If your proceeding to that part of this coast should be within the scope of the service assigned to you by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, or the importance of the solution of these questions, on which such extensive interests and operations depend, should induce you to take upon yourself the responsibility of going there, I earnestly request you will allow me the honour of accompanying you, for the purpose of fulfilling my duty to the Directors of the Company, and to the very numerous body of persons interested in the formation of the intended settlement under them.)

EXAMINATION OF COAST.

On the 12th, accordingly, we sailed from Gage Roads, and next morning closed with the land in latitude 29 degrees 13 minutes South being thirteen miles south of the position assigned to Port Grey in Arrowsmith’s map, before alluded to.  From thence we followed the shore at a distance of between three and five miles, in soundings of 7 and 12 fathoms; the first part trended North by West two miles, and then North-West 1/2 West to Point Grey, lying five miles South by East of Point Moore (a bight of that width being formed between) without any sign of the sought-for harbour.  The general appearance of the coast was that of high sandhills, partly covered with vegetation; immediately in the rear of which there appeared a range rather higher, and of a less barren appearance; behind these again, at a distance of eight or nine miles, rose a series of singular table-topped broken ranges, terminating southwards in about latitude 29 degrees 5 minutes South.  Mount Fairfax and Wizard Peak are the most conspicuous objects in this range.

REACH CHAMPION BAY.

Owing to the water being very smooth, we found ourselves embayed on approaching the point of the above mentioned bight, by a reef, the outer part of which bore South 37 degrees West fifteen miles from Mount Fairfax.  The delay caused in clearing this danger, made it evening by the time we reached Champion Bay, in latitude 28 degrees 47 minutes South, from whence we had previously examined the coast northward for nearly thirty miles.  We had, therefore, now satisfactorily ascertained that, excepting Champion Bay, there was no good anchorage on the coast between the latitudes of 28 degrees 20 minutes South and 29 degrees 20 minutes South.*

(Footnote.  For a description of Champion Bay, see above.)

From what I have said it will appear, that the point represented in Arrowsmith’s map, as sheltering the north side, has no real existence.  It is probable, that the following passage from Mr. Moore’s Journal, may have had some share in suggesting the contrivance.

“To the south of the tongue of land which forms the bay, there is also another bay, which would be completely sheltered from all northerly winds, so as to combine, between the two bays, perfect shelter at all seasons of the year.”

VISIT MOUNT FAIRFAX.