YORK TOWN. 433 



being under Goose or Western Chappell Island, 

 where a lighthouse was in course of construction. 



His Excellency, Sir John Franklin, requesting 

 that I would send the Vansittart round to Macquarie 

 Harbour, on the west coast, after a party of runaway 

 convicts, we were for a time deprived of her services. 

 As the rise of the tide in the Tamar was sufficient 

 for laying the ship ashore, I took the opportunity 

 of doing so on the west bank, just above Garden 

 Island, to examine her bottom, and found it so 

 defective that 130 sheets of copper were required 

 to make good the damage ; in some places the two- 

 inch sheathing was completely destroyed. The 

 original settlement, York Town, was at the head of 

 a shoal bight just above us ; I found it almost quite 

 in ruins, though there were one or two of the original 

 settlers there ; the chief part of the inhabitants 

 were a lawless set, who were said to live, chiefly, by 

 plunder. 



Whilst the ship underwent these repairs, the 

 triangulation was extended to Launceston,* at the 

 head of the Tamar, thirty miles from the sea. 

 Large vessels are prevented from approaching close 

 to the town by a bar. The greatest difficulty found 

 in navigating the river is Whirlpool Reach ; near 

 the middle of this lies a rock, an attempt to remove 



* The latitude of the Port office I found to be 41° 2G' 5" S. 

 long. 4o 42' 24" W, of Sydney. High water 3h. 35m. ; springs 

 rise 12 feet. During the winter, after rains, the stream sets 

 down for days together at the rate of from one to three knots. 

 VOL. II. 2 F 



