Page:The State and Position of Western Australia.djvu/31

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The importance of having a secure harbour at Swan River, where vessels can refit, as well as lie in security in the winter season, is considerable in a political, as well as a commercial point of view. This, at present, may chance to be disregarded or overlooked; but, if an enemy were ever to get possession of the place, and fortify it, so as to render it a secure resort, from whence his privateers might annoy our trade in the Eastern seas, the British Government would have cause to regret the not having secured possession by requisite fortifications. The harbour at Cockburn Sound, which fully answers to the above description, is so capacious that vessels could lie in it without being annoyed by batteries from the shore; and it will be seen, by reference to Captain Preston’s report, that when vessels require to be hove down, Port Royal, within its limits, is well adapted for that purpose.

The great advantages for commerce which Western Australia derives from its position, will be obvious from a glance at a map of the world; but persons acquainted with the coasts of New Holland, and the monsoons that blow in the Indian seas, will be better able to appreciate how much it is favoured as to situation. As the north-west winds prevail from March till September, during that season vessels from the eastward rarely succeed in getting up the west coast of Australia; but, most frequently, after beating about for several weeks off Cape Leeuwin, they have been forced to put about, and go round the east coast, and through the dangerous straits of Torres, to get to India and the westward.^[1] Swan River, on the contrary, is so much to wind-

1. In the work on South Australia, where the sailing distances are given from Port Lincoln, the wind is said to he favourable, at all seasons, from that port to Timor, Java, Madras, Ceylon, Mauritius, and Cape of Good Hope. As South Australia, however, lies considerably to the south-east of these ports, it is clear that this cannot be the case while the north-west winds prevail. The error is palpable.