De Hoecker de Nijptang, schipper Gerrit Collaert van Amsterdam; Adsistent Theodorus Heermans van do.; 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 do. voorts het Zuijtlandt te ondersoecken en gedestineert voor Batavia.
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.