residing at Lincoln in 1852 wrote a letter to
Samuel Sidney, the author of The Three Colonies of Australia, stating
that Bass's mother last heard of him "in the Straits of China." But this
was evidently an error of memory. If Bass ever got out of South America,
he would have written to his "dear Bess," to Waterhouse, and to Flinders.
The latter, in 1814, wrote of him as "alas, now no more." There is on
record a report that he was seen alive in South America in that year, but
the story is doubtful. He was a man full of affectionate loyalty to his
friends, and it is not conceivable that he would have left them without
news of him if any channel of communication had been open, as would have
been the case had he been at liberty as late as 1814. His father-in-law
made enquiries, but failed to obtain news. The report of the Harrington
was probably true, but beyond that we really have no information upon
which we can depend. The internal history of Spanish America has been
very scantily investigated, and it is quite possible that even yet some
diligent student of archives may find, some day, particulars concerning
the fate of this brave and adventurous spirit.
The disappearance of Bass's letters to his mother is a misfortune which
the student of Australian history must deplore. He was observant, shrewd,
an untiring traveller, and an entertaining correspondent. He probably
related to his mother, to whom he wrote frequently, the story of his
excursions and experiences, and the historical value of all that he wrote
would be very great. The letters, said the Lincoln friend, were long,
"containing full accounts of his discoveries." His mother treasured them
till she died, when they came into the possession of a Miss Calder. She
kept them in a box, and used occasionally to amuse herself by reading
them. But some time before 1852 Miss Calder went to the box to look at
them again, and found that they had disappeared. Whether she had lent
them to some person who had failed to return them, or had mislaid them,
is unknown. It is possible that they may still be in existence in some
dusty cupboard in England, and that we may even yet be gratified by an
examination of documents which would assuredly enable us to understand
more of the noble soul of George Bass.
It has been mentioned that Flinders and Bass did not meet again after the
voyage of the Norfolk and Bass's return to England. Though Sydney was the
base of both Flinders in the Investigator and Bass in the Venus in 1802
and 1803, they always had the ill-luck to miss each other. Bass was at
Tahiti while Flinders lay in port from May 9th to July 21st, 1802. He
returned in November, and left once more on his final voyage in February,
1803. Flinders arrived in Sydney again, after his exploration of the Gulf
of Carpentaria, in June, 1803. A farewell letter from him to his friend
is quoted in a later chapter.