a foul wind, Bass beached her not far from Ram Head. He had passed Point
Hicks in the night. Cape Howe was rounded on the 15th, and on the 25th
the boat entered Port Jackson.

Bass and his men had accomplished a great achievement. In an open boat,
exposed to the full rigours of the weather in seas that are frequently
rough and were on this voyage especially storm-lashed, persecuted
persistently by contrary gales, they had travelled twelve hundred miles,
principally along an unknown coast, which they had for the first time
explored. Hunter in his official despatch commented on Bass's
"perseverance against adverse winds and almost incessant bad weather,"
and complimented him upon his sedulous examination of inlets in search of
secure harbours. But there can be no better summary of the voyage than
that penned by Flinders, who from his own experience could adequately
appreciate the value of the performance. Writing fifteen years later,
when Bass had disappeared and was believed to be dead, his friend said:--

"It should be remembered that Mr. Bass sailed with only six weeks'
provisions; but with the assistance of occasional supplies of petrels,
fish, seals'-flesh, and a few geese and black swans, and by abstinence,
he had been enabled to prolong his voyage beyond eleven weeks. His ardour
and perseverance were crowned, in despite of the foul winds which so much
opposed him, with a degree of success not to have been anticipated from
such feeble means. In three hundred miles of coast from Port Jackson to
the Ram Head, he added a number of particulars which had escaped Captain
Cook, and will always escape any navigator in a first discovery, unless
he have the time and means of joining a close examination by boats to
what may be seen from the ship.

"Our previous knowledge of the coast scarcely extended beyond the Ram