The Bligh Museum of Pacific Exploration

The first association Matthew Flinders had with Tasmania, and for that matter with Australia, was on February 9, 1792, when as a midshipman in Capt. Bligh's Providence he arrived at Adventure Bay during the second breadfruit voyage.His friendship with Surgeon George Bass lead to many fine exploratory exploits, began when both joined the Reliance in 1794 for a voyage to New South Wales.From there they sailed westward making the discovery that Tasmania was an island. They turned southward and Flinders charted the main features of the West Coast, naming Tasman's 1642 landfall mountains, Heemskerck and Zeehaen.On the southern coastline, Flinders made more accurate charts than those of his predecessors.

 

On December 14, he anchored in Storm Bay near Betsy Island. After an interval of almost six years Flinders had returned to within a few miles of his contact with Tasmania. They explored near the entrance to Hobart Harbour and sailed up the Derwent estuary, coming to anchor off Risdon.

 

Flinders climbed Mt. Direction and took bearings which must have included sights of the present location of Hobart. While he continued a survey of the River Derwent, Bass climbed Mt. Wellington, previously known as Table Mountain. While returning to England in the Cumberland after mapping and naming Australia he was shipwrecked and then imprisoned by the French in Mauritius for six years.

 

Photostats of his prison and a pleading letters to his French friend, Thomy Pitot, are exhibited.