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.

From Cook to Flinders: The Navigation of Torres Strait

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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

than a more direct route through Torres Strait.3 It was of course possible for ships to return

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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

follow. The main advances towards this goal were made in voyages led by James Cook,

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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

they did not have any expedition tracks.12 Cook thought the northern extremity of

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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

New Holland and New Guinea were two separate lands or islands ‘which until this day hath

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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

unexpected, desperate circumstances in 1789.29 Bligh had been master of the Resolution on

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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

Endeavour Strait was an eligible pass for shipping.’35 Instead, Bligh had discovered a new

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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.

Edwards and his flotilla sailed through the strait with difficulty towards Timor. They

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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

of the water. The vessels tried to reach the north side of the strait towards New Guinea, but

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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

follow Bligh’s track through the Strait.57 Flinders drew a chart of Torres Strait on this

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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

Conditions on the passage through Torres Strait were difficult for the Shaw

Hormuzear and the Chesterfield. The channels between the reefs were very narrow,

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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

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

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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

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,

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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

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

16

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,

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

17

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

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

18

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

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

19

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

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

20

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

21

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, 129.16 Frost, The Voyage of the Endeavour, 31-2.17 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, 157.57 Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, I, xxix. 58 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, 1793-4, 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.’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

ManuscriptsBritish 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.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 Tracks of HMS Investigator and schooner Cumberland through the Torres’ Strait, by Matthew Flinders, Commander, 1802-1803.’The National Archives, Kew (TNA), MPI 76, ‘A Survey of the Straits between New Holland and New Guinea by Wm. Bligh.’United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, Ministry of Defence Archives, Taunton (UKHO), Matthew Flinders, Bearing Book.Edited Primary TextsBeaglehole, J. C., ed., The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery. Volume 1. The Voyage of the Endeavour. London: The Hakluyt Society, 1955.Beaglehole, J. C., ed., The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks 1768-1771, 2 vols. Sydney: State Library of New South Wales, 1962.Brown, Anthony J. and Dooley, Gillian, eds., Matthew Flinders Private Journal 1803-1814. Adelaide: Friends of the State Library of South Australia, 2008.Chambers, Neil, ed., The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768-1820. Volume 3. Letters 1792-1798. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2010.Gall, Jennifer, ed., In Bligh’s Hand: Surviving the Mutiny on the Bounty. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2010.Rutter, Owen, ed., The Voyage of the Bounty’s Launch as related in William Bligh’s Despatch to the Admiralty and the Journal of John Fryer. London: Golden Cockerel Press, 1934.Schreiber, Roy, ed., Captain Bligh’s Second Chance: An Eyewitness Account of his Return to the South Seas by Lt George Tobin. London: Chatham Publishing, 2007.Watson, Frederick, ed., Historical Records of Australia. Series 1. Governor’s Despatches to and from England. Volume 1: 1788-1796. Canberra: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1914.Printed chartsDalrymple, Alexander, Chart of the Passage of the Ship Hurmazier Capt. Bampton thro’ Torres Strait 1793 Communicated by Philip Dundas esq. Superintendant [sic] at Bombay. London, 1798.Dalrymple, Chart of the Ship Shaw Hurmazeer’s track thro’ the Strait between New Guinea and New Holland by W. Bampton 1793. Communicatd by James Tate Esq. of Bombay thro’ the good offices of David Scott Esq. London, 1799.David, Andrew, ed., The Charts and Coastal Views of Captain Cook’s Voyages. Volume One. The Voyage of the Endeavour, London: Hakluyt Society, extra series, 1988.Faden, William, A General Chart Exhibiting the Discoveries made by Captn. James Cook in this and his two preceeding Voyages; with the Tracks of the Ships under his Command. By Lieut. Roberts of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. London, 1784.Secondary LiteratureBabbage, Ross, The Strategic Significance of Torres Strait. Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 1990.Bayldon, Francis J., ‘Voyage of Luis Vaez de Torres from the New Hebrides to the Moluccas, June to November 1606,’ Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society 11 (1925), part 3: 158-94.Bayldon, Francis J., ‘Voyage of Torres,’ Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society 16 (1930), supplement to part 2: 133-46.Beaglehole, J. C., The Life of Captain James Cook. London: A. & C. Black, 1974.Blainey, Geoffrey, The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance shaped Australia’s History, rev. edn. Melbourne: Macmillan, 1983.Blake, John, The Sea Chart: The Illustrated History of Nautical Maps and Navigational Charts. London: Conway Maritime Press, 2004.Bligh, William, A Voyage to the South Sea, undertaken by Command of His Majesty, for the Purpose of Conveying the Bread-Fruit Tree to the West Indies, in His Majesty’s Ship the Bounty…. London, 1792.Broeze, Frank, Island Nation: A History of Australians and the Sea. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, NSW, 1998.Burney, James, A Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean, 5 vols. London, 1806.Cavenagh, A. K., ‘The Return of the First Fleet Ships,’ The Great Circle II no. 2 (1989): 1-16.Cook, Andrew S., ‘Alexander Dalrymple: Research, Writing and Publication of the Account’ in Alexander Dalrymple, An Account of Discoveries made in the South Pacifick Ocean, 1767; reprinted Sydney: Hordern House, 1996.Dalrymple, Alexander, An Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean, 2 vols. London, 1770-1.Dalrymple, Alexander, A Letter from Mr Dalrymple to Dr Hawkesworth… London, 1773.

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