Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia: / A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.

by Richard Henry Major

“But the defect or negligence [in the progress of discovery since the invention of the compass] seems yet to have been greater towards the south, where we know little beyond thirty-five degrees, and that only by the necessity of doubling the Cape of Good Hope in our East India voyages: yet a continent has been long since found out within fifteen degrees to the south, about the length of Java, which is marked by the name of New Holland in the maps, and to what extent none knows, either to the south, the east, or the west; yet the learned have been of opinion, that there must be a balance of earth on that side of the line in some proportion to what there is on the other; and that it cannot be all sea from thirty degrees to the south pole, since we have found land to above sixty-five degrees towards the north. But our navigators that way have been confined to the roads of trade, and our discoveries bounded by what we can manage to a certain degree of gain. And I have heard it said among the Dutch, that their East India Company have long since forbidden, and under the greatest penalties, any further attempts of discovering that continent, having already more trade in those parts than they can turn to account, and fearing some more populous nation of Europe might make great establishments of trade in some of those unknown regions, which might ruin or impair what they have already in the Indies.”

Although the statement of so well informed and so impartial a man as Sir William might almost be considered as conclusive, the Dutch have very naturally been unwilling to abide by this severe judgment. An indignant remonstrance against the imputation that they secreted and suppressed the accounts of their early voyages, was published in August 1824, in vol. ii of the Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, by Mr. J. van Wijck Roelandszoon, who attributed the origin of this charge to ignorance of the Dutch language on the part of those who made it. In vindication of his assertions he referred to the publication, in 1618, of Linschoten’s voyages both to the North and to the East Indies, also of Schouten and Lemaire’s Circumnavigation of the Globe in 1615–18, which was published in 1646. He referred to the fact that the voyages of Van Noort, l’Hermite, and Spilbergen had also been published, and stated that, generally speaking, such had been the case with all the voyages of the Dutch as early as the year 1646, and that their discoveries were exactly laid down in the 1660 edition of the maps of P. Goos.

He furthermore announced (in reply to an invitation which had been given to the learned men of Holland, to fill up the gaps in their history which had been complained of), that one of the learned societies of Holland had offered a prize for a careful essay on the discoveries of the Dutch mariners.[^[2]]

In publishing this remonstrance, the editor of the Nouvelles Annales des Voyages judiciously observed, that if the reproach of jealousy which applied to the Portuguese, did not apply to the Dutch, it was at least true that some sort of carelessness had prevented either the preservation or the publication of a great number of Dutch narratives, amongst which he quoted those of De Nuyts, Van Vlaming, etc., to the coasts of New Holland. We must not, however, lose sight of the fact, that Sir William Temple’s charge of want of liberality is directed, not against the Dutch in general, but only against the East India Company; and further, that it contains two different imputations; first, that the Company forbade exploration; and secondly, that they prohibited the publication of those already made.

As to the first of these two charges it may have been just. The commercial spirit of the seventeenth century had a general character of narrowness, from which the East India Company was not exempt. The conduct here imputed to them was in accordance with the regular and wholesale destruction of spices, by which they tried to keep up the value of this commodity. Too much importance, however, ought not to be attached even to Sir William’s testimony, when, as in the present case, it stands entirely alone. Every hostile statement with regard to the East India Company made in Sir William’s time, may be regarded as at least likely to have been dictated by party spirit. The directors of the East India Company were so closely connected with the ruling but unpopular party presided over by the De Witts, that the enemies of the one were also the enemies of the others, and among these enemies there were a number of the most eminent men, many of them distinguished geographers.

As to the second charge, it must be allowed in justice to the Company that such secrecy as is here imputed to them is not to be traced in their general conduct. Commelyn, the compiler of the celebrated Begin ende Voortgangh, published in 1646, had undoubtedly access to the Company’s archives, and he discloses many facts which the Company would seem much more interested to hide than what meagre knowledge they possessed of Australia; Godfried, Udemans, Dr. O. Dapper, Witsen, Valentyn, and besides these a host of map-makers and geographers, were largely indebted to the Company for geographical materials. If we may form any judgment from the dedications we find in books of the period, we must consider their encouragement of the study of their dominions as almost on a par with that afforded at the present day by the English East India Company.

The fact that many accounts of Australian voyages which the Company possessed were never published, may be accounted for in a much simpler and more honourable manner. The Dutch voyages and travels that were published were plainly intended for a large circle of readers, and were got up as cheaply as possible. Thus, though thousands and thousands of copies were sold, they have all now become scarce. A voyage which did not contain strange adventures or striking scenes, had no chance of popularity and remained unpublished. Thus, among other instances, a picturesque account of Japan was published in the Begin ende Voortgangh, whilst the extremely important account of De Vries’s voyage to the same part of the world, which is far richer in geographical materials than in interesting incidents, has remained in manuscript till recently edited by Captain Leupe, of the Dutch navy.

It is with pleasure that we indulge the hope that the veil which has thus hung over these valuable materials is likely, before very long, to be entirely removed. The archives of the Dutch East India Company, a yet unsifted mass of thousands of volumes, and myriads of loose papers, have a short time since been handed over to the State Archives at the Hague, where the greatest liberality is shown in allowing access to the treasures they possess. Meanwhile the editor of the present volume need hardly plead any excuse for not having attempted what no foreigner, be his stay in Holland ever so long, could possibly accomplish; and he must leave to those who will take up this matter after him, the satisfaction of availing themselves of materials the importance of which he knows, and the want of which he deeply deplores.

As has been already stated, in the earlier and more indistinct periods of Australian discovery, even when some portions of the vast island had been already lighted on, it remained a doubt whether New Guinea and the newly seen lands did not form part of a great southern continent, in which tradition in the first place, and subsequent discoveries, had already established a belief.

The very existence of the belief in an extensive southern continent at those early periods presents a twofold cause of doubt. It engendered at the time the supposition that every island to the south of what was previously known, and of which the north part only had been seen, formed a portion of that continent; while to us who, from this distance of time, look back for evidence, the inaccurate representation of such discoveries on maps, especially in or near the longitude of Australia (for longitude could be but laxly noticed in those days) leaves the doubt whether that continent may not have been visited at the period thus represented. Hence, manifestly, it will be requisite to bear well in mind this broadly accepted belief in the existence of a great southern continent, if we would form a right judgment respecting those supposed indications of Australia which are presented on maps of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries.