indebted for the earliest designation which attaches in any sense to the
modern nomenclature connected with Australia, viz., for the name of
Torres Straits. That Quiros, whether by birth a Portuguese or a
Spaniard, was in the Spanish service, cannot be doubted. The viceroy of
Peru had warmly entertained his projects, but looked upon its execution
as beyond the limits of his own power to put into operation. He
therefore urged to Quiros to lay his case before the Spanish monarch at
Madrid, and furnished him with letters to strengthen his application.
Whether Philip III was more influenced by the arguments of De Quiros, as
to the discovery of a southern continent, or rather by the desire to
explore the route between Spain and America by the east, in the hope of
discovering wealthy islands between New Guinea and China, we need not
pause to question. It is possible that both these motives had their
weight, for Quiros was despatched to Peru with full orders for the
carrying out of his plans, addressed to the Viceroy, the Count de
Monterey; and he was amply equipped with two well-armed vessels and a
corvette, with which he sailed from Callao on the 21st of December,
1605. Luis Vaez de Torres was commander of the _Almirante_, or second
ship, in this expedition. The voyage was looked upon as one of very
great importance; and Torquemada, in his account of it in the _Monarquia
Indiana_, says that the ships were the strongest and best armed which
had been seen in those seas. The object was to make a settlement at the
island Santa Cruz, and from thence to search for the Tierra Austral, or
southern continent.
After the discovery of several islands, Quiros came to a land which he
named Australia del Espiritu Santo, supposing it to be a part of the
great southern continent. At midnight of the 11th of June, 1606, while
the three ships were lying at anchor in the bay which they had named San
Felipe and Santiago, Quiros, for reasons which are not known, and
without giving any signal or notice, was either driven by a storm, or
sailed away from the harbour, and was separated from the other two
ships.
Subsequently to the separation, Torres found that the Australia del
Espiritu Santo was an island, and then continued his course westward in
pursuance of the exploration. In about the month of August, 1606, he
fell in with a coast in 11½ degrees south lat., which he calls the
beginning of New Guinea; apparently the south-eastern part of the land
afterwards named Louisiade by M. de Bougainville, and now known to be a
chain of islands. As he could not pass to windward of this land, Torres
bore away along its south side, and himself gives the following account
of his subsequent course. “We went along three hundred leagues of coast,
as I have mentioned, and diminished the latitude 2½ degrees, which
brought us into 9 degrees. From hence we fell in with a bank of from
three to nine fathoms, which extends along the coast above one hundred
and eighty leagues. We went over it, along the coast, to 7½ south
latitude; and the end of it is in 5 degrees. We could not go further on
for the many shoals and great currents, so we were obliged to sail
south-west, in that depth, to 11 degrees south lat. There is all over it
an archipelago of islands without number, by which we passed; and at the
end of the eleventh degree the bank became shoaler. Here were very large
islands, and there appeared more to the southward. They were inhabited
by black people, very corpulent and naked. Their arms were lances,
arrows, and clubs of stone ill fashioned. We could not get any of their
arms. We caught, in all this land, twenty persons of different nations,
that with them we might be able to give a better account to Your
Majesty. They give much notice of other people, although as yet they do
not make themselves well understood. We were upon this bank two months,
at the end of which time we found ourselves in twenty-five fathoms, and
5 degrees south latitude, and ten leagues from the coast; and, having
gone four hundred eighty leagues here, the coast goes to the north-east.
I did not search it, for the bank became very shallow. So we stood to
the north.”
The very large islands seen by Torres in the 11th degree of south
latitude, are evidently the hills of Cape York; and the two months of
intricate navigation, the passage through the strait which separates
Australia from New Guinea. A copy of this letter of Torres was
fortunately lodged in the archives of Manilla; and it was not till that
city was taken, in 1762, by the English, that the document was
discovered by Dalrymple; who paid a fitting tribute to the memory of
this distinguished Spanish navigator, by giving to this dangerous
passage the name of Torres’ Straits, which it has ever since retained.
The editor has striven in vain to learn into whose hands Dalrymple’s
copy of this letter has fallen. He has been compelled, therefore, to
reprint it from Dalrymple’s translation, supplied to Admiral Burney, as
inserted at the end of vol. ii of his _Discoveries and Voyages in the
South Sea_.
De Quiros himself reached Mexico on the 3rd of October, 1606, nine
months from his departure from Callao. Strongly imbued with a sense of
the importance of his discoveries, he addressed various memoirs to
Philip III, advocating the desirableness of further explorations in
these unknown regions; but, after years of unavailing perseverance, he
died at Panama in 1614, leaving behind him a name which for merit,
though not for success, was second only to that of Columbus; and with
him expired the naval heroism of Spain. “Reasoning,” as Dalrymple says,
“from principles of science and deep reflection, he asserted the
_existence_ of a southern continent; and devoted with unwearied though
contemned diligence, the remainder of his life to the prosecution of
this sublime conception.” In the first document printed in this
collection, which is from the hand of the Fray Juan Luis Arias, is given
an account of his earnest advocacy of the resuscitation of Spanish
enterprise in the southern seas, and especially with reference to the
great southern continent.
But while the glory of Spanish naval enterprise was thus on the wane,
the very nation which Spain had bruised and persecuted was to supplant
her in the career of adventure and prosperity. The war of independence
had aroused the energies of those provinces of the Netherlands which had
freed themselves from the Spanish yoke; while the cruelties perpetrated
in those provinces which the Spaniards had succeeded in again subduing,
drove an almost incredible number of families into exile. The majority
of these settled in the northern provinces, and thus brought into them a
prodigious influx of activity. Among these emigrants were a number of
enterprising merchants, chiefly from Antwerp,—a town which had for many
years enjoyed a most considerable, though indirect, share in the
transatlantic trade of Spain and Portugal, and was well acquainted with
its immense advantages. These men were naturally animated by the bitter
hatred of exiles, enhanced by difference of faith and the memory of many
wrongs. The idea which arose among them was, to deprive Spain of her
transatlantic commerce, and thus to cripple her resources, and
strengthen those of the Protestants, and by this means eventually to
force the southern provinces of the Netherlands from their oppressors.
This idea, at first vaguely entertained by a few, became general when
the Spaniards forbad Dutch vessels to carry on any traffic with Spain.
This traffic had existed in spite of the wars, and had furnished the
Dutch with the principal means of carrying it on.
Being thus violently thrust out of their share in transatlantic
commerce, the Dutch determined to gain it back with interest. Geography
and hydrography now became the subjects of earnest study and
instruction; and the period was distinguished by the appearance of such
men as Ortelius, Mercator, Plancius, De Bry, Hulsius, Cluverius, etc.,
whom we are now bound to regard as the fathers of modern geography.
Among these the most earnest in turning the resources of science into a
weapon against the oppressors of his country, was Peter Plancius, a
Calvinist clergyman, who opened a nautical and geographical school at
Amsterdam for the express purpose of teaching his countrymen how to find
a way to India, and the other sources whence Spain derived her strength.
We do not here dwell on their efforts to find a northern route to the
east. Their knowledge of the direct route to that wealthy portion of the
world had become greatly increased by the appearance of Jan Huyghen van
Linschoten’s great work. (Amst., 1595–96.) Linschoten had, for fourteen
years, lived in the Portuguese possessions in the East, and had there
collected a vast amount of information. The Dutch East India Company was
established in 1602; and in 1606 we find a vessel from Holland making
the first _authenticated_ discovery of that great south land which in
our own time has been designated—at the suggestion of that worthy
navigator, Matthew Flinders, to whom we are so largely indebted for our
knowledge of the hydrography of that country—by the distinct and
appropriate name of Australia.
Of the discoveries made by the Dutch on the coasts of Australia, our
ancestors of a hundred years ago, and even the Dutch themselves, knew
but little. That which was known was preserved in the _Relations de
divers voyages curieux_ of Melchisedech Thevenot (Paris, 1663–72, fol.);
in the _Noord en Oost Tartarye_ of Nicolas Witsen (Amst., 1692–1705,
fol.); in Valentyn’s _Oud en Nieuw Oost Indien_ (Amst., 1724–26, fol.);
and in the _Inleiding tot de algemeen Geographie_ of Nicolas Struyk
(Amst., 1740, 4to.). We have, however, since gained a variety of
information through a document which fell into the possession of Sir
Joseph Banks, and was published by Alexander Dalrymple, at that time
hydrographer to the Admiralty and the East India Company, in his
collection concerning Papua. This curious and interesting document is a
copy of the instructions to Commodore Abel Jansz Tasman for his second
voyage of discovery. That distinguished commander had already, in 1642,
discovered not only the island now named after him, Tasmania (but more
generally known as Van Diemen’s Land, in compliment to the then governor
of the Dutch East India Company at Batavia), but New Zealand also; and,
passing round the east side of Australia, but without seeing it, sailed
on his return voyage along the northern shores of New Guinea. In January
1644 he was despatched on his second voyage; and his instructions,
signed by the Governor-General, Antonio Van Diemen, and the members of
the council, are prefaced by a recital, in chronological order, of the
previous discoveries of the Dutch. The document is reprinted in the
present volume.
From this recital, combined with a passage from Saris, given in Purchas,
vol. i, p. 385, we learn that, “On the 18th of November, 1605, the Dutch
yacht, the _Duyfhen_ (the Dove), was despatched from Bantam to explore
the islands of New Guinea, and that she sailed along what was thought to
be the west side of that country, to 19¾° of south latitude.” This
extensive country was found, for the greatest part, desert; but in some
places inhabited by wild, cruel, black savages, by whom some of the crew
were murdered; for which reason they could not learn anything of the
land or waters, as had been desired of them; and from want of
provisions, and other necessaries, they were obliged to leave the
discovery unfinished. The furthest point of the land, in their maps, was
called Cape Keer Weer, or “Turn Again.” As Flinders observes, “the
course of the _Duyfhen_ from New Guinea was southward, along the islands
on the west side of Torres’ Strait, to that part of Terra Australis a
little to the west and south of Cape York. But all these lands were
thought to be connected, and to form the west coast of New Guinea.”
Thus, without being conscious of it, the commander of the _Duyfhen_ made
the first _authenticated_ discovery of any part of the great south land
about the month of March 1606; for it appears that he had returned to
Banda in or before the beginning of June of that year.
The second expedition mentioned in the Dutch recital for the discovery
of the great south land, was undertaken in a yacht in the year 1617, by
order of the Fiscal d’Edel, “with little success,” and the journals and
remarks were not to be found; but various ships outward bound from
Holland to the East Indies, in the course of the years 1616, 1618, 1619,
and 1622, made discoveries on the west coast of the great unknown south
land, from 35° to 22° south latitude, and among them the ship _Eendragt_
(the Concord), commanded by Dirk Hartog, Hertoge, or Hartighs, of
Amsterdam, fell in with land in about 25 degrees south, which afterwards
received its name from this ship. The president, De Brosses, has fallen
into the error of describing Dirk Hartog, as a native of Eendragt,
adding that this coast has preserved the name of the vessel, and that of
the country of its commander. The Dutch recital which mentions the
voyage of the _Eendragt_, does not give Hartog’s name, but we learn it
from a MS. chart by Hessel Gerritz, of Amsterdam, 1627, referred to by
Dalrymple in his collection concerning Papua, note, page 6. An important
part of Hartog’s discovery was Dirk Hartog’s Roads, at the entrance of
the sound, afterwards called by Dampier Shark’s Bay, in 25°; and on Dirk
Hartog’s island, one of the islands forming the road, he left a tin
plate, bearing the following inscription: _Aº. 1616 den 25sten October
is hier vangecomen het schip de Endracht van Amsterdam, den Oppercoopmen
Gilles Mibais Van Luyck, Kapitein Dirk Hartog, van Amsterdam, den
27sten. dito t’ zeijl gegaen na Bantam, den Ondercoopman Jan Stoyn,
Opperstiermann Pieter Dockes van Bil Aº. 1616._ Of which the following
is a translation: _On the 25th of October, 1616, arrived here the ship
Endraght, of Amsterdam: the first merchant, Gilles Mibais Van Luyck;
Captain Dirck Hartog, of Amsterdam; the 27th ditto set sail for Bantam;
undermerchant, Jan Stoyn; upper steersman, Pieter Dockes, from Bil. Aº.
1616._
In 1697, this plate was found by Wilhem Van Vlaming, Captain of the
_Geelvink_, of whose voyage we shall have to speak in due course, and
was replaced by another on which the inscription was copied, and the
following new inscription added:
_1697. den 4 den Februarij is hier aengecomen het schip de Geelvinck van
Amsterdam, den commandeur schipper Williem de Vlamingh van Vlielandt:
Adsistent Joan van Bremen van Coppenhage; Opperstierman Michiel Blom van
Estight van Bremen._
_De Hoecker de Nijptang, schipper Gerrit Collaert van Amsterdam;
Adsistent Theodorus Heermans van d^o.; d’opper-stierman Gerrit Gerritz
van Bremen._
_’t Galjoot t’ Weseltje, Gezaghebber Cornelis de Vlamigh van Vlielandt;
stierman Coert Gerritsz van Bremen, en van hier gezeilt met ons vloot
den 12 d^o. voorts het Zuijtlandt te ondersoecken en gedestineert voor
Batavia._ [Illustration]
Of which the following is a translation: _On the 4th of February, 1697,
arrived here the ship Geelvinck, of Amsterdam: captain commandant,
Wilhelm van Vlaming of Vlielandt; assistant, Jan van Bremen of
Copenhagen; first pilot, Michéel Bloem van Estight of Bremen; the hooker
the Nyptangh, captain Gerrit Collaert of Amsterdam; assistant, Theodorus
Heermans of the same place; first pilot, Gerrit Gerritz of Bremen; then
the galliot Weseltje; commander, Cornelis van Vlaming of Vlielandt;
pilot, Coert Gerritzs of Bremen. Sailed from here with our fleet on the
12th, to explore the south land, and afterwards bound for Batavia._
In the account of the voyage of discovery made to the south by the
corvettes, _Geographe_ and _Naturaliste_, in the years 1800, 1801, 1802,
1803, and 1804, published by F. Peron, vol. i, chap. 10, p. 193, we
find, that in the month of July 1801, Captain Hamelin, of the
_Naturaliste_, resolved on sailing to the extremity of Shark’s Bay; but
he first dispatched three men to Dirck Hartog’s island, for the purpose
of signalizing the _Geographe_, in case it should heave in sight at the
entrance of the bay. On returning from Dirck Hartog’s island, the
boatswain brought with them the plate of tin above described. It was
about six inches diameter, and the inscriptions were described as
coarsely cut. The plate was found on the north point of the island,
which was named in consequence, the Cape of the Inscription; it was then
half covered with sand, lying near an oaken post, on which it seemed to
have been originally nailed. Having copied the inscriptions, Captain
Hamelin had a new post made, and sent back the plate to be refixed on
the same spot from which it had been taken; he would have looked upon it
as sacrilege to have kept on board this plate, which, for nearly two
centuries, had been spared by nature, and by those who might have
observed it before him. He himself also placed on the north-east part of
this island a second plate, on which were inscribed the name of his
corvette, and the date of his arrival on those shores. In the
translation given in Peron’s work of the earlier of these two
inscriptions, a droll mistake is made by an error in punctuation, as
will be seen by comparing the original inscription, see p. lxxxi, with
the following: “1616. Le 25 Octobre est arrivé ici le navire l’Endraght
d’Amsterdam: premier marchand, Gilles Miebais Van Luck; capitaine, Dirck
Hartighs d’Amsterdam; il remit sous voile le 27 du même mois; Bantum
étoit sous marchand; Janstins premier pilote: Pieter Ecoores Van-Bu ...
Anne 1616.”
Thus it will be seen, that Bantam, in Java, for which they set sail, is
transformed into the undermerchant, and the person who really held that
post is converted into chief pilot, while poor Pieter Dockes, whose
name, perhaps more feebly scratched at the close of the inscription, had
become obliterated by more than a century’s rough usage, is deprived of
the honour of holding any post whatever. Even this rendering of the
inscription is however highly interesting, as giving some indications of
the degree of obliteration effected by the weather in this long space of
time.
In 1617 appeared a work, the title of which renders some mention of it
in this place necessary. It was entitled “_Mundus alter et idem, sive
Terra Australis antehac semper incognita longis itineribus peregrini
academici nuperrime lustrata._ Hanau, 1617.” The book bearing this
delusive title was by Bishop Joseph Hall. It was in reality an invective
against the characteristic vices of various nations, from which it is
said that Swift borrowed the idea of _Gulliver’s Travels_.
A strange blunder has been made by the Abbé Prevost, tom. ii, p. 201, of
his _Histoire des Voyages_, 4to. ed., and by the President de Brosses,
in his _Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes_, tom. i, p. 432;
and copied by Callander in his unacknowledged translation from De
Brosses, to the effect that in the year 1618, one Zeachen, a native of
Arnheim, discovered the land called Arnheim’s Land, and Van Diemen’s
Land on the N. coast of Australia, in about the latitude of 14°. He
proceeds to say that Diemen’s Land owes its name to Anthony Van Diemen,
at that time general of the Dutch East India Company, who returned to
Europe with vast riches in 1631. The blunder is easily demonstrable.
Zeachen, or as it is also given, Zechaen, is a form of word plainly
irreconcileable with the genius of the Dutch language, and is an evident
misspelling for Zeehaen, which is the name not of a man, but of a ship,
the _Sea-hen_.
No such voyage is mentioned in the recital of discoveries which preface
the instructions to Tasman, nor is there any notice of the north coast
of New Holland having been visited by the Dutch in that year. Moreover
Van Diemen, as we learn from the _Vies des Gouverneurs Généraux avec
l’abrégé de l’histoire des établissemens Hollandois_ by Dubois, was not
governor general until January 1st, 1636, and it is observable that one
of the ships employed in Tasman’s voyage in 1642, in which he discovered
the island now known as Tasmania, but to which he, out of compliment,
gave the name of the governor general, Van Diemen, was called the
Zeehaen, from which in all probability, by some complication of
mistakes, the mis-statement here made has originated.
The _Mauritius_, an outward bound ship, appears to have made some
discoveries upon the west coasts, in July 1618, particularly of Willem’s
River, near the north-west cape, but no further particulars are known.
It would seem that another of the outward bound ships referred to in the
Dutch recital, as visiting the coasts of New Holland, was commanded by
Edel, and the land there discovered, which was on the west coast, was
named the land of Edel. From Campbell’s edition of Harris’s voyages, we
learn that this discovery was made in 1619. It appears from Thevenot’s
chart, published in 1663, to have extended from about 29° northward, to
26½, where the land of Eendragt commences, but in Van Keulen’s chart,
published near the close of the century, it is made to extend still more
southward, to 32° 20´, which Thevenot’s chart would attribute rather to
the discovery made three years later (1622) by the ship _Leeuwin_ (_the
Lioness_).
The great reef lying off the coast of Edel’s Land, called Houtman’s
Abrolhos, was discovered at the same time. The name was doubtless given
after the Dutch navigator Frederick Houtman, although we find no trace
of his having himself visited this coast. The Portuguese name Abrolhos,
meaning “open your eyes,” was given to dangerous reefs, implying the
necessity of a sharp look out.
The name of the commander of the _Leeuwin_ has not yet appeared in any
published document that has met the editor’s eye. The land to which the
name of that vessel was given, extended from 35° northward, to about
31°; but as we have already stated, in Van Keulen’s and later charts,
the northern portion of this tract has been included in the discovery by
Edel.
For the nearer discovery of Eendraght’s Land, the Dutch recital informs
us that the governor general, Jan Pietersz Coen, dispatched in
September, 1622, the yachts De Haring and Harewind; but this voyage was
rendered abortive by meeting the ship _Mauritius_, and searching after
the ship _Rotterdam_.
In January 1623, the Dutch recital informs us, the yachts _Pera_ and
_Arnhem_, under the command of Jan Carstens, were despatched from
Amboina by order of his Excellency Jan Pieterz Coen. Carstens, with
eight of the _Arnhem’s_ crew, was treacherously murdered by the natives
of New Guinea; but the vessels prosecuted the voyage, and discovered
“the great islands, Arnhem and the Spult.” Arnhem’s Land forms the
easternmost portion of the north coast of New Holland, lying to the west
of the Gulf of Carpentaria. In a chart inserted in Valentyn’s
_Beschryvingh van Banda_, fo. 36, is laid down the river Spult in
Arnhem’s Land, in about the position of Liverpool River, with which, in
all probability, it is identical; and the country in its vicinity is
probably what is here meant by the Spult.
The ships were then “untimely separated”, and the _Arnhem_ returned to
Amboina. The _Pera_ persisted, and “sailed along the south coast of New
Guinea to a flat cove situate in 10° south latitude, and ran along the
west coast of this land to Cape Keer Weer; from thence discovered the
coast further southwards, as far as 17 degrees, to Staten River. From
this place, what more of the land could be discerned seemed to stretch
westward.” The _Pera_ then returned to Amboina. “In this discovery were
found everywhere shallow water and barren coasts; islands altogether
thinly peopled by divers cruel, poor, and brutal nations, and of very
little use to the Dutch East India Company.”
The first discovery of the south coast of New Holland was made in 1627.
The Dutch recital says: “In the year 1627, the south coast of the great
south land was accidently discovered by the ship the _Gulde Zeepaard_,
outward bound from Fatherland, for the space of a thousand miles.” The
journal of this voyage seems to have been lost. The editor has spared no
pains, by inquiry in Holland and Belgium, to trace its existence, but
without success; and the only testimony that we have to the voyage is
derived from the above passage and Dutch charts, which give the name of
Pieter Nuyts to the immense tract of country thus discovered. Nuyts is
generally supposed to have commanded the ship; but Flinders judiciously
remarks that, as on his arrival at Batavia, he was sent ambassador to
Japan, and afterwards made governor of Formosa, it seems more probable
that he was a civilian—perhaps the Company’s first merchant on
board—rather than captain of the ship. In estimating the _thousand
miles_ described in the recital, allowance must doubtless be made for
the irregularities of the coast, embracing from Cape Leeuwin to St.
Francis and St. Peter’s Islands.