174 EXPLOEATION BY SEA. teaiix. 1791-92 four of the ship's boats, from the reef on which the ship struck along the northern coast of New South Wales to Coepang. The wreck tookplace on the 28th August, 1791, and the boats reached Batavia on the 16th September.* The expedition, comprising the ships Recherche and Esperance, sent out by the French Government under the d^EnteecaB- Command of Bear- Admiral Bruni d^Entrecasteaux and Cap- tain Huon de Kermadec, for the purpose of ascertaining the fate of La P^rouse, anchored in Storm Bay on the 21st April, 1792; and during their stay there, which lasted until the 16th of May, the Frenchmen surveyed and named various places on the coast, including d'Entrecasteaux Channel, the entrance to the rivers Huon and Derwent, Bruni Island, Port Esperance, and Becherche Bay — ^names which have since retained their places on the map. It was in September, 1791, while Phillip was exploring Vancouver, the country around Bose Hill, that Captain Vancouver sighted the south-west coast of New Holland and discovered King George's Sound, He remained there for some weeks ; and after having explored the Sound and done full justice to the oysters, he sailed away to the east — ^thus losing the opportunity of making those discoveries which afterwards moved the ambitious spirit of Flinders. The dangerous nature of the navigation along the coast, added to want of time for prosecuting the work of discovery in these seas, a^ioration are the reasons given by Vancouver for abandoning it at the very time when it seemed to promise good results for his labour. It was in much the same way that Captain Furneaux, after his separation from Captain Cook in 1773, contented himself with a few days' sailing along the coast of Van Diemen's Land from Adventure Bay, and then bore away to New Zealand — ^leaving it to Bass to discover the straits which have made his name immortal. It is my opinion," said Furneaux, '* that there is no straits between
- Hamilton, Voyage Round the World in H.M. Frigate Pandora, pp.
104-137 ; Flinders, fatroduction, p. xvii ; plate ziii. Digitized by Google
