George Bass had married Elizabeth Waterhouse at St. James Church, Westminster, on October 8, 1800.

She was the sister of Henry Waterhouse, Bass's former shipmate, and captain of the Reliance.

He had set sail again within three months, and though he writes her affectionate letters, such is his fate that he will not return.

Bass and a syndicate of friends have invested some ten thousand pounds in the copper-sheathed brig Venus, and a cargo of general goods to transport and sell in Port Jackson.

Bass, as the owner-manager, had set sail in early 1801. (Among his influential friends and key business associates in the Antipodes is the principal surgeon of the satellite British colony on Norfolk Island, Thomas Jamison, who will subsequently be appointed Surgeon-General of New South Wales.)

On passing through Bass Strait on his 1801 voyage he recorded it simply as Bass Strait, like any other geographical feature.

It seems, as Flinders' biographer Ernest Scott observed, that Bass's natural modesty meant he felt no need to say "discovered by me" or "named after me".

On arrival, Bass finds the colony awash with goods and he is unable to sell his cargo.

Governor King is operating on a strict program of economy and will not take the goods into the government store, even at a 50% discount.

What King does, though, is contract with Bass to ship salt pork from Tahiti.

Food is scarce in Sydney at this time and prices are being driven up, yet pigs are plentiful in the Society Islands and King can contract with Bass at six pence a pound, where he'd been paying a shilling (twelve pence) previously.

The arrangement suits King's thrift, and is profitable for Bass.

King meanwhile continues to face military arrogance and disobedience from the New South Wales Corps.

He fails to receive support in England when he sends an accused officer, John Macarthur, back to face a court-martial in November 1801.