"Terra Australis seemeth to be a great, firm land, lying under and about the south pole, being in many places a fruitful soil, and is not yet thoroughly discovered, but only seen and touched on the north edge thereof by the travel of the Portiugales and Spaniards in their voyages to their East and West Indies. It is included almost by a parallel, passing at 40 degrees in south latitude, yet in some places it reacheth into the sea with great promontories, even into the tropic Capricornus. Only these parts are best known, as over against Capo d'buona Speranza (where the Portiugales see popinjayes commonly of a wonderful greatness), and again it is known at the south side of the Straight of Magellanies, and is called Terra del Fuego. It is thought this south land, about the pole Antarctic, is far bigger than the north land about the pole Arctic; but whether it be so or not, we have no certain knowledge, for we have no particular description thereof, as we have of the land under and about the north pole."
Then Purchas, in 1578, says: "This land about the Straits is not perfectly discovered, whether it be continent or islands. Some take it for continent, and extend it more in their imagination than any man's experience toward those islands of Saloman and New Guinea, esteeming (of which there is great probability) that Terra Australis, or the Southern Continent, may for the largeness thereof take a first place in order and the first in greatness in the division and parting of the Whole World."
The most important of the Spanish voyages was that made by De Quiros, who left Callao in December, 1605, in charge of an expedition of three ships. One of these vessels was commanded by Luis Vaez de Torres. De Quiros, who is believed to have been by birth a Portuguese, discovered several island groups and many isolated islands, among the former being the New Hebrides, which he, believing he had found the continent, named Tierra Australis del Espiritu Santo. Soon after, the ships commanded by De Quiros became separated from the other vessels, and Torres took charge. He subsequently found that the land seen was an island group, and so determined to sail westward in pursuance of the scheme of exploration. In about the month of August he fell in with a chain of islands—now called the Louisiade Archipelago and included in the British possession of New Guinea—which he thought, reasonably enough, was the beginning of New Guinea, but which really lies a little to the southeast of that great island. As he could not weather the group, he bore away to the southward, and his subsequent proceedings are here quoted from Burney's Voyages:
"We went along three hundred leagues of coast, as I have mentioned, and diminished the latitude 2½ degrees, which brought us into 9 degrees. From thence we fell in with a bank of from 3 to 9 fathoms, which extends along the coast to 7½ south latitude; and the end of it is in 5 degrees. We could go no further on for the many shoals and great currents, so we were obliged to sail south-west in that depth to 11 degrees south latitude. There is all over it an archipelago of islands, without number, by which we passed; and at the end of the eleventh degree the bank became shoaler. Here were very large islands, and they appeared more to the southward. They were inhabited by black people, very corpulent and naked. Their arms were lances, arrows, and clubs of stone ill-fashioned. We could not get any of their arms. We caught in all this land twenty persons of different nations, that with them we might be able to give a better account to your Majesty. They give (us) much notice of other people, although as yet they do not make themselves well understood. We were upon this bank two months, at the end of which time we found ourselves in twenty-five fathoms and 5 degrees south latitude and ten leagues from the coast; and having gone 480 leagues here, the coast goes to the north-east. I did not search it, for the bank became very shallow. So we stood to the north."
The "very large islands" seen by Torres were, no doubt, the hills of Cape York, the northernmost point of Australia, and so he, all unconsciously, had passed within sight of the continent for which he was searching. A copy of the report by Torres was lodged in the archives of Manila; and when the English took that city in 1762, Dalrymple, the celebrated geographer, discovered it, and gave the name of Torres Straits to what is now well known as the dangerous passage dividing New Guinea from Australia. De Quiros, in his ship, made no further discovery. He arrived on the Mexican coast in October, 1606, and did all he could to induce Philip III of Spain to sanction further exploration, but without success.
Of the voyages of the Dutch in Australian waters much interesting matter is available. Major sums up the case in these words: "The entire period up to the time of Dampier, ranging over two centuries, presents these two phases of obscurity: that in the sixteenth century—the period of the Portuguese and Spanish discoveries—there are indications on maps of the great probability of Australia having already been discovered, but with no written documents to confirm them; while in the seventeenth century there is documentary evidence that its coasts were touched upon or explored by a considerable number of Dutch voyagers, but the documents immediately describing these voyages have not been found."
The period of known Dutch discovery begins with the establishment of the Dutch East India Company, and a knowledge of the west coast of Australia grew with the growth of the Dutch colonies, but grew slowly, for the Dutchmen were too busy trading to risk ships and spend time and money upon scientific voyages.
In January, 1644, Commodore Abel Janszoon Tasman was despatched upon his second voyage of discovery to the South Seas, and his instructions, signed by the Governor-General of Batavia, Antonio van Diemen, begin with a recital of all previous Dutch voyages of a similar character. From this document an interesting summary of Dutch exploration can be made. Tasman, in his first voyage, had discovered the island of Van Diemen, which he named after the then Governor of Batavia, but which has since been named Tasmania, after its discoverer. During this first voyage the navigator also discovered New Zealand, passed round the east side of Australia without seeing the land, and on his way home sailed along the northern shore of New Guinea.
But to come back to the summary of Dutch voyages found in Tasman's instructions: During 1605 and 1606 the Dutch yacht Duyphen made two exploring voyages to New Guinea. On one trip, the commander, after coasting New Guinea, steered southward along the islands on the west side of Torres Straits to that part of Australia, a little to the west and south of Cape York, marked on modern maps as Duyphen Point, thus unconsciously—for he thought himself still on the west coast of New Guinea—making the first authenticated discovery of the continent.
Dirk Hartog, in command of the Endragt, while on his way from Holland to the East Indies, put into what Dampier afterward called Shark's Bay, and on an island, which now bears his name, deposited a tin plate with an inscription recording his arrival, and dated October 25, 1616. The plate was afterward found by a Dutch navigator in 1697, and replaced by another, which, in its turn, was discovered in July, 1801, by Captain Hamelin, of the Naturaliste, on the well-known French voyage in search of the ill-fated La Perouse. The Frenchman copied the inscription, and nailed the plate to a post, with another recording his own voyage. These inscriptions were a few years later removed by De Freycinet, and deposited in the museum of the Institute of Paris. Hartog ran along the coast a few degrees, naming the land after his ship, and was followed by many other voyagers at frequent intervals down to the year 1727, from which time Dutch exploration has no more a place in Australian discovery.