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TASMAN-D'ENTRECASTEAUX- -CARSTENS.

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Of Tasman's voyage no account has ever been published. There was found on one of the islands forming the roadstead called Dirk Hartog's Roadstead, at the entrance of Sharks' Bay, in 1697, and afterwards again in 1801, a pewter plate, attached to a decayed log half sunk in earth, which bore two inscriptions in Dutch, of different dates, of which the following are translations :

"1616. On the 25th October the ship Endracht, of Amsterdam, arrived here; first merchant, Gilles Miebais Van Luck; Captain Dirk Hartog, of Amsterdam. She sailed on the 27th of the same month for Bantam. Supercargo Janstins; chief pilot, Peter Ecores Van Due. Year 1616."

The second inscription was

"1697. On the 4th February the ship Geelvink, of Amsterdam, arrived here; Wilhelem de Plaming, captain-commandante; John Bremen, of Copenhagen, assistant; Michel Bloem Van Estoght, assistant. The dogger Nyptaught, Captain Gerril Coldart, of Amsterdam; Theodore Hermans, of the same place, assistant; first pilot, Gerritzen, of Bremen.

"The galley Nel Wesetje, Cornelius de Plaming, of Vielandt, commander; Coert Gerritzen, of Bremen, pilot. Our fleet sails hence, leaving the southern territories for Batavia."

In 1642 Tasman discovered, and sailed along the coast of, the Island of Van Diemen's Land, supposing it to be part of the "South Land."

In successive investigations by Captain Marrion, of the French navy, in 1772; by Captain Tobias, of the British service, in 1773; by Captain Cook, in 1777; and by the French Rear-Admiral D'Entrecasteaux, the coast line to the south and east was further explored; but the insularity of Van Diemen's Land, the harbour of Port Jackson, and the Rivers Hunter, Brisbane, and Yarra, all destined to be the outlets to important districts in future colonies, remained undiscovered.

The many hundred leagues of coast so frequently visited by the Dutch had afforded no encouragement for the plantation of settlements similar to those which they had founded with such brilliant results in the Indian Seas.

The Commander Carstens, sent by the Dutch East India Company to explore New Holland, describes it as "barren coasts, shallow water, islands thinly peopled by cruel, poor, and brutal natives, and of very little use to the company." Tasman's Land was pronounced to be the abode of "howling evil spirits."

In these discouraging reports all mariners, until the time of Captain Cook, agreed; which is not extraordinary, considering that, after the time of Columbus, maritime discoverers sought lands in which either

gold was to be had for gathering, or where rich tropical fruits abounded in pleasant harbours.

In New Holland the natives were hostile and miserably poor, in the lowest state of human existence; they built no huts, they wore no ornaments of gold or precious stones, they cultivated no ground, their barren, unfruitful coast afforded no indigenous fruits for barter; neither the yam, the cocoa, nor the pineapple, the lemon, the citron, the gourd, nor indeed any other fruit grateful to European taste.

As the Spaniards were the first, so the British were the last, and, in their first attempts, the least successful, in exploring the coast of Australia.

William Dampier, one of the boldest and most scientific navigators of his age, author of a "Voyage round the World," from which Defoe drew many hints, visited New Holland three times on the first occasion with his companions the buccaneers; again as pilot of H. M. S. Roebuck, when he spent about five weeks in ranging off and on the coast of New South Wales, a length of about 300 leagues; on the third occasion he passed through Torres Straits as pilot to Captain Woodes Rogers, in 1710, when he explored Sharks' Bay, the coasts of New Guinea, New Britain, and New Zealand.

In July, 1769, Captain James Cook, after having observed the transit of Venus at Otaheite (or Tahiti), and cruised for a month among the other Society Islands, sailed southwards in search of the continent Terra Australis Incognita, which geographers for a preceding century had calculated must exist somewhere thereabouts, as a counterpoise to the great tract of land in the northern hemisphere.

In this search he first visited the Islands of New Zealand, which had been previously discovered by Tasman in 1662: he spent six months in investigating them, and ascertained that they consisted of two large islands. New Zealand owes the pig and potato to Cook, for which his memory was long honoured and even worshipped among those heroic savages. In his report to the Admiralty, Cook recommended that any settlement which it might be considered advisable to establish should be planted at the Valley of Thames, where Auckland, the capital of the northern colonies, has since been founded.

Leaving New Zealand, and sailing westward, he sighted New Holland on the 11th of April, 1770, and on the 27th anchored in the roadstead to which he afterwards gave the name of Botany Bay. On the following day he landed, with Mr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Banks, President of the Royal Society, Dr. Solander, and a party of seamen. They were all charmed with the bright verdure of the scene, in which

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every natural object, the kangaroo bounding through the open forest, the evergreen eucalypti, the grass-trees, the birds, were unlike anything. they had ever seen before in the course of their voyages in various quarters of the globe.

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After exploring the country for several days, during which a favourable estimate was formed of the capabilities of the district for supporting a colony, and vainly endeavouring to open a communication with natives, through Tupia, a South-sea Islander, Cook sailed to the northward, passing without visiting the opening into Port Jackson: taking it for a mere boat harbour, he gave it the name of the look-out seaman who announced the indentation in the dark, lofty, basaltic cliffs which open a passage into that noble harbour.

On the 17th of May, Cook anchored in a bay to which he " gave the name of Moreton Bay; and, at a place where the land was not at that time visible, some on board, having observed that the sea looked paler than usual, were of opinion that the bottom of the bay opened into a river;" but Cook came to a contrary conclusion; it was not until 1823 that the navigable River Brisbane, which gives access to a fine pastoral country, was discovered.

Leaving Moreton Bay, Cook ran down the coast as far as Cape York, taking possession in the usual form wherever he landed. Afterwards passing between New Guinea and Australia, he proved, as Torres had before him, that they were distinct islands.

Cook landed altogether five times on this coast-first at Botany Bay, on the 28th of April, 1770; secondly on the 22nd of May, when he shot a kind of bustard weighing 17 lbs., and named the landingplace Bustard Bay; the third time on the 30th of May, at a spot which, from the absence of water, he named Thirsty Sound. The fourth time was on the 18th of June, 1770 (seven days after his vessel, the Endeavour, had struck upon a coral rock), at Endeavour River, where they refitted. It was during his stay at Endeavour River that one of his crew came running to the boat declaring that he had seen the devil, “as large as a one-gallon keg, with horns and wings, yet he crept so slowly I might have touched him if I had not been afeared." This "devil" was a grey-headed vampyre. (See Engraving on next page.)

On the 21st of August of the same year, having passed and named a point on the mainland "Cape York," Cook anchored, landed for the fifth

The author of the narrative of Cook's first voyage says:-"It was on account of the great quantity of plants which Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander collected in this place that Lieutenant Cook was induced to give it the name of Botany Bay. In cultivating the ground there would be no obstacle from the trees, which are tall, straight, and without underwood, and stand a sufficient distance from each other."

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time on an island which lies in lat. 10° 30' S., and having ascertained that he had discovered an open passage to the Indian Seas, by ascending a hill from whence he had a clear view of forty miles, before reembarking took possession in the following words :

"As I am now about to quit the eastern coast of New Holland, which I have coasted from lat. 38° to this place, and which I am confident no European has ever seen before, I once more hoist English colours; and, though I have already taken possession of several parts, I now take possession of the whole of the eastern coast, by the name of New South Wales (from its great similarity to that part of the principality), in the right of my sovereign, George the Third, King of Great Britain."

His men fired three volleys of firearms, which were answered by the same number from the guns of the ship, and by three cheers from the main shrouds, and, then re-embarking, he named the spot Possession Island.

ORIGIN OF TRANSPORTATION-FIRST COLONISTS.

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These explorations of Cook completed the circuit of the island commenced and prosecuted from the commencement of the seventeenth century by the Spanish and Dutch, with the exception of the coast opposite Van Diemen's Land, which was reserved for the enterprise of Flinders and Bass.

In his exploration of Australia, Cook's usual sagacity and good fortune seem to have failed him, although his contributions to our knowledge of an important navigation were of the most valuable character.

He selected Botany Bay, a dangerous harbour, which must remain for many years an undrained swamp. He passed without examination Port Jackson, the site of Sydney; Moreton Bay, with its navigable river; and, concluding that Van Diemen's Land was part of the Island of Australia, and the dividing straits a deep bay, lost the opportunity of investigating the great bay of Port Phillip, on the shores of which the most flourishing colony in the British dominions is now rising.

In God's good providence the discovery was reserved for a fitting time.

CHAPTER III.

ORIGIN OF TRANSPORTATION-WHITE SLAVERY IN JAMES II.'S REIGN-HOWARD'S LABOURS-AMERICANS REFUSE WHITE SLAVES-FIRST COLONISTS OF BOTANY

BAY.

THE

HE accumulation of criminals in our gaols at the close of the American war became an embarrassing question for the county magistrates and the government: projects for the renewal of transportation and its effect on criminals became a subject of discussion among statesmen and philanthropists.

Banishment from a very early period was an ordinary punishment, which permitted the sentenced to proceed to any country he pleased. Thus Shakspere's " Richard II.":

66 we banish you our territories!

You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of death,

Till twice five summers have enriched our fields,

Shall not regreet our fair dominions,

But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom!

The hopeless word of never to return
Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.”

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