the imminent dangers which they escaped makes me tremble. At one period
of the descent I would willingly have compromised for a loss of one third
of them to ensure the safety of the remainder. It is to the exertions and
steadiness of the men, under Providence, that their safety must be
ascribed. The thick tufts of grass and the loose soil also gave them a
surer footing, of which the men skilfully availed themselves."


They were now on a river running direct to the sea, which was named the
Hastings River, and which the party followed down with more or less
trouble until they reached a port at the mouth of it, which the explorer,
after the fashion of the day, immediately dubbed Port Macquarie. It is an
unfortunate thing for New South Wales that such an absence of originality
with regard to naming newly discovered places was displayed by the
travellers of that time.

On the 12th of October, the wanderers made a final start for home,
commencing a toilsome march along the coast south. Stopped and
interrupted for a time by many inlets and creeks, they at last came upon
a boat buried in the sand, which had belonged to a Hawkesbury vessel,
lost some time before; this boat they carried with them as far as Port
Stephens, where they arrived on the 1st of November, using it to
facilitate the passage of the salt water arms. During the latter part of
this wearisome journey, they were much harassed by unprovoked attacks by
the natives, and one of the men, William Black, was dangerously wounded,
being speared through the back and in the lower part of the body.

Oxley had thus, after innumerable hardships and dangers, brought his
party, with the exception of the wounded man, back in safety to the
settlements. True he had not fulfilled the mission he was dispatched on,