(1619)? FURTHER DISCOVERY OF THE SOUTH-COAST OF NEW-GUINEA BY THE SHIP
HET WAPEN VAN AMSTERDAM? [*]
_Instructions for Tasman 1644._
...In the interim in the year 1619 the ship 't Wapen van Amsterdam,
passing Banda on her way thither, was east on the south-coast of Nova
Guinea where also some of her crew were slain by the barbarian
inhabitants, so that no certain information respecting the situation of
the country was obtained...
[* I place a note of interrogation here. The matter is not quite clear.
For the sake of completeness I mention it here, but without drawing any
conclusion. On p. 95, note 5 of my "Life of Tasman" in Fred. Muller's
Tasman publication I say: "Leupe, Zuidland, p. 35, cites a letter sent by
the Directors to the Gov.-Gen. and Councillors, of Sept. 9, 1620. In this
letter there is question of the discoveries made by d'Eendracht,
Zeewolff, _'t Wapen van Amsterdam_, and quite recently by Commanders
Houtman and D'Edel." When, we may ask, did the ship 't Wapen van
Amsterdam survey the South-land? There certainly was a ship of that name
by the side of another vessel, named Amsterdam _pur et simple_. According
to the Register of departures of vessels of the E.I.C., preserved in the
State Archives at the Hague, this ship set sail from the Netherlands on
May 11, 1613. I have found no reliable trace of later date of this
vessel, and the documents know nothing of any exploration of the
South-land by her. I am inclined to think that Leupe is mistaken here.
The letter itself, which is contained in the copying-book of letters,
preserved in the State Archives, has suffered much from theravages of
time. Between the words "Zeewolff" and "Amsterdam" the paper has suffered
so much that nothing is left of the intervening letters. L. C. D. Van
Dijk, in his Mededeelingen uit het Oost-Indisch archief. Amsterdam,
_Scheltema_, 1859 p. 2, note 2, has also printed the letter in question.
He puts the words: "'t Wapen van" in parentheses, in order to denote that
they are merely conjectural. Leupe may have inadvertently omitted these
parentheses. Perhaps the original text read: "ende Amsterdam". In this
case there would have been two times question of Dedel's voyages: once by
a reference to the ship Amsterdam; and afterwards by mentioning Dedel's
name itself. I must not however omit to make mention here of what the
Instructions for Tasman's second voyage, dated January 29, 1644, say
about an unsuccessful expedition undertaken by the ship 't Wapen van
Amsterdam to the south coast of New Guinea in 1619.]
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