Title:      Early Voyages to Terra Australis, now called Australia.
Author:     R H Major
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Title:      Early Voyages to Terra Australis, now called Australia.
Author:     R H Major





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.

Edited, with an Introduction by R. H. MAJOR, Esq., F.S.A.



"Austrinis pars est habitabilis oris,
Sub pedibusque jacet nostris."
MANILIUS, Astronomicon, lib. i, lin. 237-8.


LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.
M.DCCC.LIX (1859)



THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY

SIR RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON, G.C.St.S., F.R.S., D.C.L., Corr. Mem. inst. F.,
         Hon. Mem. Imp. Acad. Sc. St. Petersburg, &c., &c., PRESIDENT.
THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE.                   )
REAR-ADMIRAL C. R. DRINKWATER BETHUNE, C.B. ) VICE-PRESIDENTS.

JOHN BARROW, ESQ.
RT. HON. LORD BROUGHTON.
THE LORD ALFRED SPENCER CHURCHILL.
CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE, Esq., F.S.A.
RT. HON. SIR DAVID DUNDAS.
SIR HENRY ELLIS, K.H., F.R.S.
JOHN FORSTER, ESQ.
LIEUT.-GEN. CHARLES RICHARD FOX.
R. W. GREY, Esq., M.P.
EGERTON HARCOURT, ESQ.
JOHN WINTER JONES, ESQ, F.S.A.
HIS EXCELLENCY THE COUNT DE LAVRADIO.
R. H. MAJOR, ESQ., F.S.A.
THE EARL OF SHEFFIELD.
RT. HON. LORD TAUNTON.

CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, ESQ., HONORARY SECRETARY.


* ** * *


TO

SIR RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON, G.C.St.S, D.C.L., F.R.S., ETC., ETC., ETC.

DEAR SIR RODERICK,
You have kindly permitted me to dedicate to you this result of my
investigations respecting the early explorations of Australia.
To none can a book on such a subject be more appropriately offered
than to yourself. To you geographers are pre-eminently indebted for
the promotion of Australian exploration in recent times, while your
ever-memorable scientific anticipation of the discovery of the
Australian gold fields must connect your name inseparably with the
history of a country, whose future greatness can be foreseen,
but cannot be estimated.

I remain,
DEAR SIR RODERICK,
With much respect,
Yours very faithfully,
R. H. MAJOR.
British Museum, August, 1859.


* * * * *


CONTENTS

A MEMORIAL ADDRESSED TO HIS CATHOLIC MAJESTY PHILIP THE THIRD, KING OF
SPAIN, by Dr. Juan Luis Arias, respecting the exploration, colonization,
and conversion of the Southern Land, translated from the Spanish original.

RELATION OF LUIS VAEZ DE TORRES, concerning the discoveries of QUIROS,
as his Almirante. Dated Manila, July 12, 1607, a translation, nearly
literal, by Alexander Dalrymple, Esq., from a Spanish manuscript copy
in his possession, reprinted from App. to vol. ii of Burney's "Discoveries
in the South Sea".

EXTRACT FROM THE BOOK OF DISPATCHES FROM BATAVIA; commencing January the
15th, 1644, and ending November the 29th following, reprinted from
Dalrymple's "Collections Concerning Papua".

THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK OF CAPTAIN FRANCIS PELSART, in the "Batavia,"
on the coast of New Holland, and his succeeding adventures, translated
from Trevenot's "Recueil de Voyages Curieux".

VOYAGE OF GERRIT THOMASZ POOL TO THE SOUTH LAND. Translated from
Valentyn's "Beschryvinge van Banda".

ACCOUNT OF THE WRECK OF THE SHIP "DE VERGULDE DRAECK" ON THE SOUTH
LAND, and the expeditions undertaken, both from Batavia and the Cape
of Good Hope, in search of the survivors and money and goods which
might be found on the wreck, and of the small success which attended
them. Extracted from MS. documents at the Hague, and translated from
the Dutch.

DESCRIPTION OF THE WEST COAST OF THE SOUTH LAND by Captain Samuel
Volkersen, of the pink "Waeckende Boey," which sailed from Batavia on
the 1st of January 1658, and returned on the 19th of April of the
same year. Extracted from MS. Documents at the Hague and translated
from the Dutch.

EXTRACT TRANSLATED FROM BURGOMASTER WITSEN'S "NOORD EN OOST TARTARYE".

ACCOUNT OF THE OBSERVATIONS OF CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER on the coast
of New Holland, in 1687-88, being an extract from his "New Voyage
round the World".

EXTRACT FROM SLOAN MS., 3236, entitled "The Adventures of William
Dampier, with others (1686-87), who left Captain Sherpe in the South
Seas, and travaled back over land through the country of Darien".

SOME PARTICULARS RELATING TO THE VOYAGE OF WILLEM DE VLAMINGH to New
Holland in 1696. Extracted from. MS. Documents at the Hague and
translated from the Dutch.

EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE MADE TO THE UNEXPLORED SOUTH LAND,
by order of the Dutch East India Company, in the years 1696 and 1697,
by the hooker "De Nyptang," the ship "De Geelvink," and the galiot
"De Wesel," and the return to Batavia. From MS. Documents at the
Hague: translated from the Dutch.

ACCOUNT OF THE OBSERVATIONS OF CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER on the coast
of New Holland, in 1699, being an extract from "a Voyage to New
Holland, etc., in the year 1699".

A WRITTEN DETAIL OF THE DISCOVERIES AND NOTICEABLE OCCURRENCES in the
voyage of the fluyt "Vossenbosch," the sloop "D'Waijer," and the
patsjallang "Nova Hollandia," despatched by the government of India,
anno 1705, from Batavia by way of Timor to New Holland. From MS.
Documents at the Hague: translated from the Dutch.

THE HOUTMAN'S ABROLHOS in 1727, translated from a publication
entitled "De Houtman's Abrolhos", by Captain P. A. Loupe, of the
Dutch Navy.

INDEX

[ILLUSTRATIONS

Java la Grande
The Londe of Java
Tasman's Track
Coast visited by the Waeckende Boey and Emeloort, two maps
Terra Australis]



INTRODUCTION

When, at a period comparatively recent in the world's history, the
discovery was made that, on the face of the as yet unmeasured ocean,
there existed a western continent which rivalled in extent the world
already known, it became a subject of natural enquiry whether a fact of
such momentous importance could for so many thousands of years have
remained a secret. Nor was the enquiry entirely without response. Amid
the obscurity of the past some faint foreshadowings of the great reality
appeared to be traceable. The poet with his prophecy, the sage with his
mystic lore, and the unlettered seaman who, with curious eye, had peered
into the mysteries of the far-stretching Atlantic, had each, as it now
appeared enunciated a problem which at length had met with its solution.[*1]

[*1) Reference is here made, 1stly, to that most remarkable and often
quoted passage from the Medea of Seneca:
"Venient annis
Saecula seris, quibus Oceanus"

2ndly, to the island of Atlantis, described by Plato, in the Timaeus,
as lying in the Atlantic, opposite the Pillars of Hercules, and
exceeding in size the whole of Africa and Asia.

And 3rdly, to the imaginary island of St. Brandan, seen at intervals
far out in the Atlantic by the inhabitants of the Canary Islands.

It may not be unacceptable here to mention that there is one passage
among the writings of the ancients far more minute and affirmative
in its description than any of the foregoing, which has been thought
by various learned commentators to refer to America, but which the
editor has not found hitherto quoted, in that light, by any English
author. In a fragment of the works of Theopompus, preserved by
Aelian, is the account of a conversation between Silenus and Midas,
king of Phrygia, in which the former says that Europe, Asia, and
Africa, were lands surrounded by the sea ; but that beyond this known
world was another island, of immense extent, of which he gives a
description. The account of this conversation, which is too lengthy
here to give in full, was written three centuries and a half before
the Christian era. Not to trouble the reader with Greek, we give an
extract from the English version by Abraham Fleming, printed in
1576, in the amusingly quaint but vivid language of the time.

"THE THIRDE BOOKE OF AELIANUS. PAGE 37.

¶ Of the familiaritie of Midas the Phrigian, and Selenus, and of
certaine circumstances which he incredibly reported.

"Theopompus declareth that Midas the Phrygian and Selenus were
knit in familiaritie and acquaintance. This Selenus was the sonne
of a nymphe inferiour to the gods in condition and degree, but
superiour to men concerning mortalytie and death. These twaine
mingled communication of sundrye thinges. At length, in processe
of talke, Selenus tolde Midas of certaine ilandes, named Europia,
Asia, and Libia, which the ocean sea circumscribeth and compasseth
round about ; and that without this worlde there is a continent
or percell of dry lande, which in greatnesse (as hee reported)
was infinite and unmeasurable ; that it nourished and maintained,
by the benefite of the greene medowes and pasture plots, sundrye
bigge and mighty beastes ; that the men which inhabite the same
climats exceede the stature of us twise, and yet the length of
there life is not equall to ours ; that there be many and diuers
great citties, manyfold orders and trades of living ; that their
lawes, statutes, and ordinaunces, are different, or rather clean
contrary to ours. Such and lyke thinges dyd he rehearce."

The remainder of this curious conversation, however apparently
fabulous, deserves attention from the thoughtful reader.]

In these later days, when the enquiry has assumed gigantic proportions,
and the facilities of investigation have been simultaneously increased,
much has been done towards bringing to light the evidence of various
ascertained or possible visitations from the Old World to the New, which
had previously remained unknown. A summary of them has already been laid
before the members of the Hakluyt Society by the editor of the present
volume, in his introduction to the "Select Letters of Columbus", and
requires no repetition here.

Of the future results of that momentous discovery, what human
intelligence can foresee the climax? Already the northern half of that
vast portion of the globe is mainly occupied by a section of the
Anglo-Saxon family, earnest and active in the development of its native
energies; and among these, again, are many who look back with eager
curiosity to every yet minuter particular respecting the early history of
their adopted country.

A new field of colonization, second only to that of America, and
constituting, as far as is at present known, the largest island in our
globe, has in far more recent times been opened up by a slow and gradual
progress to a branch of the same expansive family. A future but little
inferior in importance may, without much imaginative speculation, be
assigned to them, and from them likewise may be reasonably expected the
most curious inquiry as to the earliest discoveries by their predecessors
of a land so vast in its dimensions, so important in its characteristics,
and yet so little known or reasoned upon by the numerous generations of
mankind that has passed away before them.

In endeavouring to meet this demand it must be premised, that while the
main object proposed in this volume is to treat of the early indications
of the island now recognised as Australia, anterior to the time of
Captain Cook, it is impossible to deal with the real or supposed
discoveries which may have taken place prior to that date, without
referring at the same time to the discovery of the adjacent island of New
Guinea and of the great southern continent, of both of which what we now
call Australia was in those times regarded as forming a part. The
investigation is one of the most interesting character in all stages, but
beset with doubts and difficulties arising from a variety of causes.

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 been
already discovered; while in the seventeenth century there is documentary
evidence that its coasts were touched upon or explored by a considerable
number of Dutch voyages but the documents immediately describing these
voyages have not been found.

That, in so far as regards the Portuguese, this obscurity is mainly due
to jealous apprehension lest lands of large extents, and great
importance in the southern seas might fall into the hands of rival powers
to their own displacement or prejudice, may not only be suspected, but
seems to be affirmable from historical evidence.

It is stated by Humboldt (Histoire de la Geographie du Nouveau Continent,
tom. iv, p. 70), upon the authority of the letters of Angelo Trevigiano,
secretary to Domenico Pisani, ambassador from Venice to Spain, that the
kings of Portugal forbad upon pain of death the exportation of any marine
chart which showed the course to Calicut. We find also in Ramusio
(Discorso sopra el libro di Odoardo Barbosa, and the Sommario delle Indie
Orientali, tom. i, p. 287 b) a similar prohibition implied. He says that
these books "were for many years concealed and not allowed to be
published, for convenient reasons that I must not now describe". He also
speaks of the great difficulty he himself had in procuring a copy, and
even that an imperfect one, from Lisbon. "Tanto possono," he says, "gli
interessi del principe." Again, in tom. iii of the same collection, in
the account of the "Discorso d'un gran Capitano del Mare Francese del
Luogo di Dieppa," etc., now known as the voyage of Jean Parmentier to
Sumatra in 1529, and in all probability by his companion and eulogist,
the poet Pierre Crignon, the covetousness and exclusiveness of the
Portuguese are inveighed against. "They seem," he says, "to have drunk
of the dust of the heart of king Alexander, for that they seem to think
that God made the sea and the land for them, and that if they could have
locked up the sea from Finisterre to Ireland it would have been done long
ago," etc.

Imputations of a similar nature are thrown on the Dutch East India
Company by so well informed a man as Sir William Temple, ambassador at
the Hague in the reign of Charles II, and who is a very high authority on
all matters concerning the republic of the United Provinces. In his
"Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning," he makes the following curious
statement, which we give in extenso as otherwise bearing upon the subject
of which we treat. See vol. iii of Sir William Temple's "Works", p. 457.

"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 35° and that only by
the necessity of doubling the Cape of Good Hope in our East India voyages:
yet a continent has long since been found out within 15°
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 the 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 30° to the south pole, since we have found
land to above 65°, 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 penalty 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 man as Sir
William might almost be considered as conclusive, the Dutch have very
naturally been unwilling to abide by this severe judgement. 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 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 the East Indies, also 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[*1].

[*1) With respect to the essay for which the learned
society referred to (the Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen
of Utrecht) had offered a prize, it was published in that society's
Transactions in 1827, under the title of " Bennet and Van Wijck's
Verhandeling over de Nederlandsche Ontdekkingen." The editor, who
has examined this work carefully, can state that it supplies no
information in addition to that which we had already possessed.]

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 Dutch 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 enemy of the one was also
the enemy of the others, and, among these enemies 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. 0. 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 judgement
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 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 so
it 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 those 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 expect to 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 existance 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, 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 judgement respecting those supposed indications of
Australia which are presented on maps of the sixteenth and beginning of
the seventeenth centuries.

Among the very early writers, the most striking quotation that the editor
has lighted upon in connection with the southern continent, is that which
occurs in the 'Astronomicon' of Manilius, lib. i, lin. 234 et seq.,
where, after a lengthy dissertation, he says:--

"Ex quo colligitur terrarum forma rotunda:
Hanc circum variae gentes hominum atque ferarum,
Aeriaeque colunt volueres. Pars ejus ad aretos
Eminet, Austrinis pars est habitabilis oris,
Sub pedibusque jacet nostris."

The latter clause of this sentence, so strikingly applying to the lands
in question, has been quoted as a motto for the title-page of this
volume. The date at which Manilius wrote, though not exactly ascertained,
is supposed, upon the best conclusions to be drawn from the internal
evidence supplied by his poem, to be of the time of Tiberius.

Aristotle also, in his 'Meteorologica', lib. ii, cap. 5, has a passage
which, though by no means distinct as the preceding one speaks of two
segments of the habitable globe, one towards the north, the other,
towards the south pole, and which have the form of a drum. Aratus,
Strabo, and Geminus have also handed down a similar opinion, that the
torrid zone was occupied throughout its length by the ocean, and that the
band of sea divided our continent from another, situated, as they
suppose, in the southern hemisphere[*1].

[*1) See Aratus, Phaenom., 537; Strabo, 1. 7, p. 130, and 1. 17;
apud Geminum, Elementa Astronomica, c. lxiii, in the Uranologia, p. 31.]

To come down, however, to a later period, the editor is enabled through
the researches of his lamented friend, the late learned and laborious
Vicomte de Santarem, to show from early manuscript maps and other
geographical monuments, how this belief in the existence of a great
southern continent was entertained anterior to the discoveries of the
Portuguese in the Pacific Ocean. In his 'Essai sur l'Histoire de la
Cosmographie et de la Cartographie du Moyen Age', vol. i, p. 229,
the Vicomte informs us that "Certain cartographers of the middle
ages, still continue to represent the 'Antichthone' in their maps
of the world in accordance with the belief that, beyond the ocean of
Homer, there was an inhabited country, another temperate region, called
the "opposite earth", which it was impossible to reach, principally on
account of the torrid zone.

"The following are the maps of the world which represent this theory:--

"1. The map of the world in a manuscript of Macrobius, of the tenth
century; 2. The map of the world, in a manuscript of the eighth century
in the Turin library; 3. That of Cecco d'Ascoli, of the thirteenth
century; 4. The small map of the world, in one of the manuscript maps of
the thirteenth century, of l'Image du Monde, by Gauthier de Metz, MS. No.
7791, Bibliotheque Imperiale, Paris; 5. That of an Icelandic manuscript
of the thirteenth century, taken from the Antiquitates Americanae; 6.
That in a manuscript of Marco Polo, of the fourteenth century (1350), in
the Royal Library of Stockholm; 7. That on the reverse of a medal of the
fifteenth century, in the Cabinet of M. Crignon de Montigny.

"The cartographers of the middle ages have admitted that as a reality
which, even to the geographers of antiquity, was merely a theory."

The earliest assertion of the discovery of a land bearing a position on
early maps analogous to that of Australia has been made in favour of the
Chinese, who have been supposed to have been acquainted with its coasts
long before the period of European navigation to the east. Thevenot, in
his "Relations de Divers Voyages Curieux," part i, Preface: Paris, 1663,
says: The southern land, which now forms a fifth part of the world, has
been discovered at different periods. The Chinese had knowledge of it
long ago, for we see that Marco Polo marks two great islands to the
south-east of Java, which it is probable that he learned from the
Chinese." The statements of Marco Polo, which we quote from Marsden's
translation, run thus:--

"Upon leaving the island of Java, and steering a course between south and
south-west, seven hundred miles, you fall in with two islands, the larger
of which is named Sondur, and the other Kondur. Both being uninhabited,
it is unnecessary to say more respecting them. Having run the distance
of fifty miles from these islands, in a south-easterly direction,
you reach an extensive and rich province, that forms a part of the
main land, and is named Lochac. It's inhabitants are idolaters. They
have a language peculiar to themselves, and are governed by their
own king, who pays no tribute to any other, the situation of the
country being such as to protect it from any hostile attack. Were it
assailable, the Grand Khan would not have delayed to bring it under
his dominion. In this country sappan or brazil wood is produced in
large quantities. Gold is abundant to a degree scarcely credible;
elephants are found there; and the objects of the chase, either with
dogs or birds, are in plenty. From hence are exported all those
porcelain shells, which, being carried to other countries, are
there circulated for money, as has been already noticed. Here they
cultivate a species of fruit called berchi, in size about that
of a lemon, and having a delicious flavour. Besides these circumstances
there is nothing further that requires mention, unless it be that the
country is wild and mountainous, and is little frequented by strangers;
whose visits the king discourages, in order that his treasures and other
secret matters of his realm may be as little known to the rest of the
world as possible.

"Departing from Lochac and keeping a southerly course for five hundred
miles, you reach an island named Pentam, the coast of which is wild and
uncultivated, but the woods abound with sweet scented trees. Between the
province of Lochac and this island of Pentam, the sea, for a space of
sixty miles, is not more than four fathoms deep, and this obliges those
who navigate it to lift the rudders of their ships, in order that they
may not touch the bottom. After sailing these sixty miles in a
south-easterly direction, and then proceeding thirty miles further,
you arrive at an island, in itself a kingdom, named Malaiur, which
is likewise the name of its city. The people are governed by a king,
and have their own peculiar language. The town is large and well
built. A considerable trade is there carried on in spices and drugs,
with which the place abounds. Nothing else that requires notice
presents itself. Proceeding onwards from thence, we shall now speak
of Java Minor."

That this description does not apply to Australia the reader of the
present day may readily conclude. It has received its explanation in the
judicious notes of Marsden, who shows how, from the circumstances, it is
highly probable that Lochac is intended for some part of the country of
Cambodia, the capital of which was named Loech, according to the authority
of Gasper de Cruz, who visited it during the reign of Sebastian, king of
Portugal. See Purchas, vol. iii, p. 169. The country of Cambodia,
moreover, produces the gold, the spices, and the elephants which Marco
Polo attributes to Lochac. Pentam is reasonably supposed by Marsden to
be Bintam, and the island and kingdom of Malaiur (Maletur, in the Basle
edition of 1532, included in the Novus Orbis of Grynaeus) to be the
kingdom of the Malays.

In the early engraved maps of the sixteenth century, however, we see the
effects of this description exhibited, in a form calculated to startle
the inquirer respecting the early indications of Australia. On these maps
we find laid down an extensive development of the great Terra Australis
Incognita trending northward to New Guinea; with which, on some of these
maps, it is made to be continuous, while on others it is divided from it;
and on the northernmost portion of this remarkable delineated land occur
the legends: "Beach provincia aurifere", "Iucach regnum", "Maletur regnum
scatens aromatibus", "Vasitissimas hic esse regiones e M. Pauli Veneti et
Ludovici Vartomanni scriptis peregrinationibus liquido constat".

We have already explained from Marsden's notes the reasonable rendering
of the name of Lucach or Lochac. The name of Beach, or rather Boesch, is
another form of the same name, which crept into the Basle edition of
Marco Polo in 1532, and was blunderingly repeated by cartographers; while
for Maletur we have the suggestion of the Burgomaster Witsen, in the
"Noord en Oost Tartarye" fol. 169, that it is taken from Maleto, on the
north side of the island of Timor, a suggestion rendered null by the
fact, apparently unknown to Witsen, that Maletur, as already stated, was
but a misspelling in the Basle edition for Malaiur. The sea in which, on
these early maps, this remarkable land is made to lie, is called, Mare
Lantchidol, another perplexing piece of misspelling upon which all
cartographers have likewise stumbled, and which finds its explanation in
the Malay words 'Laut Kidol', or 'Chidol' "The South Sea". As, however,
this striking protrusion to the northward of a portion of the Great Terra
Australis Incognita on the early maps in a position so nearly corresponding
with that of Australia, may not have emanated solely from the description
of Marco Polo, the editor proposes to defer further allusion to these maps
until they present themselves in their due chronological order among the
documents and data of which he will have to speak.

The earliest discovery of Australia to which claim has been laid by any
nation is that of a Frenchman, a native of Honfleur, named Binot
Paulmier de Gonneville, who sailed from that port in June 1503, on a
voyage to the South Seas. After doubling the Cape of Good Hope, he was
assailed by a tempest which drove him on an unknown land, in which he
received the most hospitable reception, and whence, after a stay of six
months, he returned to France, bringing with him the son of the king of
the country. The narrative is given in a judicial declaration made by him
before the French Admiralty, dated the 19th of June, 1505, and first
published in the 'Memoires touchant l'Etablissment d'une Mission
Chretiennes dans la Terre Australe', printed at Paris by Cramoisy, 1663,
and dedicated to Pope Alexander VII, by an "ecclesiastque originaires de
cette mesme terre." The author gives his name in no other way than by
these initials, "J.P.D.C., Pretre Indien." This priest, as well as his
father and grandfather, was born in France; but his great grand-father
was one of the Australians, or natives of the southern world, whom
Gonneville had brought into France at his return from that country, and
whom he afterwards married to one of his own relations there, he having
embraced Christianity. The author of the account himself being animated
by a strong desire of preaching the gospel in the country of his
ancestors, spent his whole life in endeavouring to prevail on those who
had the care of foreign missions to send him there, and to fulfil the
promise the first French navigator had made, that he should visit that
country again. Unfortunately Gonneville's journals, on his return, fell
into the hands of the English, and were lost. The author, however,
collected his materials from the traditions and loose papers of his own
family, and the judicial declaration above mentioned. This account was to
have been presented to the Pope, but it never was printed till it fell
into the hands of the bookseller Cramoisy. The narrative is to the effect
that some French merchants, being tempted by the success of the
Portuguese under Vasco de Gama, determined upon sending a ship to the
Indies by the same route which he had sailed. The ship was equipped at
Honfleur. "The Sieur de Gonneville, who commanded her, weighed anchor in
the month of June 1503, and doubled the Cape of Good Hope, where he was
assailed by a furious tempest, which made him lose his route, and
abandoned him to the wearisome calm of an unknown sea". "Not knowing what
course to steer, the sight of some birds coming from the south determined
them to sail in that direction in the hope of finding land. They found
what they desired, that is to say, a great country which, in their
relations, was named the Southern India, according to the custom, at that
time, of applying indifferently the names of the Indies to every country
newly discovered." They remained six months at this land; after which the
crew of the ship refused to proceed further, and Gonneville was obliged to
return to France. When near home, he was attacked by an English corsair,
and plundered of every thing; so that his journals and descriptions were
entirely lost. On arriving in port, he made a declaration of all that had
happened in the voyage to the Admiralty, which declaration was dated July
the 19th, 1505, and was signed by the principal officers of the ship.

In one part of the relation, this great southern land is said to be not
far out of the direct route to the East Indies. The land of Gonneville
has been supposed by some to be in a high southern latitude, and nearly
on the meridian of the Cape of Good Hope; and Duval and Nolin placed it
on their charts to the south-west of the Cape, in 48° south: The
President De Brosses, author of 'Histoire des Navigations aux
Terres Australes', Paris, 1756, 2 vols., conjectured that it was south of
the Moluccas, and that it was, in fact, the first discovery of the Terra
Australis, since named New Holland.

Gonneville, however, is represented as carrying on during his stay a
friendly intercourse with the natives, whom he mentions as having made
some advances in civilization. The account is quite incompatible with the
character for treachery and barbarous cruelty, which we have received of
the natives of North Australia from all the more recent voyagers.

Let the whole account, says Burney, be reconsidered without
prepossession, and the idea that will immediately and most naturally
occur is that the Southern India discovered by Gonneville was Madagascar.
De Gonneville having doubled (passed round) the Cape, was by tempests
driven into calm latitudes, and so near to this land, that he was
directed thither by the flight of birds. The refusal of the crew to
proceed to Eastern India, would scarcely have happened if they had been
so far advanced to the East as New Holland.

A more reasonable claim than the preceding to the discovery of Australia
in the early part of the sixteenth century, may be advanced by the
Portuguese from the evidence of various MS. maps still extant, although
the attempt made recently to attach the credit of this discovery to
Magalhaens in the famous voyage of the 'Victoria' round the world in 1520,
is, as we shall endeavour to show, perfectly untenable. The claim of this
honour for Spain is thus asserted in the "Compendio Geografico Estadistico
de Portugal y sus posesiones ultramarinas", by Aldama Ayala, 8 vo, Madrid,
1855, p. 482. "The Dutch lay claim to the discovery of the continent of
Australia in the seventeenth century, although it was discovered by Fernando
Magalhaens, a Portuguese, by order of the Emperor Charles V, in the year
1520, as is proved by authentic documents, such as the atlas of Fernando
Vaz Dourado, made in Goa in 1570, on one of the maps in which is laid down
the coast of Australia. The said magnificent atlas, illuminated to
perfection, was formerly preserved in the Carthusian Library at Evora".

A similar claim was also made for their distinguished countryman, though
the voyage was made in the service of Spain, in an almanack published at
Angra, in the island of Terceira, by the government press, anno 1832,
and composed, it is supposed, by the Viscount Sa' de Bandeira, the present
minister of marine at Lisbon. In the examination of this subject, the
editor has had the advantage of the assistance of a friend in Lisbon,
who, in his research among the remaining literary wealth of that city,
has exhibited an earnestness and an amount of care and thought but too
rarely witnessed in delegated investigations. The reader will not wonder
that the zeal of a true lover of literature has been thrown into these
researches, when he learns that they have been made by Dr. John Martin,
the well-known author (for it would be wrong to call him the editor) in
days now long gone by, of that most interesting and important work,
"Mariner's Tonga Islands". As will be presently seen, the whole question
of the possibility of the discovery of Australia having been made by the
Portuguese, in the first half of the sixteenth century, is sufficiently
enigmatical to call for a great extent of inquiry, and the editor's
venerable and honoured friend, though now grown old in the service of
science and literature, has entered into the subject with a cordiality
and ardour, commensurate with the puzzling nature of the subject.

But first with respect to the claim on behalf of Magalhaens, as based
upon the map of Vaz Dourado. The following are extracts from Dr. Martin's
reports upon the map.

"On inspecting the map and examining the more southern regions, I found
that the island of Timor was the most southern land laid down in lat. 10°
S., which is its true situation, while further to the south all was
blank, excepting certain ornamental devices as far as about latitude 17°
or 18°, which was the lowest margin of the map. To the west and east the
map was bordered by a scale of latitude, in single degrees; but this map
did not occupy the whole sheet of vellum, for to the right of the eastern
scale of latitude something else was laid down, viz., a line of coast
running with a little southing from west to east, with many rivers and
names of places upon it, and this notice underneath, 'Esta Costa
Descubrio Fernao de Magalhaes naturall portuges pormandado do emperador
Carllos o anno 1520'.

"If the whole sheet is meant to constitute one map and referable to the
same scale of latitude, then the coast in question is not where New
Holland ought to be, being north of Timor and much too far to the
eastward. On turning over to the next sheet (in the atlas) there is a
similar line of coast laid down with precisely the same notice (above
quoted) at the bottom, and evidently a continuation of the same coast
upon the same scale. I send a list of the names, which I have made out as
well as I could, for they are very small and several letters are not very
clear.

"The reasons why I cannot consider this coast as part of New Holland,
are, 1st. It is at least one thousand five hundred miles in length, and
nearly straight as a whole; though indented in its parts; 2ndly. That it
is represented to have numerous rivers, which are very rare in New
Holland (on the coast); 3rdly. That it is considerably distant from its
true place to the south of Timor, which in the atlas is laid down
correctly as to latitude, although 4thly. There is plenty of room for
it on the map. I have thought it might be part of the coast of South
America, where Magelhaens was long detained, and that it is put down as
a sort of memorandum of the great extent of coast which he discovered in
the first circumnavigation of the globe. With indomitable perseverance he
pushed his way through the straits that bear his name into the Pacific,
and in this vast ocean he sailed about for three months and twenty days
(says Pigafetta, who accompanied him and wrote an account of the voyage)
without discovering anything except two small desert islands, until he
arrived at the Phillippines. Had he really discovered so much of the
coast of a great southern continent, Spain, in whose service he was,
might well have boasted of the feat, and Portugal, whose native he was,
might have defended the claims of the man who performed it, and not let so
bold and noble a discovery (for those times) remain so long in doubt.

* * * * *

"Now with respect to America: if we examine carefully the list of names
upon this line of coast, we shall find some that have a resemblance to
those on the coast of America, along which Malelhaen pursued his course.
One of these, C. de las Virgines, is found in some maps just at the
entrance of the Straits of Magellan, on the eastern side. I do not see
any name like Fromose[*1], but there is the name Gaia Fromosa, in or near the
Straits of Magellan (in the same atlas). In the enclosed list of names we
have also Terra Gigates or Terra Gigantes, and may not this be the
Patagonians?

[*1) This apparently Gallicised Portugese name is here referred
to by Dr. Martin in allusion to its occurrence on certain early
French maps to be treated of hereafter.]

"On a closer and more minute examination of Dourado's map, and others, I
think it may now be made evident that the coast said to have been
discovered by Magelhaens, in 1520, and mistaken by Sa de Bandeira and
others, for part of the coast of New Holland, is no other than the
northern coast of New Guinea.

"Now New Guinea, or part of it, as laid down by Dourado, appears under
the name of Os Papuos, and extends to the eastward as far as the scale of
latitude is marked, but beyond that scale there is about half an inch of
space, and there the coast in question commences, and runs a long way
towards the east, with a little southing, and has many islands bordering
upon it; whether this be either a continuation or a repetition more
extended of Papua, it is much in the same latitude, and runs in the same
direction. Again, on referring to an old map of Mercator, I found some
names upon New Guinea, similar to those on the coast in question; there I
found C. de las Virgines; I. de los Cresbos; R. de Bolcados; Buen Puerto
answering to C. de las Virgines; I. de los Crespos: Bullcones Puerto
Bueno, as found among the names on the coast in question; but what
places the matter still more beyond doubt is, that the names in both run
in the same consecutive order from west to east, upon several of the
islands which border the main land.

Names of Islands as laid down in          Names of Islands as laid down
Dourado's map along the coast             in Mercator's map on the
said to be New Holland, in consecutive    coast of New Guinea, in
order from W. to E.                       consecutive order, W. to E.


I. de los Martiles                        Y. de los Martyres
I. dellos Crespos                         Y. de Crespos
I. Duarati                                Y. Dearti
I de Armo                                 No such name
I. Dombres brancos                        Y. de Malagente
Llabasbuda                                La barbade
Llacuimana                                No such name
Bullcones (is laid down on the main land) Los Bulcones

* * * * *

"Seeing that the coast in question, and that of New Guinea, are in the
same latitude, that they greatly resemble each other in position, that
several names upon them are similar, and that the similar names follow
each other in both cases in the like consecutive order, and the same
direction from west to east, I think we may safely come to the conclusion
that the coast in question is identically that of New Guinea, and that the
assumption of Viscount Sa de Bandeira and others following him, or whom
he has followed, is an error."

From these observations of Dr. Martin, the editor forms the following
conclusions; that the tract laid down on Vaz Dourado's map as discovered
by Magalhaens, is in fact a memorandum or cartographical side-note of the
real discovery by Magalhaens of Terra del Fuego, and that from its
adopted false position on the vellum it was subsequently applied
erroneously to New Guinea by Mercator. But even if this surmise be
incorrect, the only alternative that remains is that the tract laid down
is New Guinea, and clearly not Australia, as assumed by the claiments to
whom we have referred. The editor submits that this claim is alike
untenable from the accounts of Magalhaen's voyage and from the evidence
of the map itself on which that claim is founded.

But we now pass to a more plausible indication of a discovery of
Australia by the Portuguese in the early part of the sixteenth century,
which ranges between the years 1512 and 1542. It occurs in similar form
on six maps, four of them in England and two in France, on which,
immediately below Java, and separated from that island only by a narrow
strait, is drawn a large country stretching southward to the verge of
several maps. The earliest in all probability, and the most detailed of
these maps, is the one from which we give the annexed reduction of that
portion immediately under consideration. It is a large chart of the world
on a plane scale, on vellum, 8 ft. 2 in. by 3 ft. 10 in., highly
ornamented, with figures, etc., and with the names in French. At the upper
corner, on the left side, is a shield of the arms of France, with the
collar of St. Michael; and on the right, another shield of France with
Dauphiny, quarterly. It was probably executed in the time of Francis I. of
France, for his son the Dauphin, afterwards Henry II. This chart formerly
belonged to Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford, after whose death it was taken
away by one of his servants. It was subsequently purchased by Sir Joseph
Banks, Bart., and presented by him to the British Museum in 1790.

The second, in all probability, of these, is contained in an atlas
drawn at Dieppe in 1547, at present in the possession of Sir Thomas
Phillipps, Bart., of Middle Hill, Worcestershire. It contains the name of
Nicholas Vallard of Dieppe. The editor has been unsuccessful in his
efforts to gain a sight of this atlas, or even a fac-simile lithograph
made by Sir Thomas Phillipps of the map supposed to contain the
representation of Australia. Hence he has been compelled to rely upon the
memory of Sir Frederick Madden, who had an opportunity of examining the
atlas some years since, and who recollects that though it bore the name
of Vallard and the date of 1547, it was not made by him, and that its
date, though probably earlier than 1547, could be shown from internal
evidence to be not earlier than 1539, A coat of arms appears in the margin
of the volume, argent, on a saltire, gules, five besants, a mullet,
sable in the fess point. This may lead a future investigator to the
discovery of an earlier possessor of the map than Vallard, although it
should be remarked that the borders on the margin appear to be of a later
date than the maps themselves. It fell into the possession of Prince
Talleyrand at the beginning of this century, and attracting the attention
of the celebrated geographer M. Barbie du Bocage, drew from him a notice
in the 'Magasin Encyclopedique, douzieme annee', tom. iv, 107, which,
though lengthy, bears so directly upon the subject of the present work,
that it is proposed in simple justice both to the writer and the
reader presently to give it in full.

The third and fourth of these maps (if our other inferences as to date be
correct) are contained in one volume in the British Museum; one of them
is a detailed map, and the other an almost skeleton map of the world in
hemispheres, with the latitudes and longitudes marked and the names of
'lytel Java' and the 'londe of Java' laid down on the great country in
question. It is from this latter map that the annexed extract is given,
on the same scale as the original, the octavo page being sufficiently
large to admit the portion required to be shown. The only point of
difference calling for special remark is, that in the original hemisphere
the line representing the eastern coast does not reach to the bottom of
the map, but terminates abruptly in the same degree of latitude as
represented in the copy, though that degree is here, for convenience
sake, made to coincide with the margin of the map. Indeed the special
interest of this particular map is, that whereas all the others
which represent this remarkable country have the coastline extended
indefinitely to the southern margin; on this both the eastern and western
coast lines stop abruptly at certain points, of which we are able to take
cognizance by the degrees of latitude being shown on the same map.
The volume containing these two important maps bears the date of
1542, and was made by one Jean Rotz who had in the first instance
intended to dedicate it to the king of France, but afterwards
presented it to king Henry VIII of England. In this dedication to
the king, he says that the maps are made "au plus certain et vray quil
ma este possible de faire, tante par mon experience propre, que par la
certaine experience de mes amys et compagnons navigateurs;" and at the
close he expresses his hope to compose shortly a work in English, which
was to be printed to the great profit and advantage of all the navigators
and seamen of this prosperous kingdom. It is to be regretted that we do
not possess the work here promised, as much light might thereby have been
thrown upon the mystery in which the question before us is involved. It
has been suggested by Malte Brun, that the author was a Fleming, who came
over to England with Anne of Cleves in 1540. The idea may have originated
in the form of the name, but would hardly have been maintained had Malte
Brun read Totz's dedication, in which he speaks of the king of France as
having been "mon souverin et naturel signeur." There can be no doubt,
then, that he was a French subject.

The fifth in date, if we suppose it to have been made early in the reign
of Henry II, is a map given in fac-simile by M. Jomard, in his 'Monuments
de la Geographie, ou Recueil d'Anciennes Cartes' now in progress, and is
described by him as "Mappemonde peinte sur parchemin par ordre de Henri
II, Roi de France."

The sixth is a map in a Portolano at the Depot de la Guerre, Paris, drawn
in 1555 by Guillaume le Testu, a pilot of Grasse, in Provence, or as
others have thought a Norman. Andre Thevet, cosmographer to Henry II,
boasted of having often sailed with him, and always styles him as
"renomme pilote et singulier navigateur." The map was drawn for Admiral
Coligny, to whom it is dedicated and whose name it bears. The editor has
succeeded in procuring a tracing of that portion which affects the
present question, and finds it to agree with the other maps of the kind
in the delineation of the coast of "la Grande Java."

On the reduced tracing of the most fully detailed of these maps are
inscribed some names of bays and coasts which were noticed in the first
instance by Alexander Dalrymple, the late hydrographer to the Admiralty
and the East India Company, to bear a resemblance to the names given by
Captain Cook to parts of New Holland which he had himself discovered.

In his memoir concerning the Chagos and adjacent islands, 1786, p.4,
speaking of this map he says:--"The east coast of New Holland as we name
is expressed with some curious circumstances of correspondence to Captain
Cook's MS. What he names:--

Bay of Inlets,              is in the MS. called Bay Perdue.
Bay of Isles,               is in the MS. called R. de beaucoup d'Isles.
Where the Endeavour struck, is in the MS. called Coste dangereuse."

So that we may say with Solomon, "'There is nothing new under the sun'".

To the discredit of so well informed and laborious a man as Dalrymple, to
whom, perhaps, next to Hakluyt, this country is the most largely indebted
for its commercial prosperity, this passage was but an invidious
insinuation, intended to disparage the credit of Captain Cook, of whose
appointment to the command of the Endeavour he was extremely jealous.
Dalrymple had earnestly desired the command of an expedition to discover
the great southern continent, the existence of which he had endeavoured
to prove by various philosophical arguments, which later times have shown
to be not without foundation; and his observation would seem to imply
that Cook, who had been so successful in his discoveries on the coast of
New Holland, might have been led thereto by an acquaintance with this
pre-existant map. The unworthy insinuation met with a sensible
refutation, as we are happy to record, from the pen of a Frenchman, M.
Frederic Metz, in a paper printed at p, 261, vol. 47 of "La Revue, ou
Decade Philosophique, Litteraire et Politique," Nov., 1805. For the sake
of clearness, the editor avoids here giving the whole of M. Metz's paper,
in which an attempt is made to disprove that New Holland was discovered
at this time by the Portuguese at all, but will merely quote those
passages which meet Dalrymple's insinuation. M. Metz says:--

"It had been generally believed that we were indebted to the Dutch for
our acquaintance with this vast country, and that the celebrated Cook had
in his first voyage discovered its eastern coast, which he named New South
Wales, until the discovery was made in the British Museum of a map upon
parchment, presumed to be of the sixteenth century, on which was observed
a large country laid down on the site occupied by New Holland. On the
eastern coast of this country, places were found with the names 'Cotes des
Herbaiges', 'Riviere de beaucoup d'Iles', 'Cote dangereuse', names which
present a great resemblance to those of 'Botany Bay', 'Bay of Islands' and
'Dangerous Coast', given by Cook to parts of New South Wales. "The
resemblance of these names struck many persons. Mr. Dalrymple, a man of
the greatest merit, but a personal enemy of Cook, whom he never forgave
for having received, in preference to him, the command of the Endeavour,
in the voyage made to observe the passage of Venus, and especially for
having demolished, beyond a hope of recovery, his theories of the existence
of the southern lands, and of the north-west passage of America:
Mr. Dalrymple, I say, took occasion therefrom to insinuate in one of his
works, that the discovery of the east of New Holland was due to some
navigator of the sixteenth century, and that Cook had only followed
in his track..."

"As the the resemblance of the names--this seems to me to prove exactly
the contrary of the conclusions which it has been attempted to draw from
them. If Cook had been acquainted with the maps in question, and had
wished to appropriate to himself the discoveries of another, will anyone
suppose him so short-sighted as to have preserved for his discoveries the
very names which would have exposed his plagiarism, if ever the sources
which he had consulted came to be known. The 'dangerous coast' was so
named because there he found himself during four hours in imminent danger
of shipwreck. We must suppose, then, that he exposed himself and his crew
to an almost certain death in order to have a plausible excuse for
applying a name similar to that which this coast had already received
from the unknown and anonymous navigator who had previously discovered
it. Moreover, names such as 'Bay of Islands', 'Dangerous coast', are well
known in geography. We find a Bay of Islands in New Holland; and on the
east coast of the island of Borneo there is a 'Cote des Herbages.'"

The sound sense of this reasoning, apart from all question of honour on
the part of a man of the high character of Captain Cook, would seem
conclusive, yet this similarity of names has, to the editor's own
knowledge, been remarked upon by persons of high standing and
intelligence in this country, though without any intention of
disparaging Captain Cook, as an evidence that this country was
identical with Australia. The similarity of the expression, 'Cote des
Herbages', with the name of Botany Bay, given to a corresponding part of
the coast by Captain Cook, has been particularly dwelt upon, whereas it
ought to be known that this bay, originally called Stingray, but
afterwards Botany Bay, was not so named on account of the fertility of
the soil, but from the variety of plants new to the science of botany
which were discovered on a soil otherwise rather unpromising. It is plain
that early navigators would assign such a designation as 'Cote des
Herbages' to a shore remarkable for its rich growth of grass or other
vegetation, rather than from the appreciation of any curious botanical
discovery. Had the similarity of the names 'Riviere de beaucoup d'Iles' and
'Cote dangereuse' with Cook's 'Bay of Islands' and the place 'where the
Endeavour struck', names descriptive of unquestionable realities, been
advanced by Dalrymple as evidence of the high probability that the
country represented on the early map was New Holland, without
volunteering an insinuation against the merit of his rival, we should
have accepted the reasonable suggestion with deference and just
acquiescence.

That New Holland was the country thus represented, became an argument
supported by a variety of reasonings by more than one of our French
neighbours. Mr. Coquebert Montbret, in a memoir printed in No. 81 of the
'Bulletin des Sciences', 1804, quotes Dalrymple's injurious observation
and silently allows it to have its deceptive effect on the mind of the
incautious reader.

The atlas now in the possession of Sir Thomas Phillipps, which as we have
stated, is probably next in date to that made for the Dauphin, fell into
the possession of Prince Talleyrand at the beginning of this century, and
attracting the attention of the celebrated geographer M. Barbie du
Bocage, drew from him the following notice in the 'Magasin
Encyclopedique, douzieme annee', tom. iv, 1807, which, though lengthy,
bears so directly upon the subject of the present work, that it is here
given in full.

Extract from the notice of a geographical manuscript belonging to his
Serene Highness the Prince of Benevento (better known as Prince
Talleyrand), read at a public session of the Institute, on the 3rd of
July, 1807, by M. Barbie du Bocage.

"This manuscript is an hydrographic atlas, drawn at Dieppe in 1547 by a
person of the name of Nicholas Vallard, of Dieppe, representing the
eastern and western coasts of the continent of New Holland. This atlas is
not the only one upon which these coasts are laid down. There are two in
England, which came from France, and which we have been acquainted with
by the English as well as by some Frenchmen. One of the two, which has
been for a considerable time in the library of the British Museum, was
drawn in 1542 by a person of the name of Jean Rotz or Roty, who had in
the first instance drawn it, as he states in the dedication, for the
King of France, but afterwards presented it to Henry VIII, king of
England. The second is a large map on one single sheet of parchment, made
for the Dauphin of France, whose arms it bears. It was formerly in the
library of the Earl of Oxford, where Sir Joseph Banks was acquainted with
it, and thence it passed to the British Museum, where it is at present.
The English pretend that none of these charts were discovered till after
the death of the celebrated Captain Cook, and that they had no knowledge
of them when this navigator set sail. But their prior existence in
well-known libraries in England may cause this assertion to be
doubted. But even if they had made use of them to indicate to their
countryman the countries which he had to visit, it would not the less
follow that the skill the prudence and the resolution with which Captain
Cook conducted his operations must always secure for him the glory of
having made known in detail the countries which had hitherto been but
faintly indicated."

The third manuscript atlas which represents the coasts of New Holland is
that of which we have now to treat. It is a small folio volume,
consisting of fifteen hydrographical charts on vellum, which has been
recently acquired by his serene highness the Prince of Benevento. This
atlas, even by the account of persons who have seen those which are in
England, is the most beautiful of all the works of the kind, and for this
reason deserves the most particular attention. There has since been
discovered in France a fourth which is at present in the library of the
Depot de la Guerre, which was drawn in 1555 by a person named Guillaume le
Testu, a pilot, of Grasse, in Provence, for Admiral Coligny, to whom it
is dedicated, and whose arms it bears.

The English geographers, MM. Dalrymple, Major Rennell, and Pinkerton; and
among the French, MM. Bauache, De la Rochette, Coquebert de Montbret, and
others, recognise on these atlases the eastern and western coasts of New
Holland. These coasts are bounded by the same latitudes as those indicated
on recent maps; and if they encroach more on longitude it is because, at
the time the discovery was made, there existed but small means of fixing
the boundaries in that respect. The names on all the atlases which we
have just quoted are, for the most part, in Portuguese, some of them in
French; that of 1542 alone, which is in England, has some of the names in
bad English. We must, therefore, come to the conclusion that these
atlases have been copied from Portuguese maps, and consequently that the
discovery of the continent of New Holland belongs to the Portuguese. This
is the opinion of MM. Dalrymple, Pinkerton, De la Rochette and several
others; and I do not believe that any good reason can be alleged in
refutation of an opinion so well founded.

All these atlases call this continent "Great Java", in contradistinction
to the Island of Java, which is to the north of it; yet it is very
singular that no mention whatever is made of this country in the voyages
of the time. As, however, I think I have detected from history the
period at which it must have been made, I shall now endeavour to explain
why the Portuguese have kept this discovery a secret. I shall then fix
the period at which I presume it to have been made, and will show how the
knowledge of this country has been lost even by those who have
discovered it.

The most ancient of the atlases which represents the coasts of New
Holland, is that of Rotz or Roty, which is in England, and which bears
the date 1542. At that period the Portuguese were masters of the Molucca
Islands, which they had discovered in 1511, and where they had
established themselves in 1512, and in one of which, Ternate, they had
built a fort in 1522. They must have discovered New Holland after the
Moluccas, and therefore this discovery must be limited to the period
between the years 1512 and 1542.

Now, after 1516 or 1517, Spain began to dispute with Portugal the
possession of the Moluccas, as being situated within the hemisphere which
had been allotted to them by the bull of the pope Alexander VI, dated the
4th of July, 1493. This pope, in consequence of the disputes which had
arisen between the courts of Lisbon and Toledo, had arranged that all
discoveries which might be made on the globe to the east of a meridian
one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands (which he
seemed to think lay under the same medidian), for the space of 180° of
longitude, should belong to the Portuguese; and that those to the
westward of the same meridian for the same space should belong to
the Spaniards. This division has since been called the line of
demarcation of Pope Alexander VI. Don John II, however, who was then king
of Portugal, being dissatisfied with this bull, which seemed to deprive
him of considerable possessions in the west, made another arrangement in
the following year with Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, by which this
line was pushed further west, and definitely fixed at three hundred and
seventy leagues to the westward of the Cape Verde Islands. This agreement
was signed the 4th of June, 1494, and it was arranged that, in the space
of ten months, persons should be sent out who were well informed in
geography, to fix exactly the places through which this line should pass.

This agreement once entered upon, no more consideration was given
to the sending out of competent persons to the places indicated,
and the two governments continued their discoveries, each on its own
behalf. Under the guidance of Cabral, the Portuguese, on the 9th of
March, 1500, discovered Brazil, which lay in their own hemisphere. Under
the guidance of Vincent Yanez Pinzon, the Spaniards had in the same or
preceding year, sailed along the whole of this coast as far as the
embouchure of the Oronoco. After this time the line, without further
examination, was reckoned to pass by the mouth of the Maranon, or river
of the Amazons, which had been already explored, and it is in this part
that it is found traced on the Spanish maps of Herrera. The Portuguese,
while they took possession of Brazil, continued their discoveries towards
the east, and reached the Moluccas, where they established themselves, as
we have said, in 1512. The proprietorship of the spices which the
possession of these islands gave them, produced such considerable profits
that it soon excited the jealousy of the Spaniards. The latter pretended
that the Moluccas were in the hemisphere which had been allotted to them.
This idea was particularly suggested to them by Magellan, who, being
discontented with the treatment of king Emanuel, in having refused him an
increase of allowance, took refuge about the year 1516 in Spain, and
offered his services to the government of Charles V. Not only did he
assert that the hemisphere belonging to the Spaniards comprised the
Moluccas, but also the islands of Java and Sumatra, and a part of the
Malay peninsula. In fact, from the difficulty which then existed in
determing longitude, the discoveries of the Portuguese appeared to
appropriate more than 180° in this direction, so great was the amount
of space given to them in their maps; nevertheless, if we examine modern
maps we shall see that, measuring from the mouth of the Maranon, the
Moluccas still came within the hemisphere of the Portuguese.

Cardinal Ximenes, who at that time governed Spain in the absence of
Charles V, at the outset received Magellan very well, and Charles V.
himself afterwards entrusted him with the command of a squadron of five
vessels, which, as we know, sailed from San Lucar on the 20th of
September, 1519, on a western passage, in search of the spice islands, or
Moluccas. Two of the vessels of this fleet arrived on the 8th of
November, 1521, at the island of Tidore, after having passed through the
straits since called the Straits of Magellan. That navigator was now no
more; he had been killed in one of the islands of the archipelago of St.
Lazaro, since called the Philippines, and nearly all his squadron having
been destroyed, one vessel only, named "Victoria", returned to Europe,
with eighteen persons, all very sick, under the guidance of Sebastian del
Cano, who landed on the 6th of September, 1522, at the same port of San
Lucar de Barrameda, from which the fleet had set sail three years before.

Whether it was from policy, or because the currents which exist in the
Great Pacific Ocean had carried Magellan's fleet rapidly down to the
Philippines and Moluccas, those who returned from this expedition, always
maintained that these latter islands were in the hemisphere of the
Spaniards, who consequently laid claim to traffic there. They were even on
the point of sending out a new expedition thither, when king John III
begged Charles V to have the question examined by competent persons, and
promised to acquiesce in their decision. The two governments appointed
twenty-four, or even a greater number, both Spaniards and Portuguese,
well skilled in geography and navigation, who from the commencement of
March 1524, met alternately in the two cities of Badajos and Elves, on
the frontiers of the two states. Three months were allowed to them to
decide definitely to whom these islands belonged.

These commissioners, among whom was Sebastian del Cano, who had brought
back the "Victoria", consumed at the outset a considerable time in
consulting globes and charts, and in comparing the journals of pilots.
They examined the distance between the Moluccas and the line of
demarcation. They disputed much, and came to no conclusion. More than
two months passed away in this manner; and they reached the latter part
of May, which had been fixed as the term of the conferences.

The Spanish commissioners then settled the line of demarcation at three
hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands as it had been
fixed in 1494; and as, on the basis of the charts which they had then
before them, they made the opposite line, which was to be at the
distance of 180°, pass-through the Malay peninsula, they included
in their own hemisphere not only the Moluccas, but also the islands
of Java and Borneo, part of Sumatra, the coast of China, and part
of the Malay peninsula itself. The Portuguese did not agree to this
limitation, which was too disadvantageous for themselves; on the
contrary, they went away very discontented, storming, and threatening
war, which gave occasion to the jocose observation of Peter Martyr of
Anghiera, a talented man, at that time the historiographer of the court
of Spain, that the Commissioners, after having well syllogized, concluded
by being unable to decide the question except by cannon balls.

In spite of the unsuccessful issue of this negotiation, the two courts
did not come to a quarrel; they were at the point of forming alliances.
The question of the marriage of the Infanta Catherine, the emperor's
sister, with king John, which was celebrated in 1525, was being then
entertained. In the following year, 1526, the emperor espoused, with
great pomp, Isabella, king John's sister. Charles V, however, believing
himself in the right, continued to permit his subjects to carry on
commerce with the Spice Islands; and he himself fitted out fleets to
dispute the possession of them with the Portuguese. Some of these vessels
landed at the Moluccas in 1527 and 1528; but, as these expeditions were
generally unsuccessful, and as, moreover, he was in need of money for his
coronation in Italy, he listened to the proposals of king John to
purchase his rights to the islands. He parted with them by a secret
treaty, which was signed at Saragossa the 22nd of April, 1529, for the
sum, it is said, of 350,000 golden ducats, against the express wish of
his subjects, who often, but in vain, besought him to retract it. By his
refusal, it was thought that he had received much more. Thenceforth the
Spaniards were not permitted to traffic with the Moluccas.

This termination of the quarrel on the part of Portugal was a
justification of the claims of the Spaniards, and an acknowledgment in
some sort that the Moluccas were in their hemisphere. After such an
arrangement, the Portuguese could not show any discoveries made to the
eastward, or even under the meridian of these islands. The greatest part
of New Holland is more to the east than the Moluccas; hence it is to be
believed that for this reason the Portuguese have kept silence respecting
their discovery of it.

This discovery, as we have said, must be comprised between the years 1512
and 1542. There is, however, no mention made of it in the voyages of the
time, which would sufficiently prove that the Portuguese had suppressed,
or at least concealed, the account of it. But I propose to endeavour to
supply this defect from the narrative of two of their historians.

Castenheda, a Portuguese author, who had been in India, tells us that in
the beginning of July, 1525, the Portuguese of Ternate, one of the
Moluccas, dispatched a vessel to the island of Celebes to traffic there;
that this vessel on its return was driven by violent winds and currents
into an open sea, between the Straits of Magellan and the Moluccas; that
the Portuguese found themselves thrown more than three hundred leagues
out of their route, and were several times nearly lost. One night their
rudder was carried away, and they beat about till morning, when they
discovered an island thirty leagues in circumference, on which they
landed, with thanks to God for affording them this asylum. The islanders
gave them an excellent reception; they were of a tawny colour, but well
made and good looking, both men and women. The men had long black beards.
The Portuguese remained four months on this island, not only for the
purpose of refitting, but because the winds were contrary for the return
to the Moluccas. At length they departed and reached Ternate on the 20th
of January, 1526.

Such is the narrative of Castenheda. The Jesuit Maffei, who has given us
a history of India, has supplied us with less details, but his account is
not less valuable, inasmuch as he gives us the name of the captain who
commanded the ship. He says: Some Portuguese of the Moluccas, having gone
to the islands of the Celebes to seek for gold, but not having been able
to land, were driven by a fearful tempest upon an island, which is
distant therefrom three hundred leagues, when they went ashore. The
inhabitants, who were simple people, received them very well, and soon
became familiar with them. They comprehended their signs, and even
understood a little of the language spoken at the Moluccas. All the
inhabitants were well-looking, both male and female; they were cheerful,
and the men wore beards and long hair. The existence of this island was
previously unknown, but in consideration of the account given, of it by
the captain, whose name was Gomez de Sequeira, and of the map which he
drew of this island, his name was given to it.

From the details supplied to us by these two authors, it is evident that
the island on which Gomez de Sequeira was thrown was to the eastward of
the Moluccas, because, in returning, the Portuguese had to sail
Westward. Now three hundred Portuguese leagues, starting from the
Moluccas, or the island of Celebes, leads us to within a trifle of
Endeavour Straits; we may therefore conclude that it was upon one of the
rocks in this strait that Gomez de Sequeira lost his rudder, and that the
island on which he landed was one of the westernmost of those which lie
along its western extremity. The Portuguese did not advance far into this
strait, for it is plain that they met with no obstacle in returning to
the Moluccas. I think, therefore, that the island on which Gomez de
Sequeira landed was one of those which were called Prince of Wales
Islands by Captain Cook, and which are inhabited, because this navigator
states that he saw smoke there. What confirms me in this opinion, is the
agreement of our two authors in stating that the natives of New Holland
[differed?] from those of New Guinea, whose hair and beards are crisped.
This island, therefore, was nearer to New Holland than to New Guinea,
which is, in fact, the case with the Prince of Wales Islands.

The Portuguese having discovered in 1525 an island so near as this to New
Holland, we must believe that the discovery of that continent followed
very soon after that of this island. It was at that time that the
controversies between the courts of Portugal and Spain were at their
highest; the Portuguese, therefore, needed to be cautious respecting
their new discoveries; they were obliged to conceal them carefully. It
will not, therefore, be surprising that no mention was made in their
works of the discovery of New Holland.

But, after having shown how much importance the Portuguese must
have attached to the concealment of their discoveries, and having
examined at what period the discovery of New Holland may have been
made, it will be not less interesting to inquire how this discovery may
have become known in France, and afterwards, in England, so early as
1542. There was nothing at that time to induce the court of Portugal to
disclose their discoveries to the court of France; there was nothing to
bind these two courts in intimate union; on the contrary, their
intercourse had for some time been rather cool. As proof of this, the
king of Portugal had in 1543 married his daughter Mary to Philip
the Infant of Spain, without giving notice thereof to Francis I,
who thereupon showed his vexation in his conduct towards Francis
de Norough, the ambassador of Portugal, who to avoid a rupture
between the two courts, answered with considerable reserve. We
cannot, therefore, presume that the court of Portugal would ever have
frankly communicated its discoveries to the court of France.

For my part, if it is permitted me to offer a conjecture, I think that
this information may have resulted from the faithlessness of Don Miguel
de Sylva, bishop of Viseo, and secretary of La Purite, a favourite of the
king of Portugal, who, according to De la Clede, left the kingdom about
1542, carrying with him some papers of importance with which the king had
entrusted him.[*1] This historian adds, that Don John was so indignant
at the treachery of his favourite, that he outlawed him by a public
decree, deprived him of all his benefices, and degraded him from his
nobility. He decreed the same penalties against all his followers, and
forbad all his subjects to hold any intercourse whatever with him, under
pain of his displeasure. The count of Portalegre, the brother of the
fugitive was even confined as a prisoner in the tower of Belem for having
written to him, and kept under strict guard until the Infanta Maria, on
the point of her departure to marry Philip II, the son of the Emperor
Charles V, begged his liberation. The king granted the request, on the
condition that the count should go to Arzilla to fight against the
Moors, and earn by his services the forgiveness of his fault.

[*1) Since the reading of this memoir at the Institute,
M. Correa da Serra, to whom I had previously read it, has had the
goodness to inform me of some researches which he has made upon
this subject. He discovered that Don Miguel de Sylva left the
kingdom of Portugal in 1542, that he only arrived in Italy in 1543
to receive the cardinal's hat, and he thinks that he could only
have reached that country by passing through France, where he
had formerly studied, and that he doubtless there left the
originals from which our charts were copied.]

The severity which the king Don John exhibited on this occasion
sufficiently shows the value which he attached to the papers which had
been taken away. It is evident that they were of the greatest importance.
They were secret papers; and may they not have been those which gave
information of the discoveries of the Portuguese? Our atlases, therefore,
may have been copied from the stolen documents; and it only remains for
us to discover what has become of the originals.

Now, although the theories to which these maps have given rise have been
so complacently accepted by successive geographical writers, the subject
has never yet been minutely investigated by any English writer, nor,
indeed, have the foregoing arguments of the French been ever before
brought together into a focus. The editor, therefore, first proposes to
answer the hypothesis of M. Barbie du Bocage respecting the voyage he
adduces of Gomez de Sequeira, and then, finally, to deal with the general
question of the suggestive evidence of the maps.

With respect to Gomez de Sequeira's voyage, it is certainly surprising
that M. Barbie du Bocage should have contented himself with referring to
Castenheda and Maffei for a slight and loose description of this voyage,
when it was equally competent to him to have resorted to the more ample
description of Barros, the most distinguished of all the early Portuguese
historians, who lived in the middle of the sixteenth century, and who has
devoted a whole chapter to the minute description of the voyage in
question. (See Dec. 3, liv. x, cap. 5) So full and ample is Barros'
narrative that with a modern map before us, we can track Sequeira's
course with a nicety which, so far as the main question is concerned, is
not interrupted even by the accidents of the storm and the
unshipping of his rudder. Let the reader for a moment consult any modern
map of the Moluccas and the neighbouring islands, and he will find that
the island of the Celebes, to which Sequeira directed his course from
Ternate, presents the northernmost of the three horns of its oddly-shaped
outline at a distance of about sixty leagues from Ternate. This is the
distance which Barros states that he had to sail in order to reach that
island. Had he sailed to the nearest of the two other points his voyage
would have been, instead of sixty leagues, more than twice that
distance; whereas the very nearness of the island was an inducement for
the undertaking of the voyage, as the object was to relieve the immediate
necessities of the settlement of Ternate. Upon landing at the point thus
shown to be the northernmost one, the fact of his having carried with
him stuffs for barter being discovered by the natives, converted the
friendly feeling with which they had at first received him into
hostility, as, having heard of some previous acts of greediness on the
part of the Portuguese, they immediately concluded that the visit was
not made in a spirit of friendship, but from selfish and ulterior
motives. Hence Sequeira and his party were compelled to make their
escape in haste, and proceeded to four or five other small islands
in the neighbourhood, at which they met with a like reception. The map
will show these plainly to the north of the Celebes. Resolving after
these rebuffs to return to Ternate, they encountered a terrific storm,
which drove them, to the best of their calculation, three hundred leagues
into an open sea, with not a single island in sight, but constantly
towards the east. At length one night, they struck upon an island and
unshipped their rudder. They met with a most friendly reception from the
natives, who are described as of a light, rather than a dark, colour, and
clothed. The island is stated to have been large and the natives pointed
to a mountain to the westward in which they said there was gold. The
Portuguese remained in the island four months, until the monsoon enabled
them to return to Ternate.

Now, had Sequeira been driven by the storm towards Endeavour Strait, as
presumed by M. Barbie du Bocage, a glance at the map will show us that
his course would have been south-east instead of east, and that not
through an open sea in which no island could be seen, but one bestudded
with islands. In fact, so definite is the whole account as given in
detail by Barros, that, as we have shown his course under the driving
tempest may be palpably traced in accordance therewith on modern maps as
due east to the north of the Moluccas, and through an open sea, and is
clearly at variance with the inference of M. Barbie du Bocage, who seems
not to have consulted Barros at all upon the subject. To what island, the
reader will ask, was Sequeira driven? Let the modern map be consulted,
and the course described will bring us to the island Tobi, otherwise
known as Lord North's Island. A course so clearly defined is in itself a
very strong point in the question, even though we may have to show some
discrepancies between the description of the island on which Sequeira was
thrown and that which we have in recent times received of Lord North's
Island. Let the reader, however, in connexion with Barros' description of
the course, take the following remarkable statement, as quoted in the 6th
volume of the 'Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring
Expedition', by H. Hale, in which, under the article "Tobi, or Lord
North's Island," at p. 78, the following account is given, and he will
perhaps not dissent from the editor in thinking it possible that this was
the island on which Sequeira was driven.

"Tobi, or Lord North's Island, is situated in about lat. 3° 2' N., and
long. 131° 4' E. It is a small low islet, about three miles in
circumference, with a population of between three and four hundred souls.
Our information concerning it is derived from an American, by name Horace
Holden, who, with eleven companions, after suffering shipwreck, reached
the island in a boat, and was taken captive by the natives. He was
detained by them two years from December 6th, 1832, to November 27th,
1334, when he made his escape and returned to America, where he published
in a small volume (which is in the British Museum), an interesting
narrative of his adventures and sufferings, with a description of the
island and its inhabitants.

"The complexion of the natives, says Holden in his narrative, is a light
copper colour, much lighter than that of the Malays or Pelew Islanders,
which last, however, they resemble in the breadth of their faces, high
cheek bones, and broad flattened noses. Here we observe what has been
before remarked of the Polynesian tribes, that the lightest complexion is
found among those who are nearest the equator.

"According to the native traditions a personage, by name "Pita-Ka't" (or
Peeter Kart)[*1], of copper colour like themselves, 'Came, many years ago,
from the Island of Ternate, one of the Moluccas, and gave them their
religion and such simple arts as they possessed.' It is probably to him
that we are to attribute some peculiarities in their mode of worship,
such as their temple with rude images to represent their divinity.
The natives wear the Polynesian girdle of bark cloth.

[*1) This name, from the Dutch form which it bears, might
suggest the idea that the visitor was a Dutchman; but it
must be remembered that the Dutch were not in those seas till
the end of the sixteenth century, and that the Synod of Dort
was held in the years 1618 and 1619, which renders the
suggestion at the close of the paragraph as to "the images to
represent their divinityl unreasonable as coming from a native
of that country. It is mor probable that, from the lapse of
time, a mistake was made in the repetition of the name by a
savage, and that a Portuguese, and no a Dutchman, suggested
the use of images to represent a divinity.]

"The' houses of the natives are built with small trees and rods and
thatched with leaves. They have two stories, a ground floor and a
loft, which is entered by a hole or scuttle through the horizontal
partition or upper floor.

"For ornament they sometimes wear in their ears, which are always bored,
a folded lead, and around their necks a necklace made with the shell of
the cocoa-nut and a small white sea shell."

With reference to the cruelties detailed in Holden's narrative Mr. Hale
goes on to say:

"It should be mentioned that the release of the four Americans who
survived (two of whom got free a short time after their capture), was
voluntary on the part of the natives, a fact which shows that the
feelings of humanity were not altogether extinct in their hearts. Indeed,
though the sufferings of the captives were very great, it did not appear
that they were worse, relatively to the condition in which the natives
themselves lived, than they would have been on any other island of the
Pacific. Men who were actually dying of starvation, like the people of
Tobi, could not be expected to exercise that kindness towards others
which nature refused to them."

We have quoted this somewhat long passage respecting Lord North's Island,
as having an incidental interest in connexion with M. Barbie du Bocage's
argument; but whatever may really have been the island on which Sequeira
was driven, it seems clear that it could not have been in the direction
of Endeavour Strait as inferred by that geographer.

Having thus shown the surmises which have been suggested by geographers
of good repute with respect to the main question of the discovery of
Australia in the early part of the sixteenth century, and explained, as
he hopes satisfactorily, the errors into which they have fallen in their
attempts at explanation, the editor will now lay before the reader his
own reasons for concluding that Australia is the country which these maps
describe.

The first question that will naturally arise is--how far does the
country thus represented, correspond in latitude, longitude, and outline
with the recognised surveys of Australia as delineated in modern maps?
And if the discrepancies exposed by the comparison do not forbid the
supposition that Australia is the country represented on the early maps,
the inquiry will then suggest itself--how, with any satisfactory show
of reason, may these discrepancies be accounted for? To both these
questions, the editor believes that he can give acceptable answers.

And first as respects latitude. In all of these maps, the latitude of the
north of Java, which is the first certain starting point, is correct. The
south coast of Java, or "the lytil Java", though separated from "Java la
Grande," or the "Londe of Java," by a narrow channel, as shown in the
maps here given, has no names which indicate any pretension to a survey.
There is enough proximity between the two to suggest alike the
possibility of a connection or of a separation of the two countries. In
the absence of so many words, the maps show as plainly as possible that
it was as yet an unsettled question. With this fact, therefore, before
us, implying, as it does, both conscientiousness in the statements on the
maps, and the confession of an imperfect survey of the whole of the
coasts supposed to be laid down, we have no difficulty in giving credence
to the pretension that the great southern land there represented was,
with all its errors, a reality and not a fiction. In all fairness,
therefore, we pass the question of junction between the little and the
great Java, as a point virtually declared to be unsettled, and
supposing the latter to be Australia, test our supposition by inquiring
as to the correctness of the latitude in which the coastline terminates
on the western side. Here again we find exact correctness. In the one
(Rotz's map), the line ceases altogether at 35°, the real south-western
point of Australia, and in the other at the same point all description
ceases, and a meaningless line is drawn to the margin of the map, implying,
that no further exploration had been made. On the eastern side, we have in
every respect greater inaccuracy; but for the present we deal only with the
question of latitude. For the sake of convenience, our reduction of
Rotz's map is made to terminate at the point where the eastern coast line
of "the Londe of Java terminates," namely in the sixtieth degree, a
parallel far exceeding in. its southing even the southernmost point of
Tasmania, which is in 43° 35'; but if we look to the Dauphin map, we
find that about 10° of the southernmost portion of the line is
indefinite, and it must not be forgotten that for the Portuguese, this
was the remotest point for investigation, and consequently, the least
likely to be definite. There is, however, strong reasons for supposing
that the eastern side of Tasmania was included within this coast line.

With respect to longitude, it may be advanced that with all
the discrepancies observable in the maps here presented,
there is no other country but Australia lying between the same
parallels, and of the same extent, between the east coast of
Africa and the west coast of America, and that Australia
does in reality lie between the same meridians as the great
mass of the country here laid down. In Rotz's map we have the
longitude reckoned from the Cape Verde islands, the degrees
running eastward from 1 to 360. The extreme western point
of the "Londe of Java" is in about 126° (102 E. from Greenwich),
whereas the westernmost point of Australia is in about 113° E.
from Greenwich. The extreme eastern points of "the Londe of
Java" is in about 207° (or 183° E. from Greenwich). The extreme
western point however is on a peak of huge extent, which is
a manifest blunder or exaggeration. The longitude of the easternmost
side, excluding this peak, is in about 187° (or 163° East from Greenwich),
whereas the easternmost point of Australia is in something less than
154 E. from Greenwich. The difficulty of ascertaining the
longitude in those days is well known, and the discoveries which
these maps represent were, in all probability, made on a variety
of occasions, and had a continuous line given to them on maps,
not so much as an exact, but as an approximate guide to
subsequent explorers. It were hard indeed, therefore, if
sufficient concession were not made to the pioneers of maritime
exploration, for the reconciliation of these comparatively and
light discrepancies, when inaccuracies as striking are observable
in surveys made as late as in the eighteenth century.

Thus in taking a general survey of the outline of this immense country,
we have this one striking fact presented to us, that the western side is
comprised between exactly the same parallels as the correspooding side of
Australia, allowance being made for the conjunction of Java, while the
eastern side presents the same characteristic as the eastern side of
Australia in being by far the longest.

We now proceed to a more minute examination of the contour of the coasts.
It is to be observed that on the north of the Great Java, shown in all
these manuscript maps which have met the editor's eye, occurs the word
"Sumbava," a fact which, he thinks has never been noticed by any writer
upon these interesting documents. Here is another instance of the
discovery of the north of an island of which the south has remained
unexplored. The peak of the great Java, on which this name "Sumbava"
is laid down, falls into the right position of the now well-known island
of Sumbava, with the smaller islands of Bali and Lombok, lying between
it and Java, and with Flores and Timor duly described towards the
eastward. The reason of the south coast of these islands remaining for
so long unexplored may be found in the description of Java by Barros,
the Portuguese historian, who wrote in the middle of the sixteenth
century. He says:

"The natives of Sunda, in dissecting Java, speak of it as separated by
the river Chiamo from the island of Sunda on the west and on the east by
a strait from the island of Bali; as having Madura on the north, and on
the south an undiscovered sea; and they think that whoever shall proceed
beyond these straits, will be hurried away by strong currents, so as
never to be able to return, and for this reason they never attempt to
navigate it, in the same manner as the Moor on the eastern coast of
Africa do not venture to pass the Cape of Currents. The earliest mention
that the editor has noticed of a passage to the south of Java, is in the
account of the "Four Hollanders' Ships' Voyage, being the First Voyage of
the Dutch to the East Indies." See 'Oxford Collection of Voyages'
vol ii, p. 417. Under date of the 14th March, 1597, it is said: "The wind
blew still south-east, sometimes more southward and sometimes eastward,
being under 14°, and a good sharp gale, holding our course west-south-west.
There we found that Java is not so broad nor stretcheth itself so much
southward as it is set down in the card; for, if it were, we should have
passed clean through the middle of the land." Supposing, then, that the
Portuguese navigators have lighted upon the west coast of Australia, and
have regarded it as a possible extension to the southward of the already
known island of Java; let us proceed to test the correctness of this
supposition by the contour of the coast of the western side. A single
glance of the eye will suffice to detect the general resemblance. It
is probable that the two great indentures are Exmouth Gulf and Shark Bay,
and we may fairly conclude we detect Houtman's Abrolhos in about their
proper parallel of from 28° to 29° south latitude. To attempt a minute
investigation of the whole coast upon data so indefinite would be of
course unreasonable, but on this western side at least the similarity is
sufficient, we think, on every ground to establish its identity with the
west coast of Australia. On the eastern side the discrepancies are much
greater. Having already spoken of the latitude and longitude, we now
speak merely of the outline of the coast. In the ancient map we see no
huge promontory, terminating in Cape York, but let the reader recall the
suggestion that the visits to these coasts were made on various
occasions, and naturally less frequently to the eastern than to the
western side, and let the result of these considerations be that the
promontory may have been altogether unvisited or ignored, and we shall
have forthwith an explanation of the form of the north-east coast line on
the early maps. Let a line be drawn from the southernmost point of the
Gulf of Carpentaria to Halifax Bay, and the form of outline referred to
is detected immediately. Nor is this conjecture without corroboration from
the physical features of the country. On the ancient map we find several
rivers laid down along the north-east coast. If we examine the
corresponding coast in the Gulf of Carpentaria, those rivers are seen to
exist; whereas from Cape York all along the coast of Australia to the
twenty-second or twenty-third degree, there is not even an indication of a
river emptying itself into the sea. The great number of islands and reefs
laid down along the north-east coast of the early maps coincides with the
Great Barrier Reefs, and with the Cumberland and Northumberland islands,
and a host of others which skirt this part of the shores of Australia.
"Coste dangereuse", "Bay perdue", and "R. de beaucoup d'Isles", are names
which we readily concede to be appropriate to portions of such a coast.
The name "Coste des Herbaiges", which we have already spoken of as having
been erroneously supposed by many geographers to apply to Botany Bay, was
probably given to that part of the coast where the first symptoms of
fertility were observed in passing southward, the more northern portions
of the shore being for the most part dry and barren. That it is an error
to connect the name with Botany Bay has already been shown, and the
editor must not fail to state that the unanswerable reason there adduced
was derived from a judicious observation made to him by the late
distinguished Dr. Brown, who not only, as Humboldt has described him was,
"Botanices facile princeps", but himself acquainted with the locality of
which he spoke.

The remainder of the coast southward is too irregularly laid down both as
to latitude and longitude, and consequently as to correctness of
conformation, to admit of any useful conjecture. It must be supposed from
the conscienciousness observable in the delineation of other parts of the
country, that this portion was laid down more carelessly, or with less
opportunity of taking observations. It is by no means improbable, from
the length of this coast line, that "Baye Neufve" is Bass's Straits; that
"Gouffre" is Oyster Bay in Tasmania; and that the survey really ceased at
the south of that island. That the continuity of the coast forms no
ground of objection to this conjecture may be shown by the fact that on
"a general chart exhibiting the discoveries made by Captain Cook, by
Lieut. H. Roberts", the coast is continuous to the south of Van Dieman's
Land, Bass's Straits being then of course undiscovered.

It may also be fairly presumed that the islands in the extreme east of
our extract from the Dauphin map, represent New Zealand.

If the above reasons have sufficient weight in them to justify the
supposition that the extensive country thus laid down in those early maps
is really Australia, it becomes a question of the highest interest to
ascertain, as nearly as may be, by whom, and at what date, the discovery
of this country was made.

The maps upon which the supposition of the discovery is alone founded are
all in French, and that they are all repetitions, with slight variations,
from one source, is shown by the fact that the inaccuracies are alike in
all of them. But although the maps are in French, there are, indications
of Portuguese in some of the names, such as "Terre ennegade", a
Gallicized form of "Tierra anegada", i.e., "land under water", or "sunken
shoal", "Gracal", and "cap de Fromose". The question then arises, were
the French or the Portuguese the discoverers? In reply, we present the
following statement.

In the year 1529, a voyage was made to Sumatra, by Jean Parmentier of
Dieppe and in this voyage he died. Parmentier was a poet, and a
classical scholar, as well as a navigator and a good hydrographer. He was
accompanied in this voyage by his intimate friend, the poet Pierre
Crignon, who, on his return to France, published, in 1531, the poems of
Parmentier, with a prologue containing his eulogium, in which he says of
him, that he was "le premier Francois qui a entrepris a estre pilotte pour
mener navires a la Terre Amerique qu'on dit Bresil, et semblablement le
premier Francois qui a descouvert les Indes jusqu'a l'Isle de Taprobane,
et, si mort ne l'eust pas prevenu, je crois qu'il eust ete jusques aux
Moluques." This is a high authority upon this point, coming as it does
from a man of education, and a shipmate and intimate of Parmentier
himself. The French, then, were not in the South Seas beyond Sumatra,
before 1529. The date of the earliest of our quoted maps is not earlier
than 1535, as it contains the discovery of the St. Lawrence by Jacques
Cartier in that year; but even let us suppose it no earlier than that of
Rotz, which bears the date of 1542, and ask, what voyages of the French
in the South Seas do we find between the years 1529 and 1542? Neither
the Abbe Raynal, nor any modern French writer, nor even antiquaries, who
have entered most closely into the history of early French explorations,
as for example, M. Leon Guerin, the author of the "Histoire Maritime de
France", Paris, 1843, 8 vo.; and of "Les Navigateurs Francais", 8 vo.,
Paris, 1847, offer the slightest pretension that the French made
voyages to those parts, in the early part or middle of the sixteenth
century. Now we do know from Barros and Galvano that, at the close of
1511, Albuquerque sent from Malacca, Antonio de Breu, and Francisco
Serrano, with three ships to Banda and Malacca. They passed along the
east side of Sumatra to Java, and thence by Madura, Bali, Sumbava, Solor,
etc., to Papua or New Guinea. From thence they went to the Moluccas and
to Amboyna. See "Barros", d. 3, 1. 5, c. 6, p. 131, and "Galvano",
translater by Hakluyt, p. 378. Here we have the very islands, forming the
northern portion of the Grande Jave, at this early date; but that which
is totally wanting between this and 1529, is the account of the various
explorations of the eastern and western coasts of the vast country
described under that name. It is certain, moreover, that France was at
that time too poor, and too much embroiled in political anxieties, to
busy itself with extensive nautical explorations. Had she so done, the
whole of North America and Brazil might now have belonged to her. At the
same time, however, we know that the Portuguese had establishments before
1529, in the East Indian Islands, and the existence of Portuguese names
on the countries of which we speak, as thus delineated on these French
maps, is in itself an acknowledgment of their discovery by the
Portuguese, as assuredly the jealousy implied in the sentence, quoted at
p. vi of this introduction, from Pierre Crignon's Prologue, would not
only have made the French most ready to lay claim to all they could in
the shape of discovery, but would have prevented any gratuitous insertion
of Portuguese names on such remote countries, had they themselves
discovered them.

But, further, as an important part of the argument, the reader must not
overlook that jealousy of the Portuguese, to which allusion has already
been made, in forbidding the communication of all hydrographical
information respecting their discoveries in these seas. As regards the
surmises of M. Barbie du Bocage respecting the probable causes of the
suppression or concealment of such documents, his carefulness and
ingenuity entitle them to the best consideration; and if these documents
really exist in France, or Rome, or elsewhere, it is much to be hoped
that they may ere long be brought to light. His Excellency the Count de
Lavradio, ambassador from Portugal to the Court of St. James, has
obligingly set on foot inquiries at Rome for the purpose of elucidating
this subject, which have not, however, produced any successful result.

But although we have no evidence to show that the French made any
original discoveries in the South Seas in the first half of the
sixteenth century, we have the evidence that they were good
hydrographers. Crignon describes Parmentier as "bon cosmographe et
geographe", and says, "par luy ont este composez plusieurs mapemondes en
globe et en plat, et maintes cartes marines sus les quelles plusieurs ont
havigue seurement". It is dangerous to draw conclusions from negatives;
but it is both legitimate and desireable that we should give due weight
to evidence of high probability when such fall within our notice. If all
the French maps we have quoted are, as has been shown, derived from one
source, since they all contain the same errors; and if Parmentier, who was
a good hydrographer, was the only French navigator we find mentioned as
having gone so far as Sumatra before the period of the earliest of these
maps; and further, if these maps exhibit Portuguese names laid down in
these maps on a country beyond Parmentier's furthest point of
exploration, we think the inference not unreasonable that Parmentier may
have laid down, from Portuguese maps, the information which has been
copied into those we have quoted, and that the descriptions round the
coast, which are all (as may be plainly seen), with the exception of
those which bear the stamp of Portuguese, convertible into French, have
been naturally written by French mapmakers, in that language. We can but
throw out this suggestion for quantum valeat. All positive evidence, in
spite of labourious research, is wanting. The earliest Portuguese
portolani which have met the editor's eye are those of Joham Freire, of
1546 and of Diego Homem, of 1558. Both these are silent on the subject.
That of Lazaro Luis and of Vas Dourado, later in the century, both
examined by Dr. Martin in Lisbon, are equally so. But this has been
already accounted for. It is true that, in a mappemonde of the data of
1526, by one Franciscus monachus ordinis Franciscanorum, copied into the
atlas to the "Geographic du Moyen Age" of Joachim Lelewel the great Terra
Australis, extending along the south of the globe from Tierra del Fuego,
is laid down with the words "Is nobis detecta existet", and "haec pars
ore nondum cognita"; but this is plainly nothing more than a fanciful
extension of Magellan's discovery of the north coast of Tierra del
Fuego, combined with the old supposition of the existence of a great
southern continent.

A similar remark occurs in the manuscript portolano of Ioan Martinez, of
Messina, of the date of 1567, in the British Museum; and in the fifth map
of the portolano of the same hydrographer, of the date of 1578, is laid
down "Meridional discoperta novamente", with no names on it, and only
showing the north part. The extent of what is seen is twice as long as
Java Major, which seems here to be Sumatra. It is observable that Petan
and Maletur, here occurring on or near the Terra Australis of other maps
of about this date, occur here, but close under Java Minor, which is a
long way to the west of the "Meridional discoperta novamente".

In 1526 the Portuguese commander, Don Jorge de Meneses, in his passage
from Malacca to the Moluccas, was carried by currents and, through his
want of information respecting the route, to the north coast of Papua,
which we now know as New Guinea; and in the following year we find
Don Alvaro de Saavedra, a Spaniard, and kinsman of the great Cortes,
despatched from New Spain to the Moluccas, and also lighting on New
Guinea, where he passed a month; but nowhere in the allusions to these
voyages do we find reference to the great southern land, which is land
drawn with so much detail under the name of "La Grande Jave".

Our surmises, therefore, lead us to regard it as highly probable that
Australia was discovered by the Portuguese between the years 1511 and
1529, and, almost a demonstrable certainty, that it was discovered before
the year 1542.

A notion may be formed of the knowledge possessed by the Spaniards in the
middle of the sixteenth century, on the part of the world on which we
treat, from the following extract from a work entitled, "El libro de las
costumbres de todas las gentes del mundo y de las Indias". Translated
and compiled by the Bachelor Francisco Themara Antwerp, 1556:--"Thirty
leagues from Java the Less is Gatigara, 19° the other side
of the equinoctial towards the south. Of the lands beyond this point
nothing is known, for navigation has not been extended further, and it is
impossible to proceed by land on account of the numerous lakes and lofty
mountains in those parts. It is even said that there is the site of the
Terrestrial Paradise". Although this was not originally written in
Spanish, but was translated from Johannes Bohemus it would scarcely have
been given forth to the Spaniards had better information on the subject
existed among that people.

It has already been stated in this Introduction, that in, the early
engraved maps of the sixteenth century, there occur apparent indications
of Australia, with names and sentences, descriptive of the country so
represented, derived from the narrative of Marco Polo, with an intimation
that some of these representations may not have emanated solely from that
narrative. The earliest of these occurs on a mappemonde in the third
volume of the polyglot bible of Arias Montanus, and the indication of
Australia there given is the more striking that it stands unconnected with
any other land whatever, and bears no kind of description. It is simply a
line indicating the north part of an unexplored land, exactly in the
position of the north of Australia, distinctly implying an imperfect
discovery, but not copied from, or bearing any resemblance to any
indication of the kind in any previous map with which the editor is
acquainted.

In Thevet's "Cosmographie Universelle", Paris, 1575, is a map with
Taprobane, La Grand Jave, Petite Jave, Partie de la Terre Australe, and
in tom. i, liv. 12, the following passage:

"L'art et pratique du navigage est le plus penible et dangerex de toutes
les sciences, que oncques les hommes ayent inventees, veu que l'homme
s'expose a la mercy des abysmes de ce grand ocean, qui environne et
abbreuve toute la terre. Davatage, avec ceste Esquille lon peult visiter
presque toute ce que le monde continent en sa rotondite, soit vers la mer
glaciale, ou les deux poles, et terre Australe, qui n'est, encor comme ie
croy descouverte mais selon mon opinion d'aussi grande estendue que
l'Asie ou l'Afrique, et laquelle un iour sera; recherchee par le moyen de
ce petit instrument navigatoire, quelque long voyage qui y peust estre."

In Dalrymple's "Hist. Coll. of Voyages in the South Pacific Ocean", Juan
Fernandez is said to have discovered the southern continent. Burney, who
speaks of his doscovery of the southern continent (vol. i, p. 300),
refers to the memorial of Juan Luis Arias for the description. See the
first article in the present collection.

It is needless here to repeat the names and sentences already described
as given on early engraved maps from Marco Polo, but it will be well to
notice such peculiarities as distinguish these maps from those in
manuscript, which we have already been speaking of as probably
representing Australia under the name of La Grande Jave. Such notice is
the more interesting as the date of these engraved maps is intermediate
between that of the manuscript documents and the period of the
authenticated discovery of Australia. In the 1587 edition of Ortelius is
a map entitled "Typus Orbis Terrarum", in which New Guinea is made an
island, with the words "Nova Guinea quae an sit insula aut pars
continentis Australis incertum". On the Terra Australis, here brought up
far more to the north than elsewhere, and separated from New Guinea only
by a strait, are the words, "Hanc continentem Australem non nulli
Magellanicam regionem ab ejus inventore nuncupant." While the sentence
shows how indefinite was the idea of the extent of Australia towards the
south, we think that the entire delineation, which brings the great
Terra Australis so far northward in this longitude into connexion with
New Guinea, goes far to show that Australia had really been discovered.

In various editions of Mercator occur copies of a map entitled "Orbis
Terrae Compendiosa descriptio quam ex magna universali Gerardi
Mercatoris Rumoldus Mercator fieri curabat anno 1587", in which similar
indications are given to those in the map of Ortelius just described.

In the map of Peter Plancius, given in the English edition of the voyages
of Linschoten, 1598, similar indications of Australia occur, but leaving
the question of the insular character of New Guinea doubtful.

In the "Speculum Orbis" of C. de Judaeis, Antwerp, 1592, is a map
entitled "Brasilia et Peruvia", on which occurs "Chaesdia seu Australis
Terra quamnautarum vulgus Tierra di Fuego vacant, alii Psittacorum
Terram". In the map of Asia, in the same Volume, a tract is laid down
which, by comparison with Ortelius' map of the Pacific Ocean, is plainly
New Guinea; and on both these maps, on the west coast of said tract, are
the words "Tierra baixa", which seems to tally with "Baie Basse", at
about the corresponding point on the manuscript maps, and is confirmatory
of the conclusion which the editor had formed. In the same volume is a
map of the Antartic hemisphere, in which the Terra Australis incognita is
brought high up to the north in the longitude of Australia. On that part
of it opposite the Cape of Good Hope is the following legend: "Lusitani
bonae spei legentes capitis promontorium hanc terram austrum versus
extare viderunt, sed nondum imploravere", a significant sentence if
allowance be made for the difficulty at that time of reckoning the
longitude.

In the map to illustrate the voyages of Drake and Cavendish by Jodocus
Hondius, of which a fac-simile was given in "The World Encompassed by Sir
Francis Drake", printed for our Socity, New Guinea is made a complete
island, without a word to throw a doubt on the correctness of the
representation; while the Terra Australis which is separated from New
Guinea, only by a strait, has an outline remarkably similar to that of the
Gulf of Carpentaria. These indications give to this map an especial
interest, and the more so that it is shown to be earlier than the passage
of Torres through Torres' Straits in 1606, by its bearing the arms of
Queen Elizabeth, before the unicorn of Scotland had displaced the
dragon of England.

In the article "Terra Australis", in Cornelius Wytfliet's "Descriptionis
Ptolemaicae Augmentum", Louvain, 1598, we find the following passage:--

"The 'Australis Terra' is the most southern of all lands, and is
separated from New Guinea by a narrow strait. Its shores are hitherto but
little known, since after one voyage and another, that route has been
deserted, and seldom is the country visited unless when sailors are
driven there by storms. The 'Australis Terra' begins at two or three
degrees from the equator, and is maintained 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."

The above significant statement was printed, it will be remembered, before
any discovery of Australia of which we have an authentic account.

But while examining these indications of a discovery of Australia in the
sixteenth century, it will be asked what explorations had been made by
the Spaniards in that part of the world in the course of that
century. From the period of the voyage of Don Alvaro de Saavedra to the
Moluccas in 1527, already alluded to, we neet with no such active spirit
of exploration on the part of the Spaniards in the South Seas.
Embarrassed by his political position, and with an exhausted treasury,
the emperor, in 1529, definitely renounced his pretensions to the
Moluccas for a sum of money, although he retained his claim to the
islands discovered by his subjects to the east of the line of demarcation
now confined to the Portuguese. In 1542 an unsuccessful attempt to form a
settlement in the Philippine Islands was made by Ruy de Villalobos, but
its failure having been attributed to mismanagement, a new expedition
in 1564 was despatched with the like object under Miguel Lopez de
Legaspi, which was completely successful, and a Spanish colony was
established at Zebu. It is not impossible that this settlement gave rise
to voyages of discovery about this time by the Spaniards, of which no
accounts have been published. In 1567, Alvaro de Mendana sailed from
Callao on a voyage of discovery in which he discovered the Solomon
Islands and several others. There are great discrepancies in the
different relations of this voyage. In 1595 he made a second voyage from
Peru, in which he discovered the Marquesas, and the group afterwards
named by Carteret, Queen Charlotte's Islands. The object of this
expedition was to found a colony on the Solomon Islands, which
he had discovered in his previous voyage, but from the incorrectness
of his reckoning he was unable to find them. In the island of
Santa Cruz he attempted to establish a colony, but without
success, and in this island he died. In this second voyage he had
for his chief pilot Pedro Fernandez Quiros, who may be regarded as the
last of the distinguished mariners of Spain, and whose name claims
special notice in a work treating of the early indications of Australia,
although he himself never saw the shores of that great continental
island.[*1]

[*1 For an account of this voyage see a letter from Quiros to Don Antonio
de Morga, cap. vi, p. 29, of de Morga's "Sucesos en las Islas Filipinas",
Mexico, 1609, 4to.; and Figueroa's "Hechos de Don Garcia Hurtado de
Mendoza, quarto Marques de Canete", Madrid, 1613, 4to., 1. 6, p. 238.]

The discovery of the island of Santa Cruz suggested to the mind of Quiros
that the great southern continent was at length discovered, and in two
memoirs addressed by him to Don L. de Velasco, viceroy of Peru, we meet
with the first detailed argument upon this great geographical question,
which, though he himself was not destined to demonstrate it by an actual
discovery, may nevertheless be said to have been indirectly brought to a
solution through his instrumentality. It is true that it is difficult in
dealing with these vague surmises respecting the existence of a southern
continent to draw distinctions between Australia itself and the great
continent discovered in the present century, some twenty or thirty
degrees to the south of that vast island. It has been already stated,
that Dalrymple, nearly two centuries later, earnestly advocated the same
cause as De Quiros had done, and speaking, of that navigator he says:
"The discovery of the southern continent, whenever and whomsoever it may
be completely effected, is in justice due to this immortal name." It
should be premised that there are, in fact, three points of ambiguity in
connexion with the name of that navigator, which it is well at once to
state, as they might mislead the judgment of the superficial reader of
the history of navigation of that period as to his connexion with the
discovery of Australia.

In the first place, though generally reputed to be a Spaniard, he is
described by Nicholas Antonio, the author of the "Bibliotheca Hispana",
himself a Spaniard, and not unwilling, it may be supposed to claim so
distinguished a navigator for his countryman, as "Lusitanus. Eborensis,
ut aiunt Lusitani", (a Portuguese, stated by the Portuguese to be a
native of Evora), and the style of his writings bears out the
supposition. Secondly, Antonio de Ulloa, in his "Resumen", p. 119,
quotes from an account of the voyage of Quiros said to be given in the
"Historia de la Religion Serafica of Diego de Cordova", (a work which
the editor has not met with) the discovery of a large island in
28° south latitude, which latitude is further south than
Quiros or his companions are otherwise known to have made in any voyage.
Thirdly, the printed memoirs of Quiros bear the title of Terra Australis
Incognita, while the southern Tierra Austral, discovered by Quiros
himself, and surnamed by him "del Espiritu Santo", is none other than
the "New Hebrides", of the maps of the present day.

At the same time, to both Quiros and Dalrymple we are indirectly indebted
for the earliest designation which attaches in any sense to the modern
nomenclature connected with Australia, viz., for the name of Torres
Straits. That Quiros, whether by birth a Portuguese or a Spaniard, was in
the Spanish service, cannot be doubted, The viceroy of Peru had warmly
entertained his projects, but looked upon its execution as beyond the
limits of his own power to put into operation. He therefore urged to
Quiros to lay his case before the Spanish monarch at Madrid, and
furnished him with letters to strengthen his application. Whether Philip
III was more influenced by the arguments of De Quiros, as to the
discovery of a southern continent, or rather by the desire to explore the
route between Spain and America by the east, in the hope of discovering
wealthy islands between New Guinea and China, we need not pause to
question. It is possible that both these motives had their weight, for
Quiros was despatched to Peru with full orders for the carrying out of
his plans, addressed to the Viceroy, the Count de Monterey; and he was
amply equipped with two well-armed vessels and a corvette, with which he
sailed from Callao on the 21st of December, 1605. Luis Vaez de Torres was
commander of the Almirante or second ship, in this expedition. The voyage
was looked upon as cne of very great importance; and Torquemada, in his
account of it in the "Monarquia Indiana", says the ships were the
strongest and best armed which had been seen in those seas. The object
was to make a settlement at the island of Santa Cruz, and from thence to
search for the Tierra Austral, or southern continent.

After the discovery of several islands, Quiros came to a land which he
named Australia del Espiritu Santo, supposing it to be part of the great
southern continent. At midnight on the 11th of June, 1606, while the
three ships were lying at anchor in the bay which they had named San
Felipe and Santiago, Quiros, for reasons which are not known, and without
giving any signal or notice, was separated from the other two ships.

Subsequently to the separation, Torres found that the Australia del
Espititu Santo was an island, and then continued his course westward in
pursuance of the exploration. In about the month of August, 1606 he
fell in with a coast in 11½° south lat., which he calls the
beginning of New Guinea; apparently the south-eastern part of the land
afterwards named Louisiade by M. de Bougainville, and now known to be a
chain of islands. As he could not pass to windward of this land, Torres
bore away along its south side, and himself gives the following account
of his subsequent course. "We went along three hundred leagues of coast,
as I have mentioned, and diminished the latitude 2½°, which
brought us into 9°. From hence we fell in with a bank of from
three to nine fathoms; which extends along the coast above one hundred
and eighty leagues. We went over it, along the coast, to 7½°
south latitude; and the end of it is in 5°. We could not go
further on for the many sho