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 arbours.
In New Holland the natives were hostile and miserably poor, in the lowest state of human existence. They built no huts, wore no ornaments of gold or precious stones, 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
