George Bass
Encyclopedia
George Bass was a British naval surgeon and explorer of Australia
.
, Lincolnshire
, the son of a tenant farmer, George Bass, and a local beauty named Sarah Nee Newman. His father died in 1777 when Bass was 6. He had attended Boston Grammar School
and later trained in medicine at the hospital at Boston, Lincolnshire. At the age of 18 he was accepted in London as a member of the Company of Surgeons, and in 1794 he joined the Royal Navy
as a surgeon.
He arrived in Sydney
in New South Wales
on HMS Reliance
on 7 September 1795. Also on the voyage were Matthew Flinders
, John Hunter, Bennelong
, and his surgeon's assistant William Martin.
and explored the Georges River
further upstream than had been done previously by the colonists. Their reports on their return led to the settlement of Banks' Town
.
In March 1796 the same party embarked on a second voyage in a similar small boat, which they also called the Tom Thumb. During this trip they travelled as far down the coast as Lake Illawarra
, which they called Tom Thumb Lagoon. They discovered and explored Port Hacking
.
In 1797, without Flinders, in an open whaleboat with a crew of six, Bass sailed to Cape Howe
, the farthest point of south-eastern Australia. From here he went westwards along what is now the coast of the Gippsland
region of Victoria
, to Western Port
Bay, almost as far as the site of present-day Melbourne
. His belief that a strait separated the mainland from Van Diemen's Land
(now Tasmania
) was backed up by his astute observation of the rapid tide and the long south-western swell at Wilsons Promontory
.
Bass discovered the Kiama area and made many notes on its botanical complexity and the amazing natural phenomenon, the Kiama Blowhole
, noting the volcanic geology around the Blowhole and contributed much to its understanding.
would be founded, on the strength of his report, in 1803. When the two returned to Sydney, Flinders recommended to Governor John Hunter
that the passage between Van Diemen's Land and the mainland be called Bass Strait
.
"This was no more than a just tribute to my worthy friend and companion," Flinders wrote, "for the extreme dangers and fatigues he had undergone, in first entering it in a whaleboat, and to the correct judgement he had formed, from various indications, of the existence of a wide opening between Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales."
Bass was an enthusiastic naturalist and botanist, and he forwarded some of his botanical discoveries to Sir Joseph Banks in London. "In this voyage of fourteen weeks I collected those few plants upon Van Diemen's Land which had not been familiar to me in New South Wales," he wrote to Banks, "and have done myself the honour of submitting them to your inspection." He was made an honorary member of the Society for Promoting Natural History, which later became the Linnean Society. Some of his observations were published in the second volume of David Collins's An Account of the English colony in New South Wales. He was one of the first to describe the Australian marsupial
, the wombat
.
, Bass's former shipmate, and captain of the Reliance. Within three months he set sail again, and though he wrote her affectionate letters, such was his fate that he did not return.
Bass and a syndicate of friends had invested some £10,000 in the copper-sheathed brig
the Venus, and a cargo of general goods to transport and sell in Port Jackson
. Bass was the owner-manager and set sail in early 1801. (Among his influential friends and key business associates in the Antipodes was the principal surgeon of the satellite British colony on Norfolk Island
, Thomas Jamison
, who was subsequently appointed Surgeon-General of New South Wales.)
On passing through Bass Strait
on his 1801 voyage he recorded it simply as Bass Strait, like any other geographical feature. It seems, as Flinders' biographer Ernest Scott observed, that Bass's natural modesty meant he felt no need to say "discovered by me" or "named after me".
On arrival Bass found the colony awash with goods and he was unable to sell his cargo. Governor King
was operating on a strict programme of economy and would not take the goods into the government store, even at a 50% discount. What King did though was contract with Bass to ship salt pork from Tahiti
. Food was scarce in Sydney at that time and prices were being driven up, yet pigs were plentiful in the Society Islands
and King could contract with Bass at 6 pence a pound where he'd been paying a shilling (12 pence) previously. The arrangement suited King's thrift, and was profitable for Bass. With his partner Charles Bishop Bass sailed from Sydney in the Venus for Dusky Sound
in New Zealand
where they spent 14 days stripping iron from the wreck of Captain Brampton's old ship the Endeavour. This was made into axes which were used to trade for the pork in Tahiti before returning with the latter to Sydney by November 1802.
In January 1803 Bass applied to King for a fishing monopoly extending from a line bisecting the lower South Island of New Zealand from Dusky Sound
to Otago Harbour
- now the site of the city of Dunedin
- and including all the lands and seas to the south, notably the Antipodes Islands
, probably on the basis of information from his brother-in-law Waterhouse, the discoverer of the Antipodes archipelago. He expected much from it, but before he heard it had been declined he sailed south from Sydney never to return. Bass and Flinders were both operating out of Sydney during these times, but their stays there didn't coincide.
colonies on the coast of Chile
to buy provisions and bring them back to Sydney.
It's been suspected Bass may also have planned to engage in contraband trade in Chile. Spain reserved the import of goods into her colonies for Spanish ships and Spanish merchants. But the colonists needed more than they could supply and shortages and heavy taxation caused high prices, encouraging an extensive illegal trade with foreign vessels. Port Jackson was a well-known base for such smuggling (Britain had no great friendship with Spain at that time so British authorities were unconcerned).
Bass still had much of the general cargo he'd brought to Sydney in 1801 and he may well have been tempted to take some to Chile. Two of his last letters have hints at a venture which he could not name. But in any case he set off in 1803, with a diplomatic letter from Governor King attesting his bona-fides and that his sole purpose if he were on the West coast of South America would be in procuring provisions.
As many months passed with no word of his arrival Governor King and Bass's friends in Sydney were forced to accept that he had met some misfortune. In England in January 1806 Bass was listed by the Admiralty as lost at sea and later that year Elizabeth was granted an annuity from the widows' fund, back dated to when Bass's half-pay had ended in June 1803. (Bass had made the usual contributions to the fund from his salary.)
Harrington has it that Bass was captured by the Spanish in Chile and sent to the silver mines. The Harrington was engaged in smuggling and returned to Sydney some three months after Bass's departure. However, this story dates from 1811 in a report by William Fitzmaurice. There are good records of Campbell in 1803, and then in 1805 when he captured a Spanish ship, but Bass is not mentioned at those times. (Three months also seems a little short for Bass to reach Chile and then the Harrington to get back to Sydney.)
Another factor against the South American story is that all British prisoners held by the Spanish in Chile and Peru were freed in 1808 and returned to Europe. If the crew of the Venus had indeed been captured then none of the 25 survived.
Adventurer Jorgen Jorgenson wrote about Bass in his 1835 autobiography, claiming Bass had attempted forced trade at gunpoint in Chile, and was captured when he let his guard down. Jorgenson probably met Bass, but this account is almost certainly an invention. Jorgenson's writing, though entertaining, was often far from factual.
A search of Spanish archives in 1903 by scholar Pascual de Gayangos and a search of Peruvian archives in 2003 by historian Jorge Ortiz-Sotelo found no mention of Bass. His ultimate fate remains a mystery.
issued by Australia Post
http://www.australianstamp.com/images/large/0007650.jpg, and again in 1998 with Matthew Flinders
.http://www.australianstamp.com/images/large/0033520.jpg
A re-enactment of the whaleboat voyage was conducted on the 200th anniversary of Bass's voyage, and arrived at Western Port on 5 January 1998, using a 9 metres (29.5 ft) "Elizabeth" skippered by Bern Cuthbertson. A plaque memorialising this was added to the Bass and Flinders memorial at Flinders
.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
Early years
He was born on 30 January 1771 at Aswarby, a hamlet near SleafordSleaford
Sleaford is a town in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is located thirteen miles northeast of Grantham, seventeen miles west of Boston, and nineteen miles south of Lincoln, and had a total resident population of around 14,500 in 6,167 households at the time...
, Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
, the son of a tenant farmer, George Bass, and a local beauty named Sarah Nee Newman. His father died in 1777 when Bass was 6. He had attended Boston Grammar School
Boston Grammar School
The Boston Grammar School is a selective grammar school and sixth form college for boys aged 11 to 18 and girls attending the sixth form aged 16–18 located in Boston, Lincolnshire, England....
and later trained in medicine at the hospital at Boston, Lincolnshire. At the age of 18 he was accepted in London as a member of the Company of Surgeons, and in 1794 he joined the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
as a surgeon.
He arrived in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
in New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
on HMS Reliance
HMS Reliance (1793)
HMS Reliance was a discovery vessel of the Royal Navy. She became famous as one of the ships with the early explorations of the Australian coast and other the southern Pacific islands....
on 7 September 1795. Also on the voyage were Matthew Flinders
Matthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders RN was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent, which had previously been...
, John Hunter, Bennelong
Bennelong
Woollarawarre Bennelong was a senior man of the Eora, an Aboriginal people of the Port Jackson area, at the time of the first British settlement in Australia, in 1788...
, and his surgeon's assistant William Martin.
Two voyages of the Tom Thumb
Bass had brought with him on the Reliance a small boat with an 8 feet (2.4 m) keel and 5 feet (1.5 m) beam, which he called the Tom Thumb on account of its size. In October 1795 Bass and Flinders, accompanied by William Martin sailed the Tom Thumb out of Port Jackson to Botany BayBotany Bay
Botany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay...
and explored the Georges River
Georges River
The Georges River is a waterway in the state of New South Wales in Australia. It rises to the south-west of Sydney near the coal mining town of Appin, and then flows north past Campbelltown, roughly parallel to the Main South Railway...
further upstream than had been done previously by the colonists. Their reports on their return led to the settlement of Banks' Town
Bankstown, New South Wales
Bankstown is a suburb of south-western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Bankstown is located 20 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre of the local government area of the City of Bankstown.-History:Prior to European...
.
In March 1796 the same party embarked on a second voyage in a similar small boat, which they also called the Tom Thumb. During this trip they travelled as far down the coast as Lake Illawarra
Lake Illawarra
Lake Illawarra is a large coastal lagoon located in the city of Wollongong about 100 km south of Sydney, New South Wales.The lake receives runoff from the Illawarra escarpment through Macquarie Rivulet and Mullet Creek, and has a narrow tidal entrance to the sea at Windang...
, which they called Tom Thumb Lagoon. They discovered and explored Port Hacking
Port Hacking
Port Hacking is an Australian estuary, located in Southern Sydney, New South Wales and fed by the Hacking River and several smaller creeks, including Bundeena Creek and The Basin. It is a ria, a river basin which has become submerged by the sea...
.
Whaleboat voyage to Western Port
Cape Howe
Cape Howe is a coastal headland in Australia, forming the south-eastern end of the Black-Allen Line, the border between New South Wales and Victoria.-History:...
, the farthest point of south-eastern Australia. From here he went westwards along what is now the coast of the Gippsland
Gippsland
Gippsland is a large rural region in Victoria, Australia. It begins immediately east of the suburbs of Melbourne and stretches to the New South Wales border, lying between the Great Dividing Range to the north and Bass Strait to the south...
region of Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
, to Western Port
Western Port
Western Port, is sometimes called "Western Port Bay", is a large tidal bay in southern Victoria, Australia opening into Bass Strait. It is the second largest bay in Victoria. Geographically, it is dominated by the two large islands; French Island and Phillip Island. Contrary to its name, it lies to...
Bay, almost as far as the site of present-day Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
. His belief that a strait separated the mainland from Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...
(now Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
) was backed up by his astute observation of the rapid tide and the long south-western swell at Wilsons Promontory
Wilsons Promontory
Wilsons Promontory is a peninsula that forms the southernmost part of the Australian mainland and is located at . South Point at is the southernmost tip of Wilsons Promontory and hence of mainland Australia...
.
Bass discovered the Kiama area and made many notes on its botanical complexity and the amazing natural phenomenon, the Kiama Blowhole
Kiama Blowhole
The Kiama Blowhole is a blowhole in the town of Kiama, New South Wales, Australia. It is the town's major tourist attraction. Under certain sea conditions, the blowhole can spray water up to 25 metres in the air, in quantities that thoroughly drench any bystanders...
, noting the volcanic geology around the Blowhole and contributed much to its understanding.
Circumnavigation of Tasmania in the Norfolk
In 1798, this theory was confirmed when Bass and Flinders, in the sloop Norfolk, circumnavigated Van Diemen's Land. In the course of this voyage Bass found and explored the estuary of the Derwent River, where the city of HobartHobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
would be founded, on the strength of his report, in 1803. When the two returned to Sydney, Flinders recommended to Governor John Hunter
John Hunter (New South Wales)
Vice-Admiral John Hunter, RN was a British naval officer, explorer, naturalist and colonial administrator who succeeded Arthur Phillip as the second governor of New South Wales, Australia from 1795 to 1800.-Overview:...
that the passage between Van Diemen's Land and the mainland be called Bass Strait
Bass Strait
Bass Strait is a sea strait separating Tasmania from the south of the Australian mainland, specifically the state of Victoria.-Extent:The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Bass Strait as follows:...
.
"This was no more than a just tribute to my worthy friend and companion," Flinders wrote, "for the extreme dangers and fatigues he had undergone, in first entering it in a whaleboat, and to the correct judgement he had formed, from various indications, of the existence of a wide opening between Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales."
Bass was an enthusiastic naturalist and botanist, and he forwarded some of his botanical discoveries to Sir Joseph Banks in London. "In this voyage of fourteen weeks I collected those few plants upon Van Diemen's Land which had not been familiar to me in New South Wales," he wrote to Banks, "and have done myself the honour of submitting them to your inspection." He was made an honorary member of the Society for Promoting Natural History, which later became the Linnean Society. Some of his observations were published in the second volume of David Collins's An Account of the English colony in New South Wales. He was one of the first to describe the Australian marsupial
Marsupial
Marsupials are an infraclass of mammals, characterized by giving birth to relatively undeveloped young. Close to 70% of the 334 extant species occur in Australia, New Guinea, and nearby islands, with the remaining 100 found in the Americas, primarily in South America, but with thirteen in Central...
, the wombat
Wombat
Wombats are Australian marsupials; they are short-legged, muscular quadrupeds, approximately in length with a short, stubby tail. They are adaptable in their habitat tolerances, and are found in forested, mountainous, and heathland areas of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania, as well as...
.
Marriage and trading
On 8 October 1800, George married Elizabeth Waterhouse at St. James Church, Westminster. She was the sister of Henry WaterhouseHenry Waterhouse
Henry Waterhouse was a British officer of the Royal Navy who is strongly associated with the early European settlement of Australia....
, Bass's former shipmate, and captain of the Reliance. Within three months he set sail again, and though he wrote her affectionate letters, such was his fate that he did not return.
Bass and a syndicate of friends had invested some £10,000 in the copper-sheathed brig
Brig
A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...
the Venus, and a cargo of general goods to transport and sell in Port Jackson
Port Jackson
Port Jackson, containing Sydney Harbour, is the natural harbour of Sydney, Australia. It is known for its beauty, and in particular, as the location of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge...
. Bass was the owner-manager and set sail in early 1801. (Among his influential friends and key business associates in the Antipodes was the principal surgeon of the satellite British colony on Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. The island is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but it enjoys a large degree of self-governance...
, Thomas Jamison
Thomas Jamison
Thomas Jamison was a prominent surgeon, government official, mercantile trader and land owner of Sydney, Australia. Jamison was also a member of the First Fleet expedition of 11 ships which founded the Australian colony of New South Wales in 1788...
, who was subsequently appointed Surgeon-General of New South Wales.)
On passing through Bass Strait
Bass Strait
Bass Strait is a sea strait separating Tasmania from the south of the Australian mainland, specifically the state of Victoria.-Extent:The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Bass Strait as follows:...
on his 1801 voyage he recorded it simply as Bass Strait, like any other geographical feature. It seems, as Flinders' biographer Ernest Scott observed, that Bass's natural modesty meant he felt no need to say "discovered by me" or "named after me".
On arrival Bass found the colony awash with goods and he was unable to sell his cargo. Governor King
Philip Gidley King
Captain Philip Gidley King RN was a British naval officer and colonial administrator. He is best known as the official founder of the first European settlement on Norfolk Island and as the third Governor of New South Wales.-Early years and establishment of Norfolk Island settlement:King was born...
was operating on a strict programme of economy and would not take the goods into the government store, even at a 50% discount. What King did though was contract with Bass to ship salt pork from Tahiti
Tahiti
Tahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...
. Food was scarce in Sydney at that time and prices were being driven up, yet pigs were plentiful in the Society Islands
Society Islands
The Society Islands are a group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean. They are politically part of French Polynesia. The archipelago is generally believed to have been named by Captain James Cook in honor of the Royal Society, the sponsor of the first British scientific survey of the islands;...
and King could contract with Bass at 6 pence a pound where he'd been paying a shilling (12 pence) previously. The arrangement suited King's thrift, and was profitable for Bass. With his partner Charles Bishop Bass sailed from Sydney in the Venus for Dusky Sound
Dusky Sound
Dusky Sound is a fiord on the south west corner of New Zealand, in Fiordland National Park.-Geography:One of the most complex of the many fjords on this coast, it is also one of the largest, 40 kilometres in length and eight kilometres wide at its widest point...
in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
where they spent 14 days stripping iron from the wreck of Captain Brampton's old ship the Endeavour. This was made into axes which were used to trade for the pork in Tahiti before returning with the latter to Sydney by November 1802.
In January 1803 Bass applied to King for a fishing monopoly extending from a line bisecting the lower South Island of New Zealand from Dusky Sound
Dusky Sound
Dusky Sound is a fiord on the south west corner of New Zealand, in Fiordland National Park.-Geography:One of the most complex of the many fjords on this coast, it is also one of the largest, 40 kilometres in length and eight kilometres wide at its widest point...
to Otago Harbour
Otago Harbour
Otago Harbour is the natural harbour of Dunedin, New Zealand, consisting of a long, much-indented stretch of generally navigable water separating the Otago Peninsula from the mainland. They join at its southwest end, from the harbour mouth...
- now the site of the city of Dunedin
Dunedin
Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...
- and including all the lands and seas to the south, notably the Antipodes Islands
Antipodes Islands
The Antipodes Islands are inhospitable volcanic islands to the south of—and territorially part of—New Zealand...
, probably on the basis of information from his brother-in-law Waterhouse, the discoverer of the Antipodes archipelago. He expected much from it, but before he heard it had been declined he sailed south from Sydney never to return. Bass and Flinders were both operating out of Sydney during these times, but their stays there didn't coincide.
Final voyage
What became of Bass is unknown. He set sail on his last voyage in the Venus on 5 February 1803 and was not seen again. His plan was to go to Tahiti again, and perhaps on to the SpanishSpain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
colonies on the coast of Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
to buy provisions and bring them back to Sydney.
It's been suspected Bass may also have planned to engage in contraband trade in Chile. Spain reserved the import of goods into her colonies for Spanish ships and Spanish merchants. But the colonists needed more than they could supply and shortages and heavy taxation caused high prices, encouraging an extensive illegal trade with foreign vessels. Port Jackson was a well-known base for such smuggling (Britain had no great friendship with Spain at that time so British authorities were unconcerned).
Bass still had much of the general cargo he'd brought to Sydney in 1801 and he may well have been tempted to take some to Chile. Two of his last letters have hints at a venture which he could not name. But in any case he set off in 1803, with a diplomatic letter from Governor King attesting his bona-fides and that his sole purpose if he were on the West coast of South America would be in procuring provisions.
As many months passed with no word of his arrival Governor King and Bass's friends in Sydney were forced to accept that he had met some misfortune. In England in January 1806 Bass was listed by the Admiralty as lost at sea and later that year Elizabeth was granted an annuity from the widows' fund, back dated to when Bass's half-pay had ended in June 1803. (Bass had made the usual contributions to the fund from his salary.)
Speculation on Bass's fate
A good deal of speculation has taken place about Bass's fate. One story, attributed to William Campbell of the brigBrig
A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...
Harrington has it that Bass was captured by the Spanish in Chile and sent to the silver mines. The Harrington was engaged in smuggling and returned to Sydney some three months after Bass's departure. However, this story dates from 1811 in a report by William Fitzmaurice. There are good records of Campbell in 1803, and then in 1805 when he captured a Spanish ship, but Bass is not mentioned at those times. (Three months also seems a little short for Bass to reach Chile and then the Harrington to get back to Sydney.)
Another factor against the South American story is that all British prisoners held by the Spanish in Chile and Peru were freed in 1808 and returned to Europe. If the crew of the Venus had indeed been captured then none of the 25 survived.
Adventurer Jorgen Jorgenson wrote about Bass in his 1835 autobiography, claiming Bass had attempted forced trade at gunpoint in Chile, and was captured when he let his guard down. Jorgenson probably met Bass, but this account is almost certainly an invention. Jorgenson's writing, though entertaining, was often far from factual.
A search of Spanish archives in 1903 by scholar Pascual de Gayangos and a search of Peruvian archives in 2003 by historian Jorge Ortiz-Sotelo found no mention of Bass. His ultimate fate remains a mystery.
Recognition
In 1963 he was honoured on a postage stampPostage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
issued by Australia Post
Australia Post
Australia Post is the trading name of the Australian Government-owned Australian Postal Corporation .-History:...
http://www.australianstamp.com/images/large/0007650.jpg, and again in 1998 with Matthew Flinders
Matthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders RN was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent, which had previously been...
.http://www.australianstamp.com/images/large/0033520.jpg
A re-enactment of the whaleboat voyage was conducted on the 200th anniversary of Bass's voyage, and arrived at Western Port on 5 January 1998, using a 9 metres (29.5 ft) "Elizabeth" skippered by Bern Cuthbertson. A plaque memorialising this was added to the Bass and Flinders memorial at Flinders
Flinders, Victoria
Flinders is a historic town south of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, located on the Mornington Peninsula at the point where Western Port meets Bass Strait. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Mornington Peninsula...
.
See also
Places named after Bass:- Bass, VictoriaBass, VictoriaBass is a small rural town 113 kilometres south-east of Melbourne via the South Gippsland and Bass Highways, in the Bass Coast Shire of Gippsland, Victoria, Australia...
(town) - Bass Highway (Tasmania)
- Bass Highway (Victoria)
- Bass Hill, New South WalesBass Hill, New South WalesBass Hill, a suburb of local government area City of Bankstown, is located 23 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, and is a part of the South-western Sydney region.-History:...
- Bass Point
- Bass StraitBass StraitBass Strait is a sea strait separating Tasmania from the south of the Australian mainland, specifically the state of Victoria.-Extent:The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Bass Strait as follows:...
- Division of Bass, Tasmania (federal)Division of BassThe Division of Bass is an Australian Electoral Division in Tasmania. The division was created in 1903 and is named for the explorer George Bass. It has always been based on the city of Launceston and surrounding rural areas, and its boundaries have changed very little in the century since its...
- Division of Bass, Tasmania (state)Division of Bass (state)The Electoral Division of Bass is one of the 5 electorates in the Tasmanian House of Assembly, or lower house; it takes its name from the British Naval Surgeon and Explorer of Australia: George Bass. The division shares its name and boundaries with the federal division of Bass...
- Bass RiverBass River (Victoria)The Bass River is a relatively short coastal river located in the Bass Coast Shire of Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. The river headwaters are in the Strzelecki Ranges, north of the town of Korumburra, flowing west, then west-southwest before entering Western Port, near the town of Bass.It was...