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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.Major, Richard Henry

History

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.

Name: 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.
Author: Major, Richard Henry

Major, Richard Henry

Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Discoveries in geography -- Portuguese; Voyages and travels

The ship _De Vergulde Draeck_, equipped by the Chamber of Amsterdam,
having sailed on the 4th of October, 1655, from Tessel to East India,
with a rich cargo, including 78,600 guilders in cash, in eight boxes,
was wrecked very suddenly on the 28th of April, at night, at the
beginning of the first day-watch, on the coast of the Southland, on a
reef stretching out to sea about one mile and a half, latitude 30⅔°. Of
one hundred and ninety-three souls only seventy-five, among whom were
the skipper Pieter Aberts and the under-steersman, reached the shore
alive. Nothing was saved from the ship, which foundered and sunk at
once, except a small quantity of provisions washed on shore by the
waves. The news was brought to Batavia by one of the ship’s boats, with
the above-mentioned steersman and six sailors, after beating about for a
month, on the 7th of June, with the account that the sixty-eight persons
who remained behind were exerting themselves to get their boat afloat
again, which lay deeply embedded in the sand, that they might send it
also with some of their number to Batavia. The General and Council
resolved, for the rescue both of the above-mentioned unfortunate men,
and also of the Company’s specie and merchandise, to get ready without
delay a quick-sailing fly-boat, the _Witte Valck_, provisioned for five
months, with some further supplies for the above-mentioned men at the
Southland; as also some expert divers, with hatchets and other necessary
implements. This they ordered to join company with the yacht the _Goede
Hoop_, then cruizing in the Straits of Sunda, with instructions that
they should both proceed together without loss of time from the Straits
southwards, as far as 32° or 33° latitude, or until they met a strong
westerly trade-wind, in which case they would steer towards the coast of
the Southland. They were, moreover, to explore the said coast with
particular attention, near the part where the ship had been wrecked,
further than it had been already known, and to lay it down on a map,
with its capes, inlets, bays, rocks, sands, and shoals.

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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.

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