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236 A VOYAGE TO [East Coast 
180%, opinion, as well as myself, that it would be unsafe to do this in the 
middle of the winter season ; and that to remain six months in port 
waiting for the fine weather would be a sad waste of time ; I had, 
besides, left very little of importance to be examined upon the South 
Coast, a circumstance which the instructions had not contemplated. 
Upon all these considerations, it was decided to proceed to the north- 
ward,— examine Torres' Strait and the east side of the Gulph of Car- 
pentaria before the north-west monsoon should set in, — proceed as I 
might be able during its continuance, — and afterwards explore the 
North and North-west Coasts ; returning to Port Jackson when, and 
by such route as might be found most advisable, and conducive to the 
general purposes of the voyage. 
It was probable that the north-west monsoon would not set in 
before the beginning of November ; I therefore intended to examine 
such parts of the east coast of New South Wales in my way to the 
northward , as had been passed by captain Cook in the night, and 
were not seen in my expedition with the Norfolk sloop in 1799. The 
openings of Keppel and Shoal-water Bays, and the still larger of 
Broad Sound, I was also anxious to explore ; in the hope of finding 
a river falling into some one of them, capable of admitting the Lady 
Nelson into the interior of the country. These desirable objects I 
expected to accomplish before the approach of the monsoon would 
call me into the Gulph of Carpentaria. 
The French ships were in no forwardness for sailing ; and 
it was understood that captain Baudin intended sending back Le 
Naturaliste to France, by the way of Bass' Strait, so soon as the 
seas"on should be favourable. He had purchased a small vessel of 
between thirty and forty tons at Sydney, to serve him as a tender ; and 
he told me that we should probably meet in the Gulph of Carpentaria 
in December or January. I understood that he meant to return to 
the South Coast, and after completing its examination, to proceed 
northward, and enter the Gulph with the north-west monsoon ; but 
it appeared to me very probable, that the western winds on the South 
