To the period of fancy succeeded that of patchwork. Came the Dutch, often blown out of their true course from the Cape of Good Hope to the Spice Islands, and stumbling upon the shores of Western Australia. To some such accident we probably owe the piece of improved cartography shown upon Emmerie Mollineux's map, which Hakluyt inserted in some copies of the second edition of his Principal Navigations, and which Shakespeare is supposed to have had in mind when, in a merry scene in Twelfth Night, he made Maria say of Malvolio (3 2 85): "He does smile his face into more lines than is in the new map with the AUGMENTATION OF THE INDIES."* (* See Mr. Charles Coote's paper in Transactions of New Shakespeare Society, 1877 to 1879. He read the phrase "augmentation of the Indies," as referring to this and some other additions to the map of the world, now for the first time shown. In those days, of course, "the Indies" meant pretty well everything out of Europe, including America. It is curious that Flinders called the aboriginals whom he saw in Port Phillip "Indians." Probably all coloured peoples were "Indians" to seamen even so late as his day. There is a fine copy of the map referred to in volume 1 of the 1903 edition of Hakluyt, edited by Professor Walter Raleigh.) This map marks an improvement, in the sense that an approach to the truth, probably founded on actual observation, is an improvement on a large, comprehensive piece of guess work. Emmerie Mollineux expunged the imaginary region, and substituted a small tongue of land, shaped like a thimble. It was doubtless copied from some Dutch chart; and though we must not look for precision of outline at so early a date, it is sufficient to show that some navigator had seen, hereabouts, a real piece of Australia, and had made a note of what it looked like. It is not much, but, rightly regarded, it is like the first gleam of light on the dark sky where the dawn is to paint its radiance.
English Dampier (1686 to 1688, and 1699 to 1701) and Dutch Tasman (1642 to 1644) made the most substantial contributions to the world's knowledge of the true form of Australia to be credited to any individual navigators before the coming of Cook, the greatest of all.
It is very strange that so long a period as a century and a half should have been allowed to lapse between Tasman's very remarkable voyage and Flinders' completion of the outline of Australia, and that three-quarters of a century should have separated the explorations of Dampier and Cook. Here, crooned over by her great gum forests, baring her broad breast of plains to the sun and moon, lay a land holding within her immense solitudes unimaginable wealth; genial in climate, rich in soil, abounding in mineral treasures, fit to be a home for happy, industrious millions. Yet, while avarice and enterprise schemed and fought for the west and the east, this treasury of the south remained unsolicited. It is not for us to regret that Australia was left for a race that knew how to woo her with affection and to conquer her with their science and their will, yet we can but wonder that fortune should have been so tardy and so reticent in disclosing a fifth division of the globe.
While this piecing together of the outline of the continent was proceeding, speculation was naturally rife among men of science as to what countries southern latitudes contained, and what their capabilities were. It was essentially a scientific problem awaiting solution; and it is not surprising that the French, quick-brained, inquisitive, eager in pursuit of ideas, should have been active in this field.
Their intellectual concern with South Sea discovery may be said to date from the publication of the Petites Lettres of Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis. He was, like some of whom Browning has written, a "person of some importance in his day," and his writings on physics are still mentioned with respect in works devoted to the history of science. But he is perhaps chiefly remembered as the savant whom Frederick the Great attracted to his court during a period of aloofness from the scintillating Voltaire, and who consequently became a writhing target for the jealous ridicule of that waspish wit. Poor Maupertuis, unhappy in his exit from life, would appear to have been restless after it, for his ghost is averred to have stalked in the hall of the Academy of Berlin, and to have been seen by a brother professor there, the remarkable phenomenon being solemnly recorded in the Transactions of that learned body.* (* See Sir Walter Scott's Demonology and Witchcraft, Letter 1.) But of far more practical importance than the appearance of his perturbed shade, was the effect of his Petites Lettres, which suggested twelve projects for the advancement of knowledge, one of which was the promotion of discovery in the southern hemisphere.
Shortly after its publication, Maupertuis' proposition was discussed by a society of accomplished students meeting at Dijon, the ancient capital of Burgundy. A member of the Society to whom much deference was paid, was Charles de Brosses, lawyer, scholar, and President of the Parlement of the Province.* (* The local parliaments were abolished in the reign of Louis XV, reinstated by Louis XVI, and finally swept away in the stormy demolition of ancient institutions to make ground for the constitution of 1791.) De Brosses was an industrious student and writer, the translator of Sallust into French, and author of several valuable historical and philological works, including a number of learned papers which may be read--or not--in the stout calf-bound quartos enshrining the records of the Academy of Inscriptions.* (* His papers in that regiment of tomes range over a period of fifty years, from 1746 to 1796. They deal chiefly with Roman history, and especially with points suggested by the author's profound study of Sallust. Gibbon pays De Brosses the compliment of quoting two of his works, and commends his "SINGULAR diligence," with emphasis on the adjective. (See Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Bury's edition 4 37 and 7 168.) He was also Voltaire's landlord at Tournay, and had a quarrel with him about a matter of firewood; but De Brosses was a lawyer, whilst Voltaire was only a philosopher and a poet, so that of course the result was "qu'il enrage d'avoir enfin a payer."* (* Lanson's Voltaire page 139.)
The discussion at Dijon was more fruitful in results than such colloquies usually are. De Brosses was especially struck with the utility of exploration in southern seas, and considered that the French nation should take the lead in such an endeavour. He spoke for a full hour in support of this particular suggestion of Maupertuis, and when he had finished his fellow-members assured him that what he had advanced was so novel and interesting that he would do well to expand his ideas into an essay, to be read at the next meeting. De Brosses did more: for he wrote two solid quarto volumes, published at Paris in 1756--"avec approbation et privilege du Roy," as the title page says--in which he related all that he could learn about previous voyages to the south, and pointed out, with generous amplitude, in limpid, fluent French, the desirableness of pursuing further discoveries there. Incidentally he coined a useful word: to Monsieur le President Charles de Brosses we owe the name "Australasia."* (* De Brosses, Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes 1 426 and 2 367. Max Muller, in his Lectures on the Origin of Religion page 59, stated that De Brosses coined three valuable words, "fetishism," "Polynesia," and "Australia." He certainly did not originate the word Australia, which does not occur anywhere in his book. Quiros, in 1606, named one of the islands of the New Hebrides group Austrialia del Espiritu Santo, though he seems to have done so in compliment to Philip III, who ruled Austria as well as Spain. See Markham, Voyages of Quiros volume 1 page 30 Hakluyt Society. "Australasia" was De Brosses' new name for a broad division of the globe. He derived it from the Latin australis = southern + Asia.)
A work written over one hundred and fifty years ago, recommending a project long since completed, can hardly be expected to be full of living interest. Yet this book of De Brosses, apart from the research which it evinced, was infused with a large, humane spirit that lifted it high above the level of a prospectus. The author had a sense of patriotism that looked beyond the aggrandisement that might accrue from extensive acquisitions, to the ideal of spreading French civilisation as a beneficent force. He wished his country to share in a great work of discovery that would redound to its glory as well as to its influence. Glory, he wrote, in a fine piece of French prose, is the dominant passion of kings; but their common and inveterate error is to search for it in war--that is to say, in the reciprocal misfortunes of their subjects and their neighbours. But there never is any true glory for them unless the happiness of nations is the object of their enterprises. In the task which he recommended, the grandeur of the object was joined to utility. To augment the lands known to civilised mankind by a new world, and to enrich the old world with the natural products of the new--this would be the effect of the fresh discoveries that he anticipated. What comparison could there be between such a project and the conquest--it might be the unjust conquest--of some ravaged piece of territory, of two or three fortresses battered by cannon and acquired by the massacre, the ruin, the desolation, and the regrets of the vanquished people; bought, too, at a price a hundred times greater than would suffice for the entire voyage of discovery proposed. He pointed out that the task could only be taken in hand by a government; it was too large for individuals. But the result was certain. In truth, to succeed in the complete discovery of the Terres Australes, it was not necessary to have any other end in view than success: it was simply necessary to employ proper means and sufficient forces.
De Brosses discussed the probably most advantageous situation for settlement in the South Seas, though in doing so he was hampered by insufficient knowledge. Relying upon the reports of Tasman, he considered New Zealand and "la terre de Diemen"--that is, Tasmania--too distant and too little known for an experiment; whilst the narratives of Dampier did not make those parts of New Holland that he had visited--the west and north of Australia--appear attractive. On the whole, he favoured the island to the east of Papua-New Guinea--known as New Britain (now New Pomerania), and the Austrialia del Espiritu Santo of the Spanish navigator Quiros as very suitable. It is interesting to note that the present French settlements in the New Hebrides embrace the latter island, whilst their possessions in the New Caledonia group are quite close; so that ultimately they have planted themselves on the very spot which a century and a half ago the savant of Dijon considered best fitted for them. De Brosses admitted that the establishment of such settlements as he recommended would not be the work of a day. Great enterprises require great efforts. It is for individuals to measure years, he loftily said; nations calculate by centuries. Powerful peoples must take extended views of things; and kings, as their chiefs, animated by the desire of glory and the love of country and of humanity, ought to consider themselves as personalities persisting always, and working for eternity.* (* The passages summarised are to be found in De Brosses, 1: 4, 8, 11, 19; and 2: 368, 380, 383.)
The elevated tone of De Brosses' book was calculated to make a telling appeal to the French nation, with their love of eclat and their ready receptivity. It was made, too, in the age of Voltaire, when the great man was living at Lausanne; and when, too, another of equally enduring fame, Edward Gibbon, was, in the same neighbourhood, polishing those balanced periods in which he has related the degeneracy of the successors of the Caesars. It was an age of intellectual ferment. Rousseau was writing his Contrat Social (1760), the Encyclopedie was leavening Gallic thought. There was a particular proneness to accept fresh ideas; a new sense of national consciousness was awakening.