Indian Ocean. This opinion, which he constantly asserted, was the
principal cause of my services being offered to the Governor to ascertain
the principal cause of it." Further, although Colonel David Collins was
not in Sydney at the time of the discovery, what he wrote in his account
of the English Colony in New South Wales (2nd edition, London, 1804), was
based on first-hand information; and he was no less direct in his
statement: "There was every appearance of an extensive strait, or rather
an open sea"; and he adds that Bass "regretted that he had not been
possessed of a better vessel, which would have enabled him to
circumnavigate Van Diemen's Land" (pages 443 and 444).

These passages, when compared with Bass's own careful language, leave no
doubt that Bass was fully conscious of the great discovery he had made,
though a complete demonstration was as yet lacking.* (* The reasons given
above appear also to justify me in saying that there is insufficient
warrant for the statement of Sir J.K. Laughton (Dictionary of National
Biography XLX 326) that "Bass's observations were so imperfect that it
was not until they were plotted after his return that the importance of
what he had done was at once apparent.")

An interesting light is thrown on the admiration felt for Bass among the
colonists at Sydney, by Francois Peron, the historian of Baudin's voyage
of exploration. When the French were at Port Jackson in 1802, the
whaleboat was lying beached on the foreshore, and was preserved, says
Peron, with a kind of "religious respect." Small souvenirs were made of
its timbers; and a piece of the keel enclosed in a silver frame, was
presented by the Governor to Captain Baudin, as a memorial of the
"audacieuse navigation." Baudin's artist, in making a drawing of Sydney,
was careful to show Bass's boat stayed up on the sand; and Peron, in his
Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres Australes, respectfully described the