ved there on June 20th,
in circumstances that it will be convenient to relate after describing
the remainder of the voyage of the Investigator up to her arrival in the
same port.

CHAPTER 16. FLINDERS IN PORT PHILLIP.

Flinders' actual discovery work on the south coast was completed when he
met Baudin in Encounter Bay; for the whole coast line to the east had
been found a short while before he appeared upon it, though he was not
aware of this fact when completing his voyage. For about a hundred and
fifty miles, from the mouth of the Murray eastward to Cape Banks, the
credit of discovery properly belongs to Baudin, and Flinders duly marked
his name upon the chart. Further eastward, from Cape Banks to the deep
bend of the coast at the head of which lies Port Phillip, the discoverer
was Captain Grant of the Lady Nelson. His voyage was projected under the
following circumstances.

When Philip Gidley King, who in 1800 succeeded Hunter as Governor of New
South Wales, was in England in 1799, he represented to the Admiralty the
desirability of sending out to Australia a small, serviceable ship,
capable of being used in shallow waters, so that she might explore bays
and rivers. One of the Commissioners of the Transport Board, Captain John
Schanck, had designed a type of vessel that was considered suitable for
this purpose. She was to be fitted with a sliding keel, or centreboard,
and was deemed to be a boat of staunch sea-going qualities, as well as
being good for close-in coastal service. A sixty-ton brig, the Lady
Nelson, was built to Schanck's plans, and was entrusted to the command of
Lieutenant Grant. She was tried in the Downs in January, 1800, when Grant
reported enthusiastically on her behaviour. She rode out a gale in five
fathoms of water without shipping "even a sea that would come over the
sole of your shoe." Running her into Ramsgate in a heavy sea, Grant wrote
of her in terms that, though somewhat crabbed to a non-nautical ear, were
a sailor's equivalent for fine poetry: "though it blew very strong, I
found the vessel stand well up under sail, and with only one reef out of
the topsails, no jib set, a lee tide going, when close hauled she brought
her wake right aft and went at the rate of five knots."

Grant was ambitious to make discoveries on his own account, and did not
lack zeal. He was a skilful sailor, but was lacking in the scientific
accomplishment required for the service in which he aspired to shine.