The discovery of this port, now the seat of a naval base for the Commonwealth, was a splendid crown to a remarkable voyage.

"I have named the place," Bass wrote, "from its relative situation to every other known harbour on the coast, Western Port.

It is a large sheet of water, branching out into two arms, which end in wide flats of several miles in extent, and it was not until we had been here some days that we found it to be formed by an island, and to have two outlets to the sea, an eastern and western passage." Twelve days were spent in the harbour.

The weather was bad; and to this cause in the main we may attribute the paucity of the observations made, and the defective account given of the port itself.

It contains two islands: Phillip Island, facing the strait, and French Island, the larger of the two, lying between Phillip Island and the mainland.