In writing my biography of Tasman, forming part of Messrs. Frederik
Muller and Co.'s edition of the Journal of Tasman's celebrated voyage of
discovery of 1642-1643, I was time and again struck by the fact that the
part borne by the Netherlanders in the discovery of the continent of
Australia is very insufficiently known to the Dutch themselves, and
altogether misunderstood or even ignored abroad. Not only those who with
hypercritical eyes scrutinise, and with more or less scepticism as to its
value, analyse whatever evidence on this point is submitted to them, but
those others also who feel a profound and sympathetic interest in the
historical study of the remarkable voyages which the Netherlanders
undertook to the South-land, are almost invariably quite insufficiently
informed concerning them. This fact is constantly brought home to the
student who consults the more recent works published on the subject, and
who fondly hopes to get light from such authors as CALVERT, COLLINGRIDGE,
NORDENSKIOLD, RAINAUD and others. Such at least has time after time been
my own case. Is it wonderful, therefore, that, while I was engaged in
writing Tasman's life, the idea occurred to me of republishing the
documents relating to this subject, preserved in the State Archives at
the Hague--the repository of the archives of the famous General Dutch
Chartered East-India Company extending over two centuries (1602-1800)--and
in various other places? I was naturally led to lay before Messrs.
Frederik Muller and Co. the question, whether they would eventually
undertake such a publication, and I need hardly add that these
gentlemen, to whom the historical study of Dutch discovery has repeatedly
been so largely indebted, evinced great interest in the plan I submitted
to them.[*]
[* See my Life of Tasman, p. 103, note 10.]
Meanwhile the Managing Board of the Royal Geographical Society of the
Nether lands had resolved to publish a memorial volume on the occasion of
the Society's twenty-fifth anniversary. Among the plans discussed by the
Board was the idea of having the documents just referred to published at
the expense of the Society. The name of jubilee publication could with
complete justice be bestowed on a work having for its object once more to
throw the most decided and fullest possible light on achievements of our
forefathers in the 17th and 18th century, in a form that would appeal to
foreigners no less than to native readers. An act of homage to our
ancestors, therefore, a modest one certainly, but one inspired by the
same feeling which in 1892 led Italy and the Iberian Peninsula to
celebrate the memory of the discoverer of America, and in 1898 prompted
the Portuguese to do homage to the navigator who first showed the world
the sea-route to India.
{Page ii}
How imperfect and fragmentary even in our days is the information
generally available concerning the part borne by the Netherlanders in the
discovery of the fifth part of the world, may especially be seen from the
works of foreigners. This, I think, must in the first place, though not,
indeed, exclusively, be accounted for by the rarity of a working
acquaintance with the Dutch tongue among foreign students. On this
account the publication of the documents referred to would very
imperfectly attain the object in view, unless accompanied by a careful
translation of these pieces of evidence into one of the leading languages
of Europe; and it stands to reason that in the case of the discovery of
Australia the English language would naturally suggest itself as the most
fitting medium of information[*]. So much to account for the bilingual
character of the jubilee publication now offered to the reader.
[* The English translation is the work of Mr. C. Stoffel, of Nijmegen.]
Closely connected with this consideration is another circumstance which
has influenced the mode of treatment followed in the preparation of this
work. The defective acquaintance with the Dutch language of those who
have made the history of the discovery of Australia the object of serious
study, or even, in the case of some of them, their total ignorance of it,
certainly appears to me one, nay even the most momentous of the causes of
the incomplete knowledge of the subject we are discussing; but it cannot
possibly be considered the only cause, if we remember that part of the
documentary evidence proving the share of the Netherlanders in the
discovery of Australia has already been given to the world through the
medium of a leading European tongue.
In 1859 R. H. MAJOR brought out his well-known book _Early Voyages to
Terra Australis, now called Australia_, containing translations of some
of the archival pieces and of other documents pertaining to the subject.
And though, from P. A. LEUPE'S work, entitled _De Reizen der Nederlanders
naar het Juidland of Nzeuw-Holland in de 17e en 18e eeuw_, published in
1868, and from a book by L. C. D. Van Dijk, brought out in the same year
in which MAJOR'S work appeared, and entitled _Twee togten naar de golf
van Carpentaria_; though, I say, from these two books it became evident
that MAJOR'S work was far from complete, still it cannot be denied that
he had given a great deal, and what he had given, had in the English
translation been made accessible also to those to whom Dutch was an
unknown tongue. This circumstance could not but make itself felt in my
treatment of the subject, since it was quite needless to print once more
in their entirety various documents discussed by MAJOR. There was the
less need for such republication in cases which would admit of the
results of Dutch exploratory voyages being exhibited in the simplest and
most effective way by the reproduction of charts made in the course of
such voyages themselves: these charts sometimes speak more clearly to the
reader than the circumstantial journals which usually, though not always,
are of interest for our purpose only by specifying the route followed,
the longitudes and latitudes taken, and the points touched at by the
voyagers. These considerations have in some cases led me only to mention
certain documents, without printing them in full, and the circumstance
that my Tasman publication has been brought out in English, will
sufficiently account for the absence from this work of the journal of
Tasman's famous expedition of 1642/3.[*]
[* I would have the present work considered as forming one whole with my
Tasman publication and with the fascicule of _Remarkable Maps_, prepared
by me, containing the Nolpe-Dozy chart of 1652-3 (Cf. my Life of Tasman,
pp. 75 f). Together they furnish all the most important pieces of
evidence discovered up to now, for the share which the Netherlanders have
had in the discovery of Australia.]
{Page iii}
The documents, here either republished or printed for the first time, are
all of them preserved in the State Archives at the Hague[*], unless
otherwise indicated. They have been arranged under the heads of the
consecutive expeditions, which in their turn figure in chronological
order. This seemed to me the best way to enable readers to obtain a clear
view of the results of the exploratory voyages made along the coasts of
Australia by the Netherlanders of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries.
[* My best thanks are due to Jhr. Th. Van Riemsdijk, LL. D., Principal
Keeper, and to Dr. T. H. Colenbrander, Assistant-Keeper, of the State
Archives of the Hague.]
For this and this only, was the object I had in view in selecting the
materials for the present work: once more, as completely and convincingly
as I could, to set forth the part borne by the Netherlanders in the
discovery of the fifth part of the world. I have not been actuated by any
desire to belittle the achievements of other nations in this field of
human activity. The memorial volume here presented to the reader aims at
nothing beyond once more laying before fellow-countrymen and foreigners
the _documentary evidence_ of Dutch achievement in this field; perhaps I
may add the wish that it may induce other nations to follow the example
here given as regards hitherto unpublished documents of similar nature.
Still, it would be idle to deny that it was with a feeling of national
pride that in the course of this investigation I was once more
strengthened in the conviction that even at this day no one can justly
gainsay MAJOR'S assertion on p. LXXX of his book, that "the first
authenticated discovery of any part of the great Southland" was made in
1606 by a Dutch schip the Duifken. All that is asserted regarding a
so-called previous discovery of Australia has no foundation beyond mere
surmise and conjecture. Before the voyage of the ship Duifken all is an
absolute blank.