504 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



a letter, written after his departure by the Duke of Portland, 

 which informed him of the discovery of Bass's Strait, 

 and instructed him to sail through the Strait on his way 

 to Sydney. In obeying this instruction, Grant made 

 the first discovery of part of the unknown coast. On 

 the 3rd of December he saw two capes which he named 

 Cape Banks and Cape Northumberland. On the modern 

 map they stand at the extreme South-Eastern corner 

 of South Australia, on the border of Victoria. Sailing 

 Eastward, he named Cape Bridgewater and Cape Nelson, 

 sailed across an opening which he named Portland Bay, 

 named Cape Otway, and thence sailed to Wilson's Pro- 

 montory across an opening which he named King's Bay ; * 

 a Bay which, as he knew, contained Western Port, and 

 which also contained, though he did not know it, Port 

 Phillip. Grant's discovery, then, had been the coast from 

 Cape Banks to Cape Otway, that is the Western half 

 of the coastline of the State of Victoria; and, further, the 

 map of his track 2 invited exploration of the great opening 

 between Cape Otway and Wilson's Promontory, which 

 included Port Phillip and the site of Melbourne. Grant 

 described King's Bay as being one hundred miles wide, 

 and so " deep " that he " could not see the bottom of it 

 from the mast-head " ; and he wondered whether this 

 " very deep bay " was the entrance of a channel which 

 led to the Gulf of Carpentaria and " insulated New South 

 Wales." Bringing this news with him, Grant passed the 

 Strait, the first seaman who passed it from West to East, 

 and reached Sydney on the i6th of December, 1800, 

 declaring that the Lady Nelson was equal to any vessel 

 as a sea-boat " a statement which had afterwards to be 



1 He wrote to Governor King, " One of the most extensive (Bays) 

 I named after yourself, as it is the largest I met with, and is, by tolerable 

 estimation from the ship's run on the log, one hundred and odd miles 

 nearly due East and West from Cape to Cape " (Historical Records 

 of N.S.W., vol. iv. p. 269). 



2 Grant's book (p. 69) gives his track. See map, p. 505. King made 

 a " rough eye copy " which is printed in Historical Records of N.S.W., 

 vol. iv. p. 311 ; and also an ".eye-sketch," which is printed in Ida Lee's 

 Lady Nelson. 



