Read an Excerpt
The Letters of George & Elizabeth Bass
By Miriam Estensen Allen & Unwin
Copyright © 2009 Miriam Estensen
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-74176-421-5
CHAPTER 1
THE LIVES OF GEORGE AND ELIZABETH BASS
George Bass
In the early morning of 7 September 1795 two British naval ships approached the line of cliffs that guarded the entrance to Britain's Australian colony of New South Wales. Once through the gap between rocky headlands, they moved slowly past wooded promontories and white sand beaches, and by evening had dropped their anchors before the little settlement of Sydney. In the dawning light of the next morning, a young naval surgeon, George Bass, saw closely the country that would become central to the remaining eight years of his life.
George Bass was born in Lincolnshire in January 1771, when the surrounding fenlands would have been gripped in wintry greyness. On 3 February he was baptised in the centuries-old stone church of St Denis in the village of Aswarby. His father, a well-established tenant farmer, died when the boy was six. A year later Sarah Bass moved with her son to the town of Boston. Here slate-roofed houses and narrow streets spread out from the imposing church of St Botolph with its pinnacles and tall, ornate lantern tower, and the curving course of the Witham River was lined with wharves and warehouses. The boy would have watched the plying of ships and boats on the winds and tides of the river, bearing cargoes from and to the world beyond. George was a clever, inquisitive child, fascinated by stories of the sea. Britain's sea-going traditions went back many centuries and in Bass' childhood the great 1768–79 voyages of James Cook were current news. The navy had elevated Cook to fame on the oceans of the world, and to be at sea with the possibility of making such discoveries was a prospect that gripped young George. His mother, however, had other ambitions for her only child, and apprenticed him at age sixteen to an apothecary-surgeon.
At the end of his two-year apprenticeship, George Bass travelled to London and on 2 April 1789 undertook the examinations necessary for qualification as a member of the Corporation of Surgeons. As a result he became entitled 'to the several Privileges, Franchises, and Immunities' of Examined and Approved Surgeons and to the title of Mr. But the young man's eagerness to go to sea persisted, and two months later he presented himself again to the Court of Examiners, and this time received his certificate as a naval surgeon's first mate on a ship of any rate. Thus on a windy day in Portsmouth in early July 1789, George Bass, eighteen years old, boarded HMS Flirt and three days later saw the open sea for the first time. Clearly there was for Bass an immediate enchantment in the sight of that vastness reaching for the sky, which possessed him for the rest of his life.
George Bass had entered the practice of surgery when, like many other sciences, it was moving forward under the far-reaching intellectual impetus of the Age of Enlightenment. Generated by the great thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, men such as Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton, it made fact and reason the essential features of knowledge, which was to be based on experience and observation. Such scientific thinking would shape the modern world. It would also become the basis of Bass' restless intellectual probings, his wide-ranging investigations and the application of his many talents, all of which he pursued with unrelenting energy and enthusiasm. On 4 July 1790 he qualified further, as a naval surgeon.
Bass served for five years with Britain's Channel Fleet and on Atlantic Ocean patrols. Along England's south coast the navy pursued small vessels suspected of carrying contraband and watched for French privateers waiting among craggy salients to seize British merchant ships. In late 1790 and early 1791 Bass was aboard HM Sloop Shark, as, in a great arc, she patrolled the North Atlantic from the Madeira Islands to the West Indies, skirting the Azores group as she steered homeward for the naval anchorage at Spithead. With the outbreak of war between Britain and revolutionary France, the Shark escorted a convoy of merchant ships to Newfoundland, where she reconnoitred the coast and the islands until she sailed again for England in August 1793. Bass was then transferred to the 718-ton frigate HMS Druid, which cruised the Channel and the Celtic and Irish seas.
It is obvious that during these voyages Bass applied himself diligently to learning navigation and seamanship. With a crew in relatively good health, he would have had time to observe procedures, no doubt sharing in them when possible. His quick intelligence, absolute love of the sea and attractive personality would have won him the interest and friendship of others. Nor, apparently, did he neglect further study of his own craft. A list made at a later date of books owned by Bass includes volumes on both navigation and medicine, some of which he very likely acquired at this time.
In late 1793 Bass learned that the navy was fitting out two ships for a voyage to Britain's faraway colony of New South Wales on the antipodean continent generally known as Terra Australis. A new governor, Captain John Hunter, had been commissioned for the colony, founded just five years earlier, and the 394-ton square-rigged sloop Reliance and the 365-ton Supply were being surveyed and outfitted at the Deptford and Woolwich shipyards on the Thames. The prospect of adventure and exploration in a strange new land was irresistible. Bass made the necessary submission and in April 1794 was discharged from the Druid into HMS Reliance.
In an icy northeast wind on 16 February 1795 the ships bound for Terra Australis sailed from Plymouth Sound, initially as part of a vast 500-ship convoy, guarded from possible French attack by Admiral Lord Howe's battle fleet. Two days later the warships turned to resume their positions off the French coast, and in heavy seas and thick rain the convoy broke up, the ships heading for their various destinations.
The voyage from England to New South Wales opened what was virtually a new life for Bass. Physically and intellectually impressive, charming and gregarious, he established friendships that did much to shape his future.
He became a good friend of the ship's commander, Henry Waterhouse, one day to become his brother-in-law. He evidently won the regard of New South Wales' new governor, John Hunter, who would later write of him as 'a young man of well-informed mind and an active disposition'. He met Matthew Flinders, a young midshipman with dreams of adventure and discovery as vivid as his own. Flinders was deeply impressed by Bass, whose intelligence and breadth of knowledge he likened to 'a Socrates', later describing him as 'a man whose ardour for discovery was not to be repressed by any obstacles, nor deterred by danger'. With high enthusiasm the two young men planned the exploration of hitherto unmapped sections of the New South Wales shoreline, insofar as their naval duties would permit. Bass was also learning the native language of the region of New South Wales to which he was going from Bennelong, an Aboriginal man brought to England by the colony's former governor, Arthur Phillip, but now returning to his homeland. That Bass already had plans to make maritime excursions is suggested by his having brought on board a little boat probably some nine or ten feet in length. The colony of New South Wales, as outlined in Governor Hunter's commission, was geographically immense, incorporating nearly half of the Australian continent together with 'adjacent' islands in the Pacific. In practical terms, however, the colony occupied a narrow coastal strip roughly 20 miles in length with its principal settlement of Sydney along the shores of a sheltered cove and two smaller communities some miles inland. James Cook had charted Australia's east coast 25 years earlier, but inlets he did not enter and sections he passed by night remained unexplored.
Bass served on board the Reliance for over two and a half years as she made her voyages in support of the struggling colony. In early 1796 she carried supplies to the subsidiary penal settlement on Norfolk Island. In October she sailed for the Cape of Good Hope to purchase livestock, surviving terrible storms on the return journey. Nevertheless there were opportunities for exploration. With Matthew Flinders, Bass examined the Georges River and the New South Wales coast southward from Sydney to present-day Port Kembla, sailing first in Bass' little craft and subsequently in one slightly larger, both named Tom Thumb.
The hinterland also intrigued Bass. He participated in local excursions and in June 1796 assailed the rugged Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney, seeking to find a way across. Lack of food and water defeated him. A year later he examined the seaside cliffs south of Sydney for seams of coal, returning with bags of specimens and careful descriptions of the strata, which were dispatched to England.
In December 1797, with the Reliance being refitted, Bass undertook a much bolder expedition. There had long been speculation as to whether the region known as Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, was part of the continental mainland or separated by a strait. This Bass was commissioned to investigate, for which he was given a whaleboat about 28 1/2 feet long, a volunteer crew of six naval seamen and provisions for six weeks. Here was fulfilment for Bass' enthralment with the sea and a chance for adventure, exploration and new, hitherto unrecorded knowledge. Despite much rough weather, Bass reached and charted the deep inlet of Western Port on the now Victorian south coast before dwindling supplies and damage to the boat forced his return. He had stretched the journey over eleven weeks, and in spite of wet and often dangerous conditions, was able to deliver a sketch map and a journal of the trip to the governor. That there was a sea passage between the two bodies of land seemed almost indisputable. Then, during the months of October 1798 to January 1799, Bass and Flinders, in the little sloop Norfolk, finally proved the existence of a strait and completed their discovery by circumnavigating today's island state of Tasmania. Bass had further enhanced his ability as a seaman and navigator. His 46-page journal was a thorough description of the trip, with numerous natural history observations and speculations. The voyage had been a high adventure and also a chance to apply his skills and intelligence to investigating and adding a fund of new information to what was known of the extraordinary continent of Terra Australis.
At this point, however, Bass could see little promise in his future. A naval surgeon was modestly paid and had no real prospects for advancement. The work had undoubtedly become routine. An unnamed contemporary wrote that Bass was 'a man possessing very great strength of mind, and of a strong robust habit, fond of enterprise, and despising danger in any shape'. For such a man the career of a naval surgeon was limited indeed. Bass wanted independence, challenge and financial success. He had early recognised the unique commercial advantages of Australia's geographical position on the edge of Asia and across the Pacific from the Americas and he now saw the possible fulfilment of his ambitions in owning a ship and engaging in worldwide trade.
Bass obtained sick leave from the navy and in May 1799 quitted New South Wales, sailing to Macau on the brig Nautilus with Charles Bishop and Roger Simpson, two men with commercial experience in China and in the Pacific region. Bass arrived back in England on 4 August and with characteristic vigour threw himself into establishing a commercial company, selecting a ship, the 140-ton brig Venus, and purchasing a cargo of merchandise to be profitably sold in New South Wales and, it appears, possibly in Canton, now Guangzhou, China, for which he had received licence to trade from the monopolistic East India Company. Bass' Sydney contacts, personal friends and fellow officers, his mother and his aunt invested in his company. Charles Bishop became a partner.
Among the investors was Bass' recent commanding officer, Henry Waterhouse, at whose home, the London residence of his parents, Bass was evidently made welcome.
Thus it was undoubtedly there that he met Waterhouse's sister Elizabeth. The attraction between George Bass and Elizabeth Waterhouse was clearly immediate and intense, and despite his commitment to his voyage to New South Wales, which would necessitate Elizabeth's waiting in England for his return in at least eighteen months' time, they were married on 8 October 1800. On 9 January 1801 Bass and Charles Bishop sailed from Portsmouth in the brig Venus. Letters now became the precious link between George and Elizabeth Bass.
After a stormy passage Bass and Bishop reached the coast of Brazil, where at the two small ports of San Salvador and São Sebastião they loaded 'Brasil goods' for New South Wales and sailed on through the South Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope, across the Indian Ocean and through Bass Strait to Sydney. Bass wrote that the little brig was 'as deep as she can swim, and full as an egg. She turns out very sound and tight and bids fair to remain sound much longer than any of her owners.' As a commercial enterprise the voyage failed. On arrival in Sydney Bass found the limited local market glutted by goods which had arrived earlier. Only food was in short supply. Thus to meet his debts and expenses Bass took his ship into the Pacific, at Tahiti and Hawaii processing a shipload of salt pork which he then sold in Sydney. The financial success of this venture encouraged him to prepare for another. It was not, however, his only intention. He had long been convinced of other economic opportunities in the Pacific area. In January 1803 he wrote to New South Wales' Governor Philip Gidley King proposing the establishment of a commercial fishery at the southern end of New Zealand, which would supply the colony of New South Wales with salt fish at a price below that of a meat ration from England. A sealing expedition was another project for which he was researching markets and prices in England. Years earlier Bass had been intrigued by the possibilities of transpacific trade with the Spanish colonies of South America. All these were enticements lying brightly on Bass' horizon when on 5 February 1803 the Venus cleared the Sydney Heads and sailed again into the Pacific Ocean. The Venus and her company of 25 men were never seen or heard from again.
As an explorer, Bass pioneered the entry into the strait that now bears his name and with Matthew Flinders proved Tasmania to be an island. He contributed to the charting of Pacific islands that now constitute parts of the ocean nations of Kiribati and the Marshall Islands. He explored the southernmost shores of New Zealand and mapped the approach to what is today Singapore.
It was as an individual, however, that Bass was most outstanding. Gifted, versatile and avidly interested in every kind of learning, he emerges as an iconic figure in the new age of enlightenment that in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was shaping so much of the modern world. Of these cultural and intellectual developments Bass was fully aware, writing to his wife of the 'new knowledge' of which he wanted her to take advantage. People, languages, medicine, natural history, hydrography, land formations, political philosophies and any number of other topics fascinated Bass. He wrote on the anatomy of the wombat and on the habits of Australian birds. He recorded new plant life, for which he received the recognition of membership in London's Linnean Society, and discussed the possible origins of striking land formations. Perhaps unexpectedly, he was also interested in operatic music.
In this ceaseless search for information Bass applied with conviction and care the principles and methodology of science to the many disciplines which he pursued in the brief 32 years of his life. From Sydney he wrote to Sir Joseph Banks: 'I arrived here with the professed intention of exploring more of the country than any of my predecessors in the colony ...' This he did not accomplish, but his often strenuous efforts nevertheless produced a store of new knowledge and understandings upon which others could build in several fields of thought and activity.
Bass delighted in intellectual debate and was impatient with ignorance and with lesser minds. To his fellow surgeon
Thomas Jamison, he wrote: 'It is society, the friendly clash of opinions that brings truths to light and exalts the human intellect to the highest pitch possible.' On Norfolk Island, he said, he had found only 'the tiresome insipidity of semimen'. Matthew Flinders, who deeply admired Bass' 'knowledge and abilities', wrote of his friend's sometimes hurtful criticisms. Of Elizabeth, Bass asked that she be not only his faithful and affectionate wife, but also his 'wisest and best counsellor', an unusual desire for a man of the time. Inevitably there was a sense of isolation in being apart from so many of his peers in both intellect and the application of that intellect. Perhaps he sought to fill this void with the wide-ranging activities of his life, and possibly found a compensating sense of unconditional freedom and unlimited possibilities in the endless magic of the ocean.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Letters of George & Elizabeth Bass by Miriam Estensen. Copyright © 2009 Miriam Estensen. Excerpted by permission of Allen & Unwin.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
