It was thus Australia remained for many years an unknown continent. And when at last navigators, more bold or less bound to an immediate greed, touched upon the shores of Australia, or called at the South Sea Islands, they found little that was attractive. In no case had the simple natives won to a greed for gold and silver, and so they had no accumulations of wealth to tempt cupidity. In the case of Australia the coast-line was dour and forbidding, and promised nothing but sterility. The exploring period in which the desire for plunder was the chief motive passed away, having spared the South Pacific. It was therefore the fate of Australia, of New Zealand, and of most of the islands of Polynesia and Melanesia, to be settled under happier conditions, and to be spared the excesses of cruelty which marked the European invasion of the West Indies and the Americas. The Newest World began its acquaintance with civilisation under fairly happy auspices. It was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that a scientific expedition brought the South Pacific before the attention of Britain. A transit of Venus across the sun promised to yield valuable knowledge as to the nature of solar phenomena. To observe the transit under the best conditions, astronomers knew that a station in the South Seas was necessary, and Lieutenant Cook, R.N., an officer who had already distinguished himself in the work of exploration, was promoted to be Captain and entrusted to lead a scientific expedition to Otaheite. Added to his commission was an injunction to explore the South Seas if time and opportunity offered. Captain Cook was of the type which makes time and opportunity. Certainly there was little in the equipment of his expedition to justify an extension of its duties after the transit of Venus had been duly observed. But he took it that his duty was to explore the South Seas, and explore them he did, incidentally annexing for the British Empire the Continent of Australia. That was in 1770. But still there was so little inviting in the prospect of settlement in the South Seas that it was some eighteen years before any effort was made to follow up by colonisation this annexation by Captain Cook. When the effort was made it was not on very dignified lines. The American colonies had at one time served as an outlet for the overflow of the British prisons. The War of Independence had closed that channel. The overcrowding of the British prisons became desperate, and, because it was necessary to find some relief for this--not because it was considered advantageous to populate the new possession--the First Fleet sailed for the foundation of Australia in 1788.