George Bass had applied to King in…
February 1803 CE
He expects much from it, possibly because he knows the latter are home to large populations of fur seals, but before he hears it had been declined he sails south from Sydney never to return.
Bass and Matthew Flinders have both been operating out of Sydney during these times, but their stays there have not coincided.
What became of Bass is unknown. He set sail on his last voyage in the Venus on February 5, 1803, and he and his crew are never seen again.
His plan had been to go to Tahiti and perhaps on to the Spanish colonies on the coast of Chile to buy provisions and bring them back to Sydney.
It has been suspected Bass may also have planned to engage in contraband trade in Chile.
Spain reserves the import of goods into her colonies for Spanish ships and Spanish merchants, but the colonists need more than they can supply and shortages and heavy taxation causes high prices, encouraging an extensive illegal trade with foreign vessels.
Port Jackson will be described by some nineteenth-century historians as a base for such smuggling.
Bass still had much of the general cargo he had brought to Sydney in 1801 and he may well have been tempted to take some to Chile.
Two of his last letters have hints at a venture which he could not name. but in any case he set off in 1803, with a diplomatic letter from Governor King attesting his bona-fides and that his sole purpose if he were on the West coast of South America would be in procuring provisions.
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