Cover Page
Author: Kenneth Morgan, Professor of History, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex,
UB8 3PH, England
e-mail: kenneth.morgan@brunel.ac.uk
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Title page
From Cook to Flinders: The Navigation of Torres Strait
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Keywords: Torres Strait; Navigation; Australia; Ships
Abstract:
This article offers the first published appraisal of the attempts by navigators to find a safe
passage through Torres Strait, a notoriously difficult sea channel for sailing vessels. Securing
a passage through the strait was important for the timing and viability of commercial and
naval ships following this route from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. Luis Vaez de Torres’
traversal of the strait that bears his name was kept secret for over a century and a half after
his voyage in 1606. It was not until the late 1760s that a chart showing his track through
Torres Strait was published. This article considers the routes followed by the small number
of navigators who undertook the earliest known voyages through the strait: James Cook,
William Bligh, William Wright Bampton and Matthew Flinders. The reasons why these
navigators took different routes through Torres Strait are explained in relation to the
cartographical knowledge they possessed. The navigational difficulties they encountered are
explained. The article shows that knowledge of passages through the strait increased
incrementally from one voyage to another. Cook sailed via Endeavour Strait, the most
southerly passage through Torres Strait. Bligh followed a much more northerly passage to
the north of Prince of Wales Island. Flinders took a course between that of Cook and Bligh to
sail to the south of Prince of Wales Island. The article concludes that Flinders had the most
thorough information with which to navigate Torres Strait, and that his passage became the
preferred course for ships sailing between the north and Australia and the south of New
Guinea by the mid-nineteenth century.
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From Cook to Flinders: The Navigation of Torres Strait
The attempt to establish a safe sea route for shipping through Torres Strait was a major
problem confronting navigators in Australian waters during the late eighteenth century
when European, especially British, interest in establishing connections with Australia first
assumed importance. The Spanish mariner Luis Vaéz de Torres sailed between New Guinea
and the northern Australian coast in 1606, but it was many years before this became
common knowledge. Abel Tasman’s second voyage of exploration to Australia in 1644,
under the auspices of the Dutch East India Company, included instructions to locate and sail
through the strait, but this voyage failed in that task as Tasman left the Gulf of Carpentaria
to return to Batavia. We do not know why he did not seek out a channel between New
Guinea and Australia’s northern shores because his journals of the voyage are lost. It was
not until 1762 that the existence of the strait was confirmed from documents captured by
the British from a raid on Spanish Manila. The hydrographer Alexander Dalrymple gained
access to the documents, translated them into English, and named the strait. He kept this
evidence to himself but mentioned it in a short book entitled Account of the Discoveries
Made in the South Pacific Ocean Previous to 1764, printed in 1767. This included a fold-out
chart that showed Torres’ track to the south of New Guinea.1 It was through Dalrymple’s
efforts that the existence of Torres Strait was communicated to the wider world by the eve
of the American Revolution.2
After Dalrymple had indicated that a route for sailing ships through Torres Strait
could be achieved, the quest to find a safe passage through the strait became an important
consideration for oceanic shipping sailing to and from Australia. Before the era of steam
navigation, an east-west route through the strait was the only feasible direction in which
ships could make the passage. Without securing a safe route through the strait, shipping
leaving Australia’s east coast for Europe would be delayed and inconvenienced by having to
steer an indirect course into the Indian Ocean around the north of New Guinea. Thus, the
first voyages from Sydney to Java in the later eighteenth century avoided sailing through
Torres Strait or along the northern coast of New Guinea and, instead, followed a longer but
safer course through straits between the Solomon Islands, past the northern end of the
Bismarck Archipelago, and westward along the Macassar Strait between Borneo and the
Celebes. Such a course, however, added about 1,500 miles to a voyage from Sydney to Java
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than a more direct route through Torres Strait.3 It was of course possible for ships to return
from the east coast of Australia to Europe via Cape Horn. But that route was seldom used in
the late eighteenth century because in winter it was, as William Bligh once put it, ‘a horrid
tempestuous place to struggle with.’4
Locating a safe passage through Torres Strait was beset by navigational and
geographical problems. Torres Strait is 150 kilometres wide at its narrowest extent, linking
the Coral Sea in the east with the Arafura Sea in the west. It has shallow water, many reefs,
shoals, sand cays and small islands scattered throughout its course. Altogether, there are
some 274 small islands in Torres Strait. Many of its islands and reefs have never been
named or charted accurately. East-west movement through the strait, with a choice for the
navigator of around nine channels, is restricted to draughts of 12.2 metres; north-south
movement can only cope with much shallower draughts. Northern projections of the Great
Barrier Reef extend across the eastern end of the strait. The extent of the labyrinthine coral
formation effectively closes southeastern approaches except for shallow, small draft vessels.
Even to reach the northerly end of the reef requires very skilful navigation through other
narrow gaps in the wall of coral. Tides, winds and currents in Torres Strait cause difficulties.
The strait is situated at the intersection of two oceanic tidal systems that can cause
dangerous, rapid tidal streams. Its shallow water means that tides and winds can affect
ships dramatically. During the wet season from December to April, strong southeasterly
winds can cause storms. ‘In passing through Torres Strait,’ Geoffrey Blainey has written, ‘a
ship had to snake through a maze of submerged coral for about 150 miles, always with a
look-out on the masthead, and always with a man sounding the depth of the water.’5 It has
been suggested that, in addition to these navigational difficulties, traversing Torres Strait
was psychologically difficult for mariners in the days of sail because it usually occurred at
the beginning or end of a tortuous passage through the inner route of the Great Barrier
Reef.6
This article shows that the search for a secure passage through Torres Strait was
advanced by the efforts of British navigators in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries. Several naval commanders and hydrographers needed to sail around the
northern end of the Cape York peninsula to proceed towards the Indian Ocean through the
strait. They had to find a safe passage that could be charted for subsequent navigators to
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follow. The main advances towards this goal were made in voyages led by James Cook,
William Bligh, William Wright Bampton and Matthew Flinders between 1770 and 1803. In
1770 Cook in the Endeavour, on his first voyage of Pacific exploration, was the first navigator
to establish the existence of Torres Strait and to sail through it successfully. Bligh was the
second naval commander to traverse the strait. This occurred on two separate voyages. In
the first, Bligh sailed in 1789 with his remaining crew in an open launch to Timor after the
famous mutiny on the Bounty. In the second, Bligh led a voyage in the Providence in 1791/2
to take breadfruit from Tahiti to the Caribbean, and in doing so sailed through Torres Strait.
In 1793 Bampton, commander of the Shaw Hormuzear,7 undertook a speculative trading
voyage from Sydney to Bombay, which also passed through the strait. Flinders sailed
through Torres Strait with Bligh in the Providence in 1792 but also in two later voyages, in
the Investigator in 1802 and the Cumberland in 1803, during his circumnavigation of
Australia. Each of these four naval commanders left written and cartographic materials
relating to their passages through Torres Strait, and it is from their logbooks, journals and
charts that one can analyse how a safe passage through the strait was established.
James Cook
Cook lacked extensive knowledge about Torres’ route through the strait named after him.
Moreover, he was not convinced that Torres had sailed through the passage.8 Torres’ report
of his voyage to the King of Spain was kept secret until about 1780, and was not published in
an English translation until 1806. The route taken through the strait by Torres has never
been conclusively determined, owing to lack of essential navigational information. 9 Several
maps known to Cook gave conflicting clues about the existence of a strait between New
Guinea and northern Australia. Maps by Mercator (1569) and Ortelius (1570) showed a
strait that divided New Guinea from a fictitious southern continent. Yet Melchisédec
Thévonot’s map, based on seventeenth-century Dutch sources, left a conjectural blank for
Torres Strait with shoals stretching almost as far as the Gulf of Carpentaria.10 Sources more
contemporaneous with Cook, however, presented a more positive view about the existence
of a strait. Dalrymple had furnished Joseph Banks, who sailed in the Endeavour alongside
Cook, with a rough chart showing the supposed track of Torres.11 Maps provided by Robert
de Vaugondy for volumes prepared by Charles de Brosses’s Histoire des navigations aux
terres australes (1756) showed a strait between New Guinea and northern Australia, but
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they did not have any expedition tracks.12 Cook thought the northern extremity of
Australia’s Cape York peninsula did not join up with New Guinea. He did not explain why he
thought this was the case, though it may have been influenced by the information
Dalrymple supplied to Banks about Torres.13 Cook intended to prove or disprove whether
such a strait existed.14 Given that the sources he had available did not provide a definitive
answer, the only way of locating the strait and a safe passage through it was through
persistent practical navigation.
Cook’s vessel, the Endeavour, was a converted collier of moderate size, being 106
feet long and 268 tons burthen.15 He sailed towards Torres Strait after a long voyage in
which he had observed the transit of Venus in Tahiti and circumnavigated New Zealand. He
then decided to return home via a northward route along the east coast of Australia into
waters where few navigators had previously sailed.16 Cook had a difficult passage in the
Endeavour near the Great Barrier Reef along the northern Queensland coast, during which
the ship was damaged and needed repair. While sailing off Cape Melville, on 15 August, he
still did not know whether a passage existed between New Guinea and Australia’s northern
extremity. Joseph Banks, the wealthy botanist on the voyage, noted in his journal: ‘The
Captn fearfull of going too far from the Land, least he should miss an opportunity of
examining whether or not the passage which is layd down in some charts between New
Holland and New Guinea realy existed or not, steerd the ship west right in for the land.’17
Two days later Cook sailed inside the Great Barrier Reef through Providential Channel and
followed a course northwards fairly near the mainland Australian coast. He was determined
to find out whether New Guinea joined the top of the Cape York peninsula. A boat was sent
out ahead of the Endeavour to signal the depth of the water. Cook reached Cape York on 21
August and on the next day he sailed around it and anchored at Possession Island, where he
famously claimed New South Wales as a British possession. While on the island, he satisfied
himself with the prospect of there being ‘the great probability of a Passage, thro’ which I
intend going with the Ship.’18
Cook realised he had passed the northern extremity of Australia’s east coast. He
sailed through Endeavour Strait, the southernmost and most extensive of the western
entrances to Torres Strait, between Possession Island and the Prince of Wales Island, the
largest of the Torres Strait islands.19 On 23 August, leaving Possession Island, he proved that
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New Holland and New Guinea were two separate lands or islands ‘which until this day hath
been a doubtfull point with Geographers.’20 Sailing conditions were difficult: numerous
small banks of coral with a couple of fathoms between them were invisible until they were
almost reached and, even then, they appeared as though they were reflections of dark
clouds on the water.21 He headed northwestward to sail past Booby Island, which was little
more than a rock. This is where Endeavour Strait ended.22 By 26 August the Endeavour had
passed between New Holland and New Guinea and there was open sea to the westward.23
This was the only occasion that Cook sailed through Torres Strait. Cook later reported to the
Admiralty that on 22 August 1770, in the latitude of 10°30’, he had found a passage into the
Indian Ocean between the northern extremity of New Holland and New Guinea.24 Dalrymple
claimed in a publication that Torres’ tacks, which he laid down in his chart supplied to
Banks, had enabled Cook to pass between New Holland and New Guinea.25
Cook wondered whether his route through Torres Strait was the best one available
for navigators, or whether safer access from the east could be found. ‘The Northern extent
or the Main or outer Reef which limets or bounds the Shoals to the Eastward,’ in his view,
‘seems to be the only thing wanting to clear up this point, and this was a thing I had neither
time nor inclination to go about, having been already sufficiently harrass’d with dangers
without going to look for more.’26 Thus Cook held out the possibility that a better route
through the strait would one day be discovered among islands he could see to the north. As
G. Arnold Wood put it, Cook had been the first known navigator to sail through Torres Strait
but ‘apart from this one passage, the huge chaos of the strait remained unexplored.’ 27
Knowledge of Cook’s traversal of Torres Strait entered the public domain primarily through
charts showing his track through Endeavour Strait. Hawkesworth’s account of the
Endeavour’s voyage, published in 1773, included a ‘Chart of Part of the Coast of New South
Wales from Cape Tribulation to Endeavour Straits by Lieut. J. Cook’ (1770), and many later
maps also illustrated the routes taken on the voyage.28
William Bligh
Cook’s second and third Pacific voyages of exploration, in the Resolution, did not require
him to sail through Torres Strait. No British navigator after Cook passed through the strait
and recorded his experiences in doing so until William Bligh traversed the passage in
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unexpected, desperate circumstances in 1789.29 Bligh had been master of the Resolution on
Cook’s second Pacific voyage. He had gained further naval experience on other ships before
being appointed commanding officer in HMS Bounty. This vessel left Spithead on 23
December 1788 with instructions to sail via Cape Horn to Tahiti to collect breadfruit as a
staple foodstuff for West Indian slaves. The Bounty was accordingly fitted out for a long
voyage via the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans to transport breadfruit to the Caribbean.
On 28 April 1789, nearly three weeks after leaving Tahiti with his cargo, Bligh’s crew
mutinied. Bligh and eighteen loyal crew members were cast adrift in the Bounty’s launch, a
seven metres longboat. Bligh made a remarkable voyage of 3,168 nautical miles from Tofoa
(now Tofua), where the mutiny occurred, to Timor. During forty-one days at sea, Bligh and
his crew sailed through Torres Strait. Bligh, who had learned about hydrography and
surveying under Cook in the Resolution, compiled a running survey of his track. He had
taken with him all the necessary navigational instruments save for a timekeeper and a
nautical almanac.30
Bligh recorded his passage through Torres Strait on the launch in a logbook that
includes readings for course, distance, latitude and longitude, accompanied by a journal
with discursive remarks. He had absorbed details about Cook’s voyage. This was
demonstrated in the log entry when, nearing the entrance to Torres Strait, Bligh noted that
Booby Key was ‘the same as seen by Captn. Cook when he quitted the coast.’ 31 Over the
next eight days Bligh and his crew sailed through Torres Strait in dreadful weather and then
sighted land. They were suffering from thirst and starvation. Distress and fatigue among the
crew on the launch meant that it was unlikely that Bligh could concentrate on improving the
geographical and nautical knowledge of Torres Strait.32
Bligh’s track shows that he approached Torres Strait by sailing much closer to the
coast than Cook between Cape Weymouth up to Cape York. He then did not follow Cook’s
route through Endeavour Strait but sailed to the north of Shoal Cape instead.33 That he was
able to sail nearer to Australia’s mainland along the upper northeast part of the Cape York
peninsula than Cook was made possible by being in an open boat launch. His passage into
Torres Strait lay in deeper waters to the north of Prince of Wales Island than the shallower
waters Cook had followed to the south of the island.34 Bligh later admitted he was ‘fearful of
having no arms to go near New Guinea otherwise I would have determined how far
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Endeavour Strait was an eligible pass for shipping.’35 Instead, Bligh had discovered a new
channel through Torres Strait. It later became known as Bligh Channel. It is the
northernmost of all known channels through the strait.36 Commenting on the charts drawn
by Cook and himself, Bligh hoped future navigators of these seas would derive ‘more
advantage…from the possession of both our charts, than from either of them singly.’37
Bligh was proud of charting his running survey of Torres Strait, as he carried out
complex nautical calculations in a situation of great danger.38 Others later realised Bligh’s
appraisal of his own chart was justified. Flinders, for instance, expressed his high regard for
Bligh’s hydrographical and cartographical achievement on this voyage: ‘it has been to me a
cause of much surprise, that under such distress of hunger and fatigue, and of anxiety still
greater than these, and whilst running before a strong breeze in an open boat, Captain Bligh
should have been able to gather materials for a chart; but that this chart should possess a
considerable share of accuracy, is a subject for admiration.’39 In a modern study, Andrew
David has demonstrated that Bligh’s longitude on his open boat passage varied only by 11′
compared with a modern chart and his latitude was only 4′ in error; the equivalent
differences for Cook were a 41½’ error in longitude and a 9½’ error in latitude. Thus Bligh’s
chart was ‘considerably more accurate for scale and orientation than Cook’s.’ 40
Another voyage connected with Bligh’s expedition in the Bounty was expected to sail
through Torres Strait. This involved the frigate Pandora, under the command of Edward
Edwards. This expedition, which left England on 7 November 1790, was intended to search
for the Bounty mutineers. The Pandora sailed via Cape Horn to Tahiti, where most of the
mutineers were rounded up. The voyage continued through the Pacific in a fruitless search
for the rest of the Bounty’s men. Captain Edwards gave up the search on 2 August 1791 and
headed towards Torres Strait, as he had been instructed, en route to the Indian Ocean and a
voyage home. On 25 August Edwards reached three islands that he named Murray’s Islands
and a section of the Great Barrier Reef. Two days later, after sailing southwards to find a gap
in the reef, the Pandora struck on a coral outcrop and was wrecked. Thirty-one crew and
four prisoners died. Edwards ordered his crew to abandon ship. He was able to save four
open boats and to set out as a flotilla towards Torres Strait and Timor. 41 Edwards had a copy
of Hawkesworth’s account of Cook’s passage through Torres Strait. But he decided not to
follow the same track, as Cook had indicated its difficulty, but to find a safer passage.
10
Edwards and his flotilla sailed through the strait with difficulty towards Timor. They
recorded their track. It was different from the passages followed by Cook and Bligh.
Edwards and his open boats reached latitude 11°23′S and sailed to the north of Horn Island
and Prince of Wales Island.42 Despite encountering hostile Torres Strait islanders, Edwards
eventually made his way to Batavia, the Cape of Good Hope and back to England with some
of the mutineers.43
The small cutter Matavy, which was the Pandora’s tender, sailed through Torres
Strait. A midshipman’s account of this part of the voyage referred to the danger of
proceeding through the strait: ‘so dangerous & intricate is the navigation of these straits,
that we were buffeting about a whole week, before we had completely cleared them. Our
passage was impeded by numerous shoals, sandy keys, and small islands, under shelter of
which we generally brought up during the night.’44 George Hamilton, the surgeon in the
Pandora, published an account of the voyage and wreck in 1793, but Flinders considered it
too defective in accuracy to be useful as a guide to geography and navigation. 45
Bligh had another opportunity to sail through Torres Strait on his second breadfruit
voyage in the Providence, accompanied by the brig Assistant, under Nathaniel Portlock, in
1792. Supported by the Admiralty, Bligh’s voyage successfully transplanted breadfruit from
Tahiti to the Caribbean. The passage through Torres Strait was accomplished expeditiously.
Bligh had access to his own chart of his previous voyage in the Bounty’s launch. He had seen
a journal of a voyage through Torres Strait by Will Bryant and other convicts who had stolen
a government cutter from Port Jackson.46 He did not know about the wreck of the Pandora
on the Great Barrier Reef.47 Before reaching Torres Strait, at the beginning of September
1792, Bligh determined not to run the ships into unexplored areas at night and to keep the
Assistant ahead of the Providence because the smaller vessel could be managed nearly as
easily as a launch. Bligh also developed a system of signal flags so that directions could be
passed quickly.48 The passage through the Strait involved encounters with hostile, armed
natives.49
Flinders sailed as a young seaman on Bligh’s second breadfruit voyage. He recounted
Bligh’s passage through Torres Strait in A Voyage to Terra Australis. On 2 and 3 September
the Providence and Assistant faced breakers and Bligh took soundings to establish the depth
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of the water. The vessels tried to reach the north side of the strait towards New Guinea, but
this was found to be impracticable and so the ships headed southwards, anchoring between
Portlock’s and Bond’s reefs, near Darnley’s Island, and entered Torres Strait through Bligh’s
Entrance. On 4 and 5 September boats were sent ahead of the two main ships to search for
a safe passage through the coral reefs. Over the next few days, extensive reefs and
sandbanks hindered progress. Many small islands were seen.50 On 10 September Flinders
noted that ‘the Strait, instead of becoming clearer, seemed to be more and more
embarrassed with dangers, as the vessels proceeded westward.’51 To add to the difficulties,
local natives in canoes fired arrows and wounded some members of the Assistant. On 12
September the vessels were following the boats to the westward but were interrupted by
reefs and by shoal water with only six fathoms’ depth. The boats sounded for a passage
through the reefs and found deeper water. On 16 September Bligh claimed all the islands
seen in the vicinity for King George III and Britain under the name of the Clarence
Archipelago.52
A landing took place at Cook’s Possession Island. On the following day conditions
were dangerous as ‘the vessels were so closely surrounded with rocks and reefs, as scarcely
to have swinging room; the bottom was rocky; the wind blowing a fresh gale; and a tide
running between four and five knots an hour.’53 It was impracticable to continue westward
at night ‘amid this labyrinth of dangers.’54 No calamity occurred, however, and on 19
September the Providence and Assistant had sailed out of Torres Strait. On that day the
relief of the crew at emerging safely out of a dangerous sea passage was summed up in the
words of Bligh’s cousin, Lieutenant Francis Godolphin Bond, who noted in his log: ‘Joy
gladden’d every countenance, for we now expected we had completed our passage through
the Straits. Amen.’55 George Tobin’s memoir of the passage through the Strait similarly gave
thanks that ‘the two vessels entered the Indian Ocean from this truly intricate and
dangerous navigation.’56
Flinders praised Bligh’s navigational skill in traversing the difficulties of the strait,
noting that it was accomplished in nineteen days. ‘Perhaps no space of 3½° in length,
presents more dangers than Torres’ Strait, Flinders remarked, ‘but, with caution and
perseverance, the captains Bligh and Portlock proved them to be surmountable; and within
a reasonable time.’ He reserved judgement about whether it was advisable for ships to
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follow Bligh’s track through the Strait.57 Flinders drew a chart of Torres Strait on this
expedition. It was entitled A Chart of the Passage between New Holland and New Guinea as
seen in His Majesty’s ship Providence in 1792. This was intended to accompany his log. He
signed the chart ‘M. Flinders.’58 This is Flinders’ first-known nautical chart. It may have been
prepared under Bligh’s supervision.59 Bligh also drew a manuscript survey of the passage
through Torres Strait, showing the tracks of the Endeavour, the Bounty’s launch and the
Providence (but not the Pandora’s track).60 Flinders’ chart omitted the tracks of the first two
of these vessels but included the track of the Pandora before it was wrecked. This was
drawn in red and taken from a chart by Thomas Hayward, a lieutenant in the Pandora. This
track was inserted on the chart after Flinders returned to England. Flinders drew the track of
the Providence in black.61
William Wright Bampton
The first known merchant ship to sail through Torres Strait was the East Indiaman Shaw
Hormuzear, commanded by William Wright Bampton, accompanied by the whaler
Chesterfield, under Captain Matthew Bowles Alt.62 The passage of these ships is illustrated
on various charts. These show that the vessels doubled back upon themselves at various
points, zigzagging on several occasions, and steering back to the east when they thought
they were heading west. They frequently sailed near to the New Guinea coast. They passed,
eventually, to the north of Tate’s and Reeves Islands.63 Bampton commanded a Bombay
country ship that had made a speculative voyage to Sydney with stores and livestock. On the
return voyage he was accompanied by Alt; they intended to pass through Torres Strait via a
route that had not been previously attempted.64 They found it difficult to navigate through
the strait. Finding themselves surrounded by coral reef and sandbanks, they proceeded
slowly. Bampton gave orders to stop at various islands. He named several islands as the
vessels made their way through Torres Strait, but he was unsure which islands had already
been named by Bligh. Numerous islands did not appear to be marked on any charts. Alt
complained in his log that Bampton did not give him an opportunity to name any islands in
Torres Strait, but he also expressed doubts about Bampton naming islands that Bligh had
already named.65
13
Conditions on the passage through Torres Strait were difficult for the Shaw
Hormuzear and the Chesterfield. The channels between the reefs were very narrow,
sometimes not exceeding a quarter of a mile. The south-east monsoon had begun. Alt
considered that starvation threatened his crew if a passage through Torres Strait was not
found. Many days were spent looking for a suitable passage between the islands. ‘I take the
very high Island, which I call Phillips Island to be one of the Northernmost of the Prince of
Wales’s Islands seen by Capt. Cook,’ Bampton noted, ‘and those long reefs to be part of that
which forms the Labarynth, but much farther to the Northward than where his track was,
and I make no doubt but there are Channels to be found between them.’66
The Shaw Hormuzear spent the month of August 1793 trying to navigate through
Torres Strait. Bampton’s remarks in his journal indicate how difficult this proved to be. On 1
August he noted that ‘the more we proceed to the westward, the more intricate our
passage appears, we are now completely entangled between the Reefs and Shoals and I
believe we should find it as difficult a navigation to find our way back as we should in
proceeding.’67 For seventeen days after 3 August they remained anchored near Turn-again
Island, being afraid to proceed because of strong southeast winds.68 On 1 September
Bampton had hopes of a safe passage to Timor after sending a longboat, a whaleboat and a
pinnace to find a safe passage through Torres Strait. ‘The passage we have come is in my
opinion a very good one,’ he recorded, ‘but like all others a dangerous navigation, until
properly surveyed. I think had we proceeded along between Fire and Reeves Islands, we
should in all probability have met with a better passage and avoided those shores which we
got upon.’69 This passage through Torres Strait in over a month, compared with Bligh’s
nineteen days, convinced Flinders of ‘the extraordinary dangers’ of navigation in the strait.70
As mentioned already, the failure to pursue any kind of direct passage through Torres Strait,
or anything resembling it, meant that Bampton and Alt’s route could not be followed by
future navigators to any purpose. It was later claimed that the voyage of the two ships
showed that the passage through Torres Strait should never be undertaken near to the New
Guinea coast.71
Matthew Flinders
14
As mentioned above, Flinders had sailed through Torres Strait in the Providence under Bligh
in 1792, and had drawn a chart of the passage through the strait. His voyage in the
Investigator gave him scope to extend his knowledge of these waters. The Admiralty’s
instructions for the voyage instructed Flinders to carry out ‘a careful investigation and
accurate survey’ of the strait. There was the hope that finding a safe passage through Torres
Strait would benefit the English East India Company’s trade and the commerce of merchant
vessels.72 ‘The Navigation from the Pacific, or Great Ocean, to all parts of India, and to the
Cape of Good Hope, would be greatly facilitated,’ Flinders later wrote, ‘if a passage through
the Strait, moderately free from danger, could be discovered; since five or six weeks of the
usual route, by the north of New Guinea or the more eastern islands, would thereby be
saved.’73
Flinders intended to examine Torres Strait by combining knowledge of previous
navigators who had sailed through it with his own exploration. On his circumnavigatory
expedition of Australia’s coasts in the Investigator, Flinders passed through Torres Strait in
early November 1802 after sailing in an anticlockwise direction around Australia from
landfall on the southwestern end of the continent in December 1801. He headed for the
entrance to the strait taken by the Pandora in 1791 rather the more northerly track
followed by Bligh in 1792. He no doubt thought this might enable him to find a faster route
through Torres Strait than Bligh had achieved.74 Flinders used Cook’s chart as he reached
the top of the Cape York peninsula but could not find islands referred to on the chart. He
had intended to anchor at Cook’s Possession Island, but squally weather led him to stop
instead at Hammond Island. Flinders had a copy of Bligh’s chart of Torres Strait from the
voyage in the Bounty’s launch. He used this to identify some nearby islands and steered
towards Booby Island, named twice, once by Cook and later by Bligh. This island was
situated at the extreme southern part of Torres Strait, and supposedly marked the end of
immediate danger for a ship sailing through this passage.75
Flinders found Bligh’s chart drawn in the Bounty’s launch was more accurate than
Cook’s.76 This led him to question the accuracy of Cook’s longitudes. Cook’s measurement of
the difference in longitude between the flat-topped island off Cape York to Booby Island
was 73′ whereas Flinders’ and Bligh’s figures were 44′ and 39′ respectively.77 Flinders was so
respectful of Cook’s reputation as a navigator that he found it difficult to reconcile the
15
discrepancy in these readings: ‘I confess my judgement to have been altogether confounded
by such unexpected differences,’ he wrote in an unpublished ‘Memoir,’ adding that
‘considering myself to be a mere tyro in nautical science, in comparison of captain Cook,
was inclined to believe, that our log, compasses, time-keepers, sextants and myself were all
in the wrong, rather than that such errors should have been made by him.’ 78 Flinders was
correct in supposing that it was uncommon for Cook to have made such errors in calculating
longitude. It has been explained, however, that the wrong figures might have resulted from
the ill health of Charles Green, the astronomer in the Endeavour.79
Flinders did not have the time at his disposal to examine Torres Strait in as much
detail as he would have liked on his passage through it in the Investigator in 1802. He was
sailing in a leaky ship; the northwest monsoon season was due to begin soon; and he
needed to continue expeditiously to undertake a detailed survey of the Gulf of
Carpentaria.80 An unexpected further chance, however, came his way to improve his survey
of Torres Strait. After the Investigator reached Port Jackson in an unseaworthy state in July
1803, the Governor of New South Wales, Philip Gidley King, sent Flinders in the Porpoise on
a voyage home. King instructed that the vessel should allow Flinders time to explore the
navigational route though Torres Strait in more detail, ‘the expeditious communication
between the Pacific and the Southern Indian Oceans which it promised to afford being
deemed an object of greatest importance to the eastern navigation, an especially to our
colonies in New South Wales.’81 The Porpoise was wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef but
Flinders, after returning to Port Jackson to acquire another ship, set out, with King’s backing,
in the Cumberland, and was allowed to select his own route back to England. The
Cumberland was a small vessel of 29 tons burden.82 Flinders did not choose an easy passage,
for he determined to sail through Torres Strait to carry out the investigation of the
navigational difficulties there that he had hoped to undertake in the Porpoise.83
A major objective for Flinders on this traversal of Torres Strait was to recheck the
longitudes taken by Cook and himself in that location. Flinders steered for the course
followed by the Pandora near Maer, the largest of the Murray Islands, where he found a
passage half-a-mile wide through the coral reefs on the south side of the entrance: in the
Investigator he had passed on the north side. He hauled around Maer Island and followed a
channel that was three-and-a-half miles wide, some five miles to the south of the
16
Investigator’s track. The familiar difficulties of traversing Torres Strait were constantly in
Flinders’ mind, demanding constant alertness as commander of a vessel: ‘No person must
expect to know reefs as they would islands, or can passages be easily followed amongst
them: the strictest and most constant attention is requisite to it. A different time of tide
makes a great difference in the appearance of reefs.’84 Flinders found the passage followed
from Maer Island in the Cumberland offered safer navigation than the route he had
followed in the Investigator. The difference was that he had followed a course in the
Investigator between Wednesday Island and Prince of Wales Island and had then headed
south towards the Gulf of Carpentaria, whereas his route in the Cumberland lay to the north
of Wednesday Island and Prince of Wales Island and then directly westward.85 As with his
previous voyage through Torres Strait, Flinders had difficulty reconciling the position of the
islands he saw with the information on Cook’s chart. But he concluded that Cook must have
erred: Cook made the distance between the two York Isles and Booby Island 1° of longitude
whereas Flinders calculated the distance to be 40′.86
Flinders recorded his voyage through Torres Strait and drew survey sheets showing
his route. The first sheet was a large-scale survey.87 A second survey sheet showed the track
of the Investigator through Torres Strait.88 A third chart, based on many of the documents
and maps referred to above, included the tracks and discoveries of different vessels that
had sailed through Torres Strait, marked in different colours; it also showed currents, winds
and tides. Flinders drew the chart with longitudes east of Greenwich and a latitude grid.
Cook’s track in the Endeavour was marked in green; Bligh’s tracks in the Bounty’s launch and
the Providence were drawn in red; Flinders’ routes in the Investigator and the Cumberland
(discussed below) were in black; evidence from charts produced by Dalrymple was in yellow
and blue. The tracks of the Pandora and the Shaw Hormuzear were also included.89 Flinders
explained in his unpublished ‘Memoir’ the principles he followed in transcribing material on
the geographical location of reefs, islands and ships’ tracks onto his own charts.90 Some
years later he noted that he had done ‘everything for the advancement of geography and
navigation’ in searching for a safe passage through Torres Strait ‘that the nature of my
orders would permit.’91
Towards the end of his unpublished ‘Memoir,’ Flinders set down, from his own
navigational experience and from study of documents and charts left by his predecessors,
17
the best directions he could discern for sailing from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean
via Torres Strait. He recommended taking passages through the strait between the
beginning of April and the end of October when favourable south-east trade winds
prevailed. It might be possible for ships to sail through the strait up to late November, but
from then until the end of March the north-west monsoon often occurred. This hindered
vessels sailing westward towards India and the Cape of Good Hope. The proliferation of
detached coral reefs and banks meant that, in Flinders’ view, it was unsafe for vessels
steering for Torres Strait from the southward to sail at night beyond Sandy Cape. If a ship
were sailing without a chronometer and determining her position by dead reckoning,
Flinders recommended stopping at the western side of the Louisiade archipelago, which had
plenty of high land from which calculations could be made. Ships should then head for the
reefs at the Pandora’s entrance by sailing along the parallel at 9°50′ and follow the
Investigator’s track through the strait.92
Flinders further suggested that an experienced officer should direct a ship’s course
from the masthead and a boat should be sent ahead with sounding signals. Flinders
recommended anchoring for the night and sailing in the morning, when the shoals could be
seen distinctly. An experienced officer, he suggested, would soon learn to distinguish
between ripplings of tide and coral reefs. The passage he advocated through Torres Strait
lay to the north of the Prince of Wales Island. After a ship had reached Booby Island, no
more dangers would be seen in steering west and a few hours’ sail would take a vessel clear
of the western end of the strait. Flinders ended his description of his preferred passage
through Torres Strait by cautioning mariners about the difficulty of distinguishing one coral
reef from another for ‘the identity of any reef is but with great difficulty ascertained, unless
there are known objects in sight, above water, by the cross bearings of which the situation
can be proved.’ Alterations in the height and setting of the tides and different positions of
the sun could make visibility deceptive and thereby cause problems for finding channels
through the reefs.93 Flinders considered that a ship sailing through Torres Strait to India or
the Cape of Good Hope could save between four and six weeks’ sailing time compared with
choosing alternative sea routes to the north and east of New Guinea.94
The ‘Memoir’ was returned to the Admiralty, along with various survey sheets, while
Flinders was detained at the Ile de France. Flinders intended that the ‘Memoir’ should be
18
read as a guide to the construction of the charts.95 After returning to England in late 1810,
however, Flinders spent over three years preparing a voyage account and atlas of his voyage
in the Investigator, which was the first expedition to circumnavigate Australia. The book, in
two large volumes, and the atlas were published in the year of his death, 1814. One of the
plates in the atlas comprised a map of Torres Strait, presenting evidence on the tracks
followed through it by all the navigators discussed in this article. This became the most
accurate and detailed graphic representation of Torres Strait, and indeed of all of Australia’s
coasts, ever compiled.96 By the time A Voyage to Terra Australis was published, the
exploratory voyages undertaken between Cook and Flinders had established Torres Strait
and the Arafura Sea as viable shipping routes from Australia to Asia. By the 1830s sailing
vessels traversed Torres Strait every week in a southeasterly direction between April and
September but east-west traffic through the strait only became significant after the
introduction of steamships to Australian waters.97
Conclusion
Knowledge of navigation through Torres Strait advanced considerably between the voyages
of Cook and Flinders. In the late 1760s, when Cook set out in the Endeavour, only a map of
Torres’ track through the strait that bears his name was available in the public domain. In
the century-and-a-half after Torres’ passage through the strait, no other navigator had
followed in his wake. By the time Flinders published A Voyage to Terra Australis and its
accompanying atlas in 1814, several leading navigators had sailed through Torres Strait.
Their efforts had started to show that ocean-going vessels could sail through it successfully
if commanded with strict attention to the nautical and hydrographical difficulties
encountered. The proliferation of shoals, reefs, low-lying islands and sandbanks together
with variable tides, stormy weather and treacherous currents made sailing through this
labyrinth of obstacles very dangerous.
The vessels that sailed through the Strait between Cook and Flinders were highly
varied, ranging from fully prepared ocean-going vessels on voyages of exploration (the
Endeavour, the Providence, the Investigator) to merchant vessels (the Shaw Hormuzear and
the Chesterfield) to much smaller ships (the Cumberland) and to an open boat (the Bounty’s
launch). Each of the commanders of these vessels made a significant contribution to
19
overcoming the difficulties of navigation through Torres Strait. Their contributions to
increased knowledge of the strait were distinctive: Cook made the first definitely known
traversal of it, Bligh constructed the first accurate chart of its geographical coordinates, and
Flinders found two possible routes through the strait that differed from those followed by
his fellow navigators. The additions to nautical and geographical knowledge of Torres Strait
were made incrementally from one voyage to another.
The navigators who sailed through Torres Strait between Cook and Flinders extended
prior existing knowledge of the passages through it. They did this by having access to the
descriptive accounts and charts of their predecessors, save that Cook only had a chart
produced by Dalrymple to follow. Each navigator sailing through Torres Strait selected a
different passage. Cook sailed close to the top of the Cape York peninsula and then
proceeded through Endeavour Strait to the south of Prince of Wales Island. Bligh in the
Bounty’s launch followed a new channel to the north of Prince of Wales Island. Bampton
and Alt in the Shaw Hormuzear and Chesterfield followed a zigzag course that suggests that
they lacked the nautical and hydrographical expertise of the other commanders discussed in
this paper. Flinders in the Investigator and the Cumberland followed tracks that lay between
those followed by Cook and Bligh.
It fell to Flinders to illustrate the different routes followed by Cook, Bligh, Bampton
and himself in his manuscript charts and atlas to A Voyage to Terra Australis. With his
customary precision and insistence on accuracy, Flinders took account of errors in
geographical coordinates made on the voyages of the Endeavour and the Pandora. He
attributed the uncharacteristic mistakes in Cook’s positions for latitude and longitude in
Torres Strait to his lack of a marine chronometer on his voyage to calculate the position of
the ship correctly. Flinders knew that much more exploratory work was necessary for the
navigation of Torres Strait to be mastered; he thought it likely that a clearer navigation
could be found.98
Flinders was correct in thinking that much more nautical and hydrographical
surveying of Torres Strait was necessary. The gains in navigational knowledge of the strait
between Cook and Flinders were important in indicating that ships could attempt to follow
routes between the north of Australia and New Guinea to save time on oceanic voyages. It
20
was left to nineteenth-century hydrographical surveyors, such as Philip Parker King, John
Septimus Roe and F. P. Blackwood, to extend further the knowledge of routes through
Torres Strait discovered by navigators from Cook to Flinders. These further advances were
carried out in voyages that were sent out by the Admiralty with the specific intention of
providing a much more detailed nautical knowledge of the safe options for mariners to
follow through Torres Strait.99
Philip Parker King became an advocate of the inner route through Torres Strait,
following in the wake of Cook though Endeavour Strait.100 But other hydrographers argued
seriously against this advice, pointing out its navigational dangers: they preferred the routes
taken by Bligh or Flinders.101 When the Admiralty’s Hydrographic Office published a guide
that included instructions for sailing through Torres Strait in 1859, the various options for a
passage discovered by navigators from Cook to Flinders and beyond were carefully
considered. The verdict was that the route through Endeavour Strait, followed by Cook,
should not be followed because it had dangerous sunken passages; that routes well to the
north of the Prince of Wales Channel, followed by Bligh, should be avoided owing to rapid
and uncertain tidal streams; but that the route through the Prince of Wales Channel,
followed by Flinders, offered the safest passage through Torres Strait from west to east.102
1
Broeze, Island Nation, 17-18; Sharp, The Discovery of Australia, 23-30; Hilder, The Voyage of Torres; Alan
Villiers, Captain Cook, 86, 189.
2
Fry, Alexander Dalrymple, 122.
3
Blainey, The Tyranny of Distance, 54-5.
4
Mitchell Library, Sydney, William Bligh to Sir Joseph Banks, 4 June 1788, Sir Joseph Banks Papers, series 46.23.
5
Blainey, The Tyranny of Distance, 56.
6
Kaye, The Torres Strait, 1, 4, 5; Babbage, The Strategic Significance of Torres Strait, 57, 169.
7
Different publications spell the name of this ship in various ways. I have followed the spelling given on the
cover of Bampton’s manuscript journal of the voyage cited below.
8
Mawer, Incognita, 178.
9
The first publication of Torres’ report was in Burney, A Chronological History of the Discoveries, II, appendix
1, 467-78. Different views on the route the Spanish navigator followed through Torres Strait are advanced in
publications such as Bayldon, ‘Voyage of Luis Vaez de Torres,’ 158-94, and ‘Voyage of Torres,’ 133-46; Hilder,
‘The First Navigation of Torres Strait,’ 459-66, and The Voyage of Torres; Ingleton, ‘”The First Navigation of
Torres Strait”: Some Comments,’ 232-43; Estensen, Terra Australis Incognita, 197-204.
10
Beaglehole, ed., The Journals of Captain James Cook, I, clv, clx, lxx.
11
Hilder, The Voyage of Torres, 179; Dalrymple, An Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and
Discoveries, foldout map.
12
This map is reproduced in Mapping our World, 180.
13
Beaglehole, The Life of Captain James Cook, 226; Wood, ed. Beaglehole, The Discovery of Australia, 289,
305; Cook, ‘Alexander Dalrymple,’ 34-5.
14
Entry for 14 August 1770 in Beaglehole, ed., The Journals of Captain James Cook, I, 375.
15
Beaglehole, The Life of Captain James Cook, 129.
21
16
Frost, The Voyage of the Endeavour, 31-2.
Entry for 15 August 1770 in Beaglehole, ed., The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks, II, 104-5.
18
Beaglehole, ed., The Journals of Captain James Cook, I, 377.
19
For commentary on Endeavour Strait, see Yule, The Australia Directory, II, 202.
20
Beaglehole, ed., The Journals of Captain James Cook, I, 380, 387, 390.
21
The prevalence of small coral patches causing navigational problems in Endeavour Strait is referred to in
Yule, The Australia Directory, II, 208.
22
TNA, ADM 51/4546/148, Logbook by Zachary Hicks in the Endeavour, entry for 25 August 1770, and ADM
51/4545/133, Logbook by Stephen Forwood in the Endeavour, entry for 26 August 1770.
23
Entry for 26 August 1770 in Beaglehole, ed., The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks, II, 111.
24
Cook to the Admiralty Secretary, 23 October 1770, in Beaglehole, ed., The Journals of Captain James Cook, I,
500-1.
25
Dalrymple, A Letter from Mr Dalrymple to Dr Hawkesworth, 29.
26
Beaglehole, ed., The Journals of Captain James Cook, I, 390-1.
27
Wood, ed. Beaglehole, The Discovery of Australia, 306, 338 (quotation).
28
Hawkesworth, An Account of the Voyages Undertaken, III, 586. Cook’s charts are reproduced in David, ed.,
The Charts and Coastal Views of Captain Cook’s Voyages, I, 260-1, 263, 304, 311. A good contemporary map
depicting the route taken by the Endeavour is Henry Roberts and Faden, A General Chart Exhibiting the
Discoveries made by Captn. James Cook. For modern maps illustrating Cook’s track through Torres Strait, see
Robson, Captain Cook’s World, maps 1.31-1.33, and
http://southseas.nla.gov.au/journals/maps/17700828.html.
29
Powell, Northern Voyagers, 37. The First Fleet ships did not return to England via Torres Strait: see
Cavenagh, ‘The Return of the First Fleet Ships,’ 1-16.
30
Salmond, Bligh, 222-3; Gall, ed., In Bligh’s Hand, 85.
31
TNA, ADM 55/151, Logbook by William Bligh in the Bounty, entry for 4 June 1789.
32
Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, I, p. xvi.
33
TNA, ADM 352/119/2, ‘The Coast of New South Wales from Cape Tribulation to Endeavour Straits shewing
the Labyrinth &ca on a larger scale with the tracks of Capt. Cook and Lieut. Bligh.’
34
Powell, Northern Voyagers, 37.
35
Bligh to Sir Joseph Banks, 16 December 1789, in Chambers, ed., The Indian and Pacific Correspondence, III,
103.
36
Rutter, ed., The Voyage of the Bounty’s Launch, 41; Yule, The Australia Directory, II, 232.
37
Bligh, A Voyage to the South Sea, 221.
38
Ibid.; Gall, ed., In Bligh’s Hand, 87-9, 151. Bligh’s chart is reproduced in Blake, The Sea Chart, 88. The original
chart is deposited at the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, Ministry of Defence Archives, Taunton (UKHO).
39
TNA, ADM 55/76, Flinders, ‘A Memoir,’ f. 70.
40
David, ‘The Surveyors of the Bounty,’ 23. Cook’s and Bligh’s surveys are illustrated in Hawkesworth, An
Account of the Voyages Undertaken, III, 589, and Bligh, A Voyage to the South Sea, 220.
41
Salmond, Bligh, 289-307; Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, I, xvii.
42
Naval Historical Library, Portsmouth, MS 180/16, Copy of statement by Captain Edwards as to the loss of the
ship Pandora, n.d. A map showing the route of the open boats through Torres Strait can be seen at
http://www.fatefulvoyage.com/pandora/pandoraHome.html and Gesner, ‘HMS Pandora Project,’ 16.
43
Salmond, Bligh, 309-11.
44
David Thomas Renouard quoted in Maude, ‘The Voyage of the Pandora’s Tender,’ 228.
45
Hamilton, A Voyage Round the World; Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, I, xviii.
46
Powell, Northern Voyagers, 38.
47
Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, I, xix.
48
Schreiber, The Fortunate Adversities of William Bligh, 83.
49
Schreiber, ed., Captain Bligh’s Second Chance, 154-6.
50
Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, I, xx-xxiv.
51
Ibid., I, xxv.
52
Ibid., I, xxvi-xxviii.
53
Ibid., I, xxix.
54
Schreiber, ed., Captain Bligh’s Second Chance, 157.
55
TNA, ADM 55/96, Francis Godolphin Bond, Logbook in the Providence, entry for 19 September 1792.
56
Schreiber, ed., Captain Bligh’s Second Chance, 157.
17
22
57
Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, I, xxix.
Estensen, The Life of Matthew Flinders, 20. The chart is at (NMM), Flinders Papers, FLI/15/1.
59
David, ‘The Surveyors of the Bounty,’ 16c.
60
TNA, MPI 76, ‘A Survey of the Straits between New Holland and New Guinea by Wm. Bligh.’ This is
reproduced in Lee, Captain Bligh’s Second Voyage, facing 178, and in the facsimile edition of The Log of the
Bounty.
61
The chart is reproduced in Howse and Sanderson, The Sea Chart, 114-15. Flinders later incorporated this
chart as plate XIII in his atlas to A Voyage to Terra Australis.
62
Powell, Northern Voyagers, 37. Contracts drawn up for Bampton’s voyage are printed in Watson, ed.,
Historical Records of Australia. Series 1, I.
63
BL, India Office records, Ac. 111 No. 389, ‘Chart of the Passage of the Hormazier, 1793’; Dalrymple, Chart of
the Passage of the Ship Hurmazier Capt. Bampton thro’ Torres Strait 1793
(http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/album/ItemViewer.aspx?itemid=1070973&suppress=N&imgindex=18) and Chart of
the Ship Shaw Hurmazeer’s track thro’ the Strait between New Guinea and New Holland by W. Bampton 1793.
64
Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, I, xxx; Blainey, The Tyranny of Distance, 57-8; Garran, ‘William Wright
Bampton,’ 1-12.
65
BL, Stowe MS 794, Matthew Alt, Log of the Chesterfield, 1793-4, entries for 12 and 25 July 1793. Flinders
also considered that Bampton was unaware of the islands named by Bligh: see TNA, ADM 55/76, Flinders, ‘A
Memoir,’ f. 74.
66
Naval Historical Library, Portsmouth, MS 72, Journal of Captain William Bampton Ship Shaw Hormuzear,
entries for 2, 11, 14, 25, 28, 29, 30 (quotation) July 1793; BL, Stowe MS 794, Alt, Log of the Chesterfield, 17934, entries for 12, 16, 23 July 1793.
67
Naval Historical Library, MS 72, Journal of Captain William Bampton Ship Shaw Hormuzear, 1 August 1793.
68
Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, I, xlii.
69
Naval Historical Library, MS 72, Journal of Captain William Bampton Ship Shaw Hormuzear, 3 August, 1
September 1793 (quotation). Flinders provided a detailed narrative of the voyage of the Shaw Hormuzear and
the Chesterfield in A Voyage to Terra Australis, I, xxx-xlv.
70
Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, I, xlv.
71
Horsbrugh, The India Directory, I, 734.
72
TNA, ADM 55/75, Flinders, Fair Journal for the Investigator, Instructions for the Investigator’s voyage, 22
June 1801.
73
Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, I, xlvi.
74
Estensen, The Life of Matthew Flinders, 241.
75
TNA, ADM 55/75, Matthew Flinders, Journal for the Investigator, entries for 1-3 November 1802. See also
the entries in UKHO, Flinders, Bearing Book, ff. 155-8.
76
TNA, ADM 55/75, Flinders, Journal for the Investigator, entries for 1-3 November 1802.
77
David, ‘The Surveyors of the Bounty,’ 22.
78
TNA, ADM 55/76, Matthew Flinders, ‘A Memoir,’ f. 66.
79
David, ‘Cook and the Cartography of Australia,’ 49-50.
80
Estensen, The Life of Matthew Flinders, 239, 241, 246.
81
TNA, ADM 55/76, Flinders, ‘A Memoir,’ f. 67.
82
Estensen, The Life of Matthew Flinders, 304.
83
TNA, ADM 55/76, Flinders, ‘A Memoir,’ f. 67.
84
TNA, ADM 55/78, Matthew Flinders, Logbook of the Cumberland, entries for 21-22 (quotation) October
1803.
85
For a map showing the routes of Cook, Bligh and Flinders through Torres Strait, see Scott, The Life of
Matthew Flinders, 350-1.
86
Ibid., entries for 23-24 October 1803. Flinders also noted down details of this passage through Torres Strait
in UKHO, Bearing Book, ff. 232-5. He explained his procedures for checking Cook’s coordinates with his own in
TNA, ADM 55/76, Flinders, ‘A Memoir,’ f. 72.
87
TNA, ADM 352/482, Admiralty: Hydrographic Department: Original Surveys. Australia, north coast, and
Papua, New Guinea, south coast: Queensland: Torres Strait. Manuscript by Flinders.
88
TNA, ADM 352/483, Admiralty: Hydrographic Department: Original Surveys. Australia, north coast, and
Papua, New Guinea, south coast: Queensland: Torres Strait. Manuscript Chart ‘The Tracks of HMS Investigator
and schooner Cumberland through the Torres’ Strait, by Matthew Flinders, Commander, 1802-1803.’
58
23
89
TNA, ADM 352/481, Admiralty: Hydrographic Department: Original Surveys. Australia, north coast, and
Papua, New Guinea, south coast: Queensland: Torres Strait, Louisiade Archipelago. ‘A chart exhibiting the track
and discoveries of the different vessels that have passed through the Strait which divides Australia from New
Guinea called by Mr Dalymple Torres’ Strait…by Matthew Flinders…25 August 1806.
90
TNA, ADM 55/76, Flinders, ‘A Memoir,’ ff. 72-4.
91
State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Matthew Flinders to J. W. Croker, 15 November 1810, Matthew
Flinders Public Letters and Orders (1807-14).
92
TNA, ADM 55/76, Flinders, ‘A Memoir,’ ff. 75-6.
93
Ibid., ff. 76-8 (quotation on f. 77).
94
Ibid., f. 79.
95
Entry for 1-2 May 1805 in Brown and Dooley, eds., Matthew Flinders Private Journal, 63; Flinders, A Voyage
to Terra Australis, II, 238, 262.
96
See Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis and atlas.
97
Moore, New Guinea, 108.
98
TNA, ADM 55/76, Flinders, ‘A Memoir,’ f. 71.
99
For an illustration of their survey work, see ‘Chart of the N.E. Coast of Australia: Sheet 3 by Philip P. King,
Commander, R.N., 1819, 20, 21: with Additions by Lieut. Roe, R.N. 1829 and Captain F. P. Blackwood, R.N.
1844’ (http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-vn3791275).
100
King, Narrative of a Survey, I, 386.
101
Powell, Northern Voyagers, 63.
102
Yule, The Australia Directory, II, 202, 214, 233.
References
Manuscripts
British Library, London (BL), India Office Records, Ac. 111 no. 389, ‘Chart of the Passage of the Hormazier,
1793.’
British Library, London (BL), Stowe MS 794, Matthew Bowles Alt, Log of the Chesterfield, 1793-4.
Mitchell Library, Sydney, Sir Joseph Banks Papers, series 46.23.
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, Matthew Flinders, ‘A Chart of the Passage between New Holland and
New Guinea as seen in His Majesty’s ship Providence in 1792,’ Flinders Papers, FLI/15/1.
Naval Historical Library, Portsmouth, MS 180/16, Copy of statement by Captain Edwards as to the loss of the
ship Pandora, n.d.
Naval Historical Library, Portsmouth, MS 72, Journal of Captain William Bampton Ship Shaw Hormuzear
towards Batavia, May to Septr. 1793 in company with the Chesterfield whaler.
National Library of Australia, Canberra, ‘Chart of the N.E. Coast of Australia: Sheet 3 by Philip P. King,
Commander, R.N., 1819, 20, 21: with Additions by Lieut. Roe, R.N. 1829 and Captain F. P. Blackwood, R.N.,
1844.’
The National Archives, Kew (TNA), ADM 51/4546/148, Zachary Hicks, Logbook in the Endeavour.
The National Archives, Kew (TNA), ADM 51/4545/133, Stephen Forwood, Logbook in the Endeavour.
The National Archives, Kew (TNA), ADM 55/75, Matthew Flinders, Fair Journal for the Investigator.
The National Archives, Kew (TNA), ADM 55/76, Matthew Flinders, ‘A Memoir explaining the marks used in the
Charts of Australia constructed on board His Majesty’s ship Investigator; and the manner in which the latitude,
longitude, and variation of the compass were obtained, corrected, and applied in their construction; With
some new facts and additional observations upon these and other nautical subjects connected with Australia.’
The National Archives, Kew (TNA), ADM 55/78, Matthew Flinders, Logbook of the Cumberland.
The National Archives, Kew (TNA), ADM 55/96, Francis Godolphin Bond, Logbook in the Providence.
The National Archives, Kew (TNA), ADM 352/119/2, ‘The Coast of New South Wales from Cape Tribulation to
Endeavour Straits shewing the Labyrinth &ca on a larger scale with the tracks of Capt. Cook and Lieut. Bligh.’
The National Archives, Kew (TNA), ADM 352/481, Admiralty: Hydrographic Department: Original Surveys.
Australia, north coast, and Papua, New Guinea, south coast: Queensland: Torres Strait, Louisiade Archipelago.
‘A chart exhibiting the track and discoveries of the different vessels that have passed through the Strait which
divides Australia from New Guinea called by Mr Dalrymple Torres’ Strait…by Matthew Flinders…25 August
1806.
The National Archives, Kew (TNA), ADM 352/482, Admiralty: Hydrographic Department: Original Surveys.
Australia, north coast, and Papua, New Guinea, south coast: Queensland: Torres Strait. Manuscript by Flinders.
24
The National Archives, Kew (TNA), ADM 352/483, Admiralty: Hydrographic Department: Original Surveys.
Australia, north coast, and Papua, New Guinea, south coast: Queensland: Torres Strait. Manuscript Chart ‘The
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Dalrymple, Chart of the Ship Shaw Hurmazeer’s track thro’ the Strait between New Guinea and New Holland
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