"Our wings are clipped with a vengeance, but we shall endeavour to fall on our feet somehow or other," wrote Bass early in October, 1801.
A contract made with the Governor, to bring salt pork from Tahiti at sixpence per pound, provided profitable employment for the Venus.

Hogs were plentiful in the Society Islands, and could be procured cheaply.

The arrangement commended itself to the thrifty Governor, who had hitherto been paying a shilling per pound for pork, and it kept Bass actively engaged.

He was "tired of civilised life." There was, too, money to be made, and he sent home satisfactory bills "to stop a few holes in my debts." "That pork voyage," he wrote to his brother-in-law, "has been our first successful speculation"; and he spoke again in fond admiration of the Venus; "she is just the same vessel as when we left England, never complains or cries, though we loaded her with pork most unmercifully." While he was pursuing this trade, the French expedition under Baudin visited Sydney, and they, on their chart of Wilson's Promontory gave the name of Venus Bay to an inlet on the west side of Cape Liptrap.

They also bought goods to the extent of 359 pounds 10 shillings from "Mr.George Basse."* (* Manuscript accounts of Baudin, Archives Nationales BB4 999.) Bass now secured fishing concessions in New Zealand waters, from which he hoped much.