New Guinea is divided from the Queensland province of Australia by the shoal-dotted Torres Straits, about 90 miles wide; while the Samoan Islands lie east of Fiji.
The Portuguese Magellan was the first discoverer in the sixteenth century of New Guinea (also known as Papua), while the new name appears to have been given to the island by Ortiz de Retez, who laid down certain points.
During the centuries succeeding, New Guinea received frequent visitors representing European nations, amongst them Captain Cook and Tasman, whose name is perpetuated in Tasmania though the island for many years bore the name of his lieutenant, Van Diemen, and was known as "Van Diemen's Land."
New Guinea was also frequently visited by Chinese fishing junks in search of bêche-de-mer, or trepang.
The Dutch from their adjacent settlements in Java and Borneo were supreme in the north of New Guinea without exercising any effective jurisdiction, and relied upon the difficult navigation of New Guinea waters for a continuance of their exclusiveness.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century they (the Dutch) had practically a monopoly of the spice trade, and were extremely jealous of any other nations obtaining a footing in spice islands, where their monopoly might be jeopardised. They obstinately refused all access to New Guinea; but the Dutch barrier was broken down by emissaries of the British East India Company in search of spice islands, and in 1793 New Guinea was annexed by two commanders in the service of the company, and the territory was thereafter regarded as an adjunct of Queensland, although no steps were taken for an administrative occupation.
In 1828 the Dutch erected a fortress to protect the rights they claimed in New Guinea, but this they abandoned in 1835.
While Samoa and numerous other groups of islands were not incorporated in the dominions of the countries whose explorers "discovered" them, and their savage inhabitants were allowed to continue their own administration, a brisk British trade sprang up between Australasia and the islanders.
The necessity for bringing either New Guinea or the Samoan group under direct rule was not an expediency that presented itself as an urgent one to either the Imperial British or Australian Governments as long as fair trading conditions prevailed on harmonious lines and the lives and private property of British traders were safeguarded, until in about 1880 the tips of the tentacles of the German octopus delicately spread out to seek the spots whereon to plant the suckers of trading stations, behind them the unlidded eyes of Imperial Protection watching to gauge the value of the prize and the parrot-beaked maw ready to grasp for the satisfaction of Prussian greed.