The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765Heeres, J. E. (Jan Ernst)
History
The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765
Heeres, J. E. (Jan Ernst)
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Dutch -- Australia
...Failing ulterior instructions, we desire you to sail as quickly as
possible from Banda to Arnhems and Speultsland, situated between 9 and 13
degrees Southern Latitude, discovered A.D., 1623, as you may further see
from the annexed chart [*]...
[* This, then, is the chart of the "coasts made A.D. 1623 by the yachts
_Pera_ and _Arnhem_"; for the "small map" handed to Pool, in the second
place referred to in the above letter of Febr. 19, 1636, refers to
surveyings of the west-coast of Australia by ships going from the
Netherlands to India, and can therefore have nothing to do with the
expedition of 1623. Arnhems- and Van Speults-Land were accordingly
discovered on the voyage of the Pera and the Arnhem. Now the journal of
the Pera shows that she did _not_ discover them, so that we are led to
the conclusion that Arnhems- and Van Speults Land were discovered by the
ship Arnhem.]
{Page 48}
D.
_Letter from the Governor-General and Councillors to the Managers of the
E.I.C., December 28, 1636._
...[The ships of Pool's expedition touched at] the native village of
Taranga, situated at the south-western extremity of Arouw, and then
sailed southward, hoping to be able to run on an easterly course in order
to execute their orders; they, however, met with strong south-east winds
and very high seas besides; in 11 degrees S.L. they discovered vast
lands, to which they gave the names of Van Diemen's and Maria's Land, and
which we suspect to be Arnhems or Speults's islands, though they extend
in another direction than the latter [*].
[* Cf. as regards the situation of Arnhem's and Van Speult's Lands my
Lite of Tasman, pp. 101 and 102, and the charts there referred to. Of the
Nolpe-Dozy chart, of which there is question in note 4 on p. 102 of the
book just mentioned, a reproduction will be found in _Remarkable Maps_,
with a note by myself.]
The council of the said yachts, finding they could not run on an eastern
course, after discovering and surveying Arnhem's Land twenty miles to
westward, resolved to steer their course northward again past the islands
of Timor and Tenember, and thus return to Banda, where they arrived on
July 7...
E.
_Instructions for Tasman, 1644._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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