In the Malay Archipelago and the Spice Islands both Portuguese and Spanish were attacked by the Dutch, and gradually dispossessed from the end of the sixteenth century onwards. The Dutch had established themselves in the Moluccas in place of the Portuguese between 1604 and 1609, in which year the Portuguese were driven from the Nutmeg Islands of Banda. The Hollanders were followed almost immediately by the English. The merchant adventurers of both nations (who were seamen, soldiers, and pirates at will) soon penetrated to the western peninsulas of New Guinea and ousted the Portuguese from Java, Celebes, and southern Timor, but at first made little or no attempt to pass beyond Malaysia in search of the southern continent. By the conquest of Malacca in 1641 the Dutch had become practically masters of the Malay Archipelago, the Spaniards being confined to the possession of the Philippines (which they administered from the west coast of America across the Pacific),[44] and the Portuguese only lingering on in the islands of Timor and Flores, while the English had been expelled from the Spice Islands and Java, and merely retained a precarious foothold in Sumatra. Encouraged by these successes to seek for further lands that might be conquered, settled, or traded with, the Dutch began to take up the quest for the Terra Australis as soon as they were established as the masters of the Moluccas and Banda.
In 1615 a bold Dutch navigator, Jacob le Maire (of French extraction), determined, in spite of the prohibition of the Dutch East India Company, to find his way independently to the seas and lands of southern Asia by way of the extremity of South America. He sailed in company with another sea captain, Schouten, and together they discovered and named Staten Island and the celebrated Cape Horn, the southernmost extremity (a little island) of South America, and since famous as the stormiest cape in the world's seas. From this point they followed closely the coast of South America till they got into equatorial latitudes, and then steered boldly across the Pacific Ocean, either not noticing or actually not seeing the many islands or islets that must have been near their course. Apparently the first land they sighted was the north-east coast of New Guinea, after which they got among the Spice Islands and thus eventually reached Batavia, where they were so severely punished by their fellow countrymen for their splendid adventure that Le Maire ultimately died before he could reach Holland. Previous to this date, however, the Dutch had evidently known something about the Australian Continent[45] (of which it was generally believed that New Guinea was a portion), and they no doubt derived this knowledge from information given to them by Malay pilots, and picked up from the Portuguese; for in a work published in 1598 by the Dutch historian, Cornelius Wytfliet, the following passage occurs: "The Terra Australis is the most southern of all lands, and is separated from New Guinea by a narrow strait.... It is ascertained by some to be of so great an extent that if it were thoroughly explored it would be regarded as a fifth part of the world." There is a tradition also that in 1606 a Dutch ship, the Duyfken or Little Dove, which was on its way from Java to the western part of New Guinea, was driven out of her course by a typhoon and sighted the north-east coast of Australia (Cape York Peninsula) as far south as Cape Turnagain. Some of the crew landed, but were repulsed by the savage natives. In the year following the arrival of le Maire at Batavia, a Dutch ship, the Eendracht, under the command of a navigator called Hertoge, or Hartog, by a similar cause was blown out of his course and touched the north-west coast of Australia at points now known as Shark Bay and Hartog Island. In 1622-3 the Leeuwin (Lioness), another Dutch vessel, penetrated along the west coast of Australia about as far south as Cape Leeuwin. In 1623 an expedition, under a captain named Cartenz, set out for the Southern Continent and explored and named the Gulf of Carpentaria, in north Australia, the name being derived from Carpentar, who was then the Governor of the Dutch East Indies (the authority says "West" Indies). Between 1622 and 1628 other Dutch expeditions, one of them under Pieter Nuyts, explored the South Australian coast ("Nuytsland") as far as the Eyre Peninsula. But from here to Cape York the east coast of Australia remained absolutely unknown till the coming of Captain Cook.
Abel Janszoon Tasman, the greatest Dutch explorer of Australasia (his middle name was equivalent in English to Johnson), was born about 1603 at Lutjegast, near Groningen, in Friesland, not far from the modern German boundary. He was married twice, first when a young man (the second time when he was twenty-nine years old), and about the age of twenty-one joined the service of the Dutch East India Company and started for Java. He revisited Holland in 1637 and returned to the Malay Archipelago in 1638. Although he had started in life as a common sailor he must have acquired a good education by some means or other, for his journals show him to have been possessed of a singularly beautiful and even handwriting, he was a clever draughtsman (assuming the many sketches in the logbook to be by him), and he had thoroughly mastered the science of navigation, so much so, that soon after his arrival in the East Indies in 1634 he was singled out for work of importance and responsibility. In 1638 he made, in company with another commander, a remarkable voyage of exploration to Japan along the coasts of China, and in 1642 he was selected to command the expedition which was to make such important discoveries in Australasia.
His principal vessel, the Heemskerk[46], described as a yacht, was probably of only 150 tons capacity; the second of the two ships, the Zeehaen (Seahen) was a third smaller than the Heemskerk. With these two small ships he left Batavia (Java) on 14 August, 1642, and sailed right across the Indian Ocean to the Island of Mauritius (the home of the Dodo), then occupied by the Dutch, wishing, no doubt, to take as wide a scope as possible for the discovery of the great Southern Continent. From Mauritius he sailed east and south, and did not sight the West Australian coast at all, his course trending so much to the south that instead he crossed the great Australian Bight[47] and first saw land off the west coast of Tasmania, in the vicinity of what is now known as Macquarie Harbour. He at once conferred on this land the name of Anthonij Van Diemen, the Governor-General of the Dutch Indies, and the principal promoter of this exploring expedition. He overlooked the passage to the north (Bass's Strait), and directed his course southwards. On 25 November, 1642, the two ships came to an anchor off the west coast of Tasmania for consultations between the commanders. On the succeeding days they sailed round the south coast of Tasmania, and on 2 December stopped again and sent a pilot in a pinnace with four musketeers and six rowers (all of them well armed) together with another boat commanded by an officer, and containing six more musketeers, to the shore of a large bay (probably Storm Bay) to see if fresh water, vegetables, and timber could be obtained. On the return of these boats the officers reported that they found the land covered with vegetation, but with no signs of cultivation. They brought back with them various wild vegetable products which seemed suited for use as pot-herbs, besides a good supply of fresh water. They reported that they had heard certain human sounds, and noises resembling the music of a trumpet or small gong, but they saw no human beings, though there were notched trees, the notches having been made with implements of sharpened stone, to form steps enabling persons to climb the trees and take the birds' nests. These notched steps (very wide apart) were so fresh and new that they could only have been cut a few days before. On the ground they saw the footprints of clawed animals and other traces showing that there were beasts in the forest. In the interior numerous trees were observed which had deep holes burnt into them, as if to make of them fireplaces and shelters. They also saw smoke rising in clouds from natives' fires. On 3 December a flagstaff was set up on the shore of Frederick Henry Bay, and possession of this new land was solemnly taken on behalf of the Dutch East India Company.
Then they sailed away from what they believed to be the southernmost extremity of Australia, and on 13 December, 1642, they saw "a large high-lying land bearing south-east ... at about 16 miles distance". This was the great southern island of New Zealand,[48] but it was encountered by Tasman at its northernmost extremity and close to the North Island. He sailed, in fact, right into the gulf (then named the Zeehaen's Bight) between two islands, which finds its outlet to the south in Cook's Strait. He overlooked this outlet and believed the gulf to be only a great indentation. Ultimately he sailed northwards past the west coast of the North Island to its northernmost extremity, which he named Cape Maria Van Diemen. At some distance from this were three tiny islets, the size of which he exaggerated. He named them the Three Kings' Islands. On 18 December the two ships came to an anchor about a mile from the shore, off the coast of what is now called Massacre or Golden Bay, not far from the modern settlement of Waitapu. It was sunset, and calm, and as the twilight faded they saw lights on shore and two native boats coming towards them, the men in which began to call to them in rough, "hollow" voices. This people also blew several times on an instrument (probably a conch shell), the sound from which was like that of a Moorish trumpet. The seamen from the ships trumpeted back to them in reply, but when it was dark the native canoes paddled back to the shore. Early the next morning a canoe manned by fifteen natives approached to within a short distance of the ships and called out several times. But the Dutchmen could not understand their language, as it bore no resemblance to the vocabulary of words used in the Solomon Islands, which had been collected through the industry of Anthonij Van Diemen and supplied to Tasman with his other instructions.[49] As far as they could observe, these New Zealanders were of ordinary height, with rough voices and strong bones, the colour of their skin being between brown and yellow. They wore tufts of black hair right on the tops of their heads, tied fast in the manner of the Japanese, but somewhat longer and thicker, each topknot of hair being surmounted by a large white feather. Each of their boats consisted of two long, narrow canoes fastened side by side. Over these twin canoes were placed planks on which the paddlers sat. The New Zealanders, though naked from the shoulders to the waist, wore some kind of clothing (in contrast to the nearly always naked Melanesians). This seemed to be made of a stuff something like woven cotton, or else matting.
In spite of offered presents and friendly greetings these two boats would not come alongside the ship. Later on, seven more canoes came off from the shore, one of which was high and pointed in front. With these nine canoes paddling round and round the two ships, and manned by a number of able-bodied armed men, the Dutchmen became a little uneasy, and the skipper of the Zeehaen sent out his quartermaster in a small boat with six seamen to advise the officers of the Heemskerk not to allow too many natives to come on board, if they wished to do so. But suddenly the little boat of the Zeehaen was violently attacked by one of the New Zealand canoes, with the result that one Dutch seamen was knocked overboard, four were killed, while the remainder, thrown into the sea, swam back to their ship. The natives then started for the shore, taking one of the dead bodies with them (which they no doubt afterwards ate in a cannibal feast). None of the shots fired from the Zeehaen or Heemskerk took effect. The small boat of the Zeehaen was recovered, and the two Dutch ships then set sail, despairing of entering into any friendly relations with these people, or getting fresh water at this place. As they sailed out of the bay they saw twenty-two canoes near the shore, of which eleven, swarming with people, were making for the ships. They kept quiet until some of the foremost canoes were within reach of the guns, and then fired one or two shots without doing much damage, though the natives at once turned their canoes back, hoisted a kind of sail, and made with all speed for the shore. "To this murderous spot we have accordingly given the name of Moordenaers Bay."[50]
TASMAN'S MEN ATTACKED BY NATIVES OFF THE COAST OF NEW ZEALAND