Table of Contents

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 mythic 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]

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 had 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 recognized 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 its 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, but with no written documents to confirm them; while in the seventeenth century there is documentary evidence that its coasts were touched upon or explored by a considerable number of Dutch voyagers, 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 a jealous apprehension lest lands of large extent 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 Géographie 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 to be the voyage of Jean Parmentier to Sumatra in 1529, and in all probability written 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 only 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 thirty-five degrees, and that only by the necessity of doubling the Cape of Good Hope in our East India voyages: yet a continent has been long since found out within fifteen degrees 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 been of 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 thirty degrees to the south pole, since we have found land to above sixty-five degrees 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 penalties, 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 a man as Sir William might almost be considered as conclusive, the Dutch have very naturally been unwilling to abide by this severe judgment. 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 the 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 to the East Indies, also of 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.^[2]

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 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 enemies of the one were also the enemies of the others, and among these enemies there 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. O. 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 judgment 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 much 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 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 these 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 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 existence 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, especially 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 judgment 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:

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 so distinct as the preceding, 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.^[3]

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 their 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 manuscripts of the thirteenth century, of l’Image du Monde, by Gauthier de Metz, MS. No. 7791, Bibliothèque Impériale, Paris; 5. That of an Icelandic manuscript of the thirteenth century, taken from the Antiquitates Americanæ; 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. Its 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 the space of sixty miles, is not more than four fathoms in depth, which 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 probablye that Lochac is intended for some part of the country of Cambodia, the capital of which was named Loech, according to the authority of Gaspar 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 Grynæus) 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 remarkably delineated land occur the legends: “Beach provincia aurifera.” “Lucach regnum.” “Maletur regnum scatens aromatibus.” “Vastissimas hic esse regiones ex 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 Boeach, is another form of the same name, which crept into the Basle edition of Marco Polo of 1532, and was blunderingly repeated by the cartographers; while for Maletur we have the suggestion of the Burgomaster Witsen, in his 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 the cartographers have likewise stumbled, and which finds its explanation in the Malay words Laut Kìdol, or Chìdol, “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 Mémoires touchant l’Etablissement d’une Mission Chrétienne dans la Terre Australe, printed at Paris by Cramoisy, 1663, and dedicated to Pope Alexander VII, by an “ecclésiastique originaire de cette mesme terre.” The author gives his name in no other way than by these initials, “J. P. D. C., Prêtre 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 from the Cape, in forty-eight degrees south. The President De Brosses, author of Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes, Paris, 1756, 2 vols. conjectured that it was south from 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. This 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 the 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, 8vo, 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 researches 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 Magalhaéns, 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 Descubrió Fernaō de Magalhāes 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 and 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 excepting 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 Magelhaens 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,^[4] 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 de Gigätes or Terra de Gigantes, and may not this be the Patagonians?

“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 Magalhaéns, 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 a 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.

“Seeing then 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 claimants to whom we have referred. The editor submits that this claim is alike untenable from the account of Magalhaens’ 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 of 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 the several maps. The earliest in all probability, and the most fully 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 hand, is a shield of the arms of France, with the collar of St. Michael; and on the right, another shield of France and 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 of 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. Barbié du Bocage, drew from him a notice in the Magasin Encyclopédique, douzième année, 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 “the 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 coast line 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 esté possible de faire, tant 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 Rotz’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 Géographie, 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 Depôt de la Guerre, Paris, drawn in 1555 by Guillaume le Testu, a pilot of Grasse, in Provence, or as others have thought a Norman. André Thevet, cosmographer to Henry II, boasts of having often sailed with him, and always styles him as “renommé 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 given at p. xxvii, 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 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 it, is expressed with some curious circumstances of correspondence to Captain Cook’s MS. What he names

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-existent map. The unworthy insinuation met with a sensible refutation, we are happy to record, from the pen of a Frenchman, La Revue, ou Decade Philosophique, Littéraire et Politique