TUESDAY 23 AUGUST 1803

By the evening of the 23rd, the Porpoise was well nigh emptied of all the most essential things; and on a survey being made, there was found sufficient water and provisions on the bank to serve ninety-four men, which was our number, for three months, even at full allowance; although many casks were stove in the hold by the bulging of the larbord side, and much dry provisions spoiled by the salt water.  The principal contents of the warrant officers store rooms, as well as the sails., rigging, and spars, were also on shore.  My books, charts, and papers had suffered much damage, from the top of the cabin being displaced when the mizen mast fell; all such papers as chanced to be loose on the night of the shipwreck were then washed away by the surfs, and amongst them a chart of the west side of the Gulph of Carpentaria and part of the North Coast, upon which I had been occupied in the afternoon.  Part of my small library shared the same fate; but the rest of the charts, with my log and bearing books and astronomical observations were all saved, though some of them in a wet and shattered state.  The rare plants collected on different parts of the south, the east, and north coasts of Terra Australis, for His Majesty’s botanic garden at Kew, and which were in a flourishing g state before the shipwreck., were totally destroyed by the salt water; as were the dried specimens of plants.  Fortunately, the naturalist and natural-history painter, who remained at Port Jackson, had put on board only a small part of their collection of specimens; the great mass, with the preserved birds, quadrupeds, and insects being kept for a future opportunity.  Mr. Westall. the landscape painter, had his sketches and drawings wetted and partly destroyed in his cabin; and my little collection in mineralogy and conchology was much defaced, and one-half lost.

THURSDAY 25 AUGUST 1803

The carpenters were employed until the evening of the 25th, in preparing the cutter for her intended expedition; and the rest of the people in adding to the stores on the bank.  As the Porpoise became lighter, the sea threw her higher up on the reef, and she was much shaken; but we hoped the timbers and beams would hold together, at least until the next spring tides, and that every thing would be got out.  Of the Cato, nothing but a few scattered fragments had remained for several days before.

Before leaving Wreck Reef, it will be proper to say something of the sand bank to which we were all indebted for our lives; and where the greater part of the officers and people were to remain in expectation of my return from Port Jackson.  In the annexed view of it, Mr. Westall has represented the corals above water, to give a better notion of their forms and the way they are seen on the reefs; but in reality, the tide never leaves any considerable part of them uncovered.