The Colonel Had Explored A Branch Of The River On The Banks Of Which He Found A Species Of Flax Growing Which He Thought Was Valuable. He Had Collected Specimens Of Many Rare And Uncommon Plants Particularly Some Varieties Of Fern, But Unfortunately Was Deprived Of The Fruits Of His Industry.

His servant had made use of the bundle of plants as a pillow and having placed it too near the fire it was soon in a blaze, and he was awaked only in time to save his face from being scorched...

"We were now growing short of provisions and no vessel arriving from Sydney we set about making preparations for our return thither. There was now a small establishment made for the colliers.* (* At Collier's Point.) I had built them a convenient hut to shelter them. I left them a boat and seine with what provisions I was able to spare. We took our departure for Sydney on the 22nd of July 1801, and arrived there on the 25th."

Six weeks after his return to port, Grant sent in his resignation on the ground that he had so "little knowledge of nautical surveying." The resignation was accepted by King, who wrote in reply: "I should have been glad if your ability as a surveyor or being able to determine the longitude of the different places you might visit was in anyway equal to your ability as an officer or a seaman."

A very slight perusal of Grant's narrative of his voyage enables us to grasp the state of his feelings when he sent in his resignation. It is evident that he thought he had not been treated fairly, and was glad to quit New South Wales. He writes of his departure: "The mortifications and disappointments I met with...induced me to seize the first opportunity of leaving the country." And it seems possible that when he told King that he had no knowledge of "nautical surveying," he said so because he knew King thought he had not, and it looks as if the admission was made as a pretext to obtain his passage to England, rather than for the purpose of belittling his own capabilities. That Grant was a fine seaman goes without saying. That he was personally courageous, his subsequent naval services proved. He seems to have handled his ship at all times with extraordinary care, and it may have been that he had studied marine surveying with less assiduity than seamanship, for the chart that he made must be admitted to be very imperfect.

Murray, his successor in the command of the brig, is best remembered as the discoverer of Victoria, and "yet," writes Rusden, "he (Murray) merely obeyed a distinct order in going thither to trace the coast between Point Schanck and Cape Albany Otway noticing the soundings and everything remarkable." Rusden might have added, that Murray probably received some benefit from Grant's experiences, for at that time he was equally incompetent as a marine surveyor.

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