Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/34

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on the west coast, in 1629, and on returning in a ship from Java to have found that motiny and massacre bad been rampant, and to have restored fliscipline by wbolesale execn- tioiiB before sailing to Java. All performances of other navigators were eclipsed, however, by Tasman, who, in 1G42. was commissioned to explore in the ftoiith Seas, and discovered Tasmania'* and New Zealand, but who, in his chart, represented New Guinea as joined to the Soutli Land (Austmlin). From this time may he dated a more acearat© knowledge of Australia, It may be true that Portogiiese sailors had seen parts of the coast in 1512. It is no donbt trne that the Dutch (wiio founded their East India Com- pany in 1602) received confidential reports from their sailors of discoveries made at various dates early in the seventeenth centm'y; and it may be true that, for reasons of policy, they concealed the discoveries from the world. They paid a natural penalty, PfiifUmn scpultry distat inerticd f'ilatif virtus. They might as well have made no discoveries. After Tasman *8 great voyage other discoverers cruised among the islands of the Pacific, and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries played their part, the celebrated William Dampier"^ being one of them. First a common sailor, then overseer on an estate in Jamaica, a labourer among the logwood-cutters in Mexico, and a buccaneer amongst the wildest spirits of a wild time, he possessed intelligeuco and sense which have kept bis narratives from oblivion. His lirst visit to Australia was in a buccaneering vessel which bad been seized by the crew, who abandoned their captain at Mindanao, taking I)am[»ier with them. In their wanderings they touched on the northern coast of ' Tasman ca!let1 hi'? discovery Van Diempti's Jjiud^ after ^'ari Diemeu, the Dutch (Tovernor-tieiieral in the Eust nidies : and the nam*? remained Ionjt( after Englieihmen had founded their cohjtiy. A change hcing thought desirable when the colony ceased to he a. penal settlement, the name of the first discoverer was chosen for Tiisniania, with gaud taste a<:ce|>taljle to the inhabitants. " *' i dined {Aug,, 16J)9) with Mr. Pcpya» where was Captain Dampier, who had been a famous buceaoeer, iiad Ijronght hither the paitited Prin(je Job, and printed a rehttion of hia very strange advcntnres, and his ohaerva- tinns. He was now going abroad again by the king's enconragement^ who furnished a ship of *J9U Imxa. He seemed a more modest man than one would imagine l>y the reLation of the crew he had assorted with. He brought a map of his olraer stations of the course of the winds in the South S'eUj dc. " — ** Diary of John Evelyn."