Sydney when the Investigator lay there, greatly to Flinders' disappointment. "Fortune seems determined to give me disappointments," he wrote to Mrs. Kent; "when I came into Port Jackson all the most esteemed of my friends were absent. In the case of Bass I have been twice served this way."[1] But he left a letter for his friend with Governor King.[1] It was the last word which passed between these two men; and, remembering what they did together, one can hardly read the end of the letter without feeling the emotion with which it was penned:
"I shall first thank you, my dear Bass, for the two letters left for me with Bishop, and then say how much I am disappointed that the speculation is not likely to afford you a competency so soon as we had hoped. This fishing and pork-carrying may pay your expenses, but the only other advantage you get by it is experience for a future voyage, and this I take to be the purport of your Peruvian expedition.
"Although I am so much interested in your success, yet what I say about it will be like one of Shortland's letters, vague conjectures only, mingled with 'I hope'. Concerning the Investigator and myself, there will be more certainty in what I write. In addition to the south coast, we have explored the east coast as far as Cape Palmerston, with the islands and extensive reefs which lie off. These run from a little to the north-west of Breaksea Spit to those of the Labyrinth. The passage through Torres Straits you will learn as much of here as I can tell you. The newspaper of June 12 last will give you information enough to go through, and it is the best I have (the chart excepted) until the strait is properly surveyed. Should these three ships go through safely, and I do not fear the contrary, the
