tasman’s voyage of discovery.
45i
Tafman had fairly furrounded the continent he was inftructed to difcover, and hadtherefore nothing now farther in view than to return to Batavia, in order to report thedifcoveries he had made.
On the 27th of May, we paffed through the Streights of Boura, or Bouton, andcontinued our paffage to Batavia, where we arrived on the 15th of June, in thelatitude of 6° 12' fouth, and in the longitude of 127 0 18'. This voyage was made inthe fpace of ten months. Such was the end of this expedition, which has been alwaysconfidered as the cleared; and moll exaft that was ever made for the difcovery of theTerra Auftralis Incognita, from whence that chart and map was laid down in the pave-ment of the ftadt-houfe at Amfterdam, as is before-mentioned. We have now' nothingto do but to Ihut up this voyage and our hiftory of circumnavigators, with a few re-marks, previous to which it will be requifite to ftate clearly and fuccinctly the difcove-ries, either made or confirmed by Captain Tafman’s voyage, that the importance of itmay fully appear, as well as the probability of our conjectures with regard to the mo-tives that induced the Dutch Eaft India Company to be at fo much pains about thefedifcoveries.
20. In the firft place, then, it is mod evident, from Captain Tafman’s voyage, thatNew Guinea , Carpentaria, New Holland, Antony van Diemen’s Land, and thecountries difcovered by De Quiros, make all one continent, from which New Zealand feems to be feparated by a ftreight; and, perhaps, is part of another continent,anfwering to Africa, as this, of which we are now fpeaking, plainly does to America .This continent reaches from the equinoctial to 44 0 of fouth latitude, and extends from122° to 188° of longitude, making indeed a very large country, but nothing likevvhat De Quiros imagined ; which Ihews how dangerous a thing it is to tr.uft too much• to conje&ure in fuch points as thefe. It is, fecondly, obfervable, that as New Guinea ,Carpentaria and New Holland, had been already pretty well examined, Captain Tafmanfell directly to the fouth of thefe ; fo that his firft difcovery was Van Diemen’s Land,the molt fouthem part of the continent on this fide the globe, and then, palling roundby New Zealand, he plainly difcovered the oppofite fide of that country towards Ame-rica , though he vifited the illands only, and never fell in again with the continent tillbe arrived on the coaft of New Britain, which he miftook for that of New Guinea ; ashe very well might, that country having never been fufpefted to be an illand, till Dam-per difcovered it to be fuch in the beginning of the prefent century. Thirdly, by thisfurvey, thefe countries are for ever marked out, fo long as the map, or memory of thisv oyage, lhall remain. The Dutch Eaft India Company have it always in their power todireQ; fettlements, or new difcoveries, either in New Guinea, from the Moluccas , orln New Holland, from Batavia dire&ly. The prudence Ihewn in the conduct of thisa 0 air, deferves the higheft praife. To have attempted heretofore, or even now, thee ftablifhing colonies in thofe countries, would be impolitic, becaufe it would be grafping*P or e than the Eaft India Company, or than even the republic of Holland, could manage;* 0r , in the firft place, to reduce a continent between three and four thoufand milesbv°ad, is a prodigious undertaking, and to fettle it by degrees, would be to open, tothe world, the importance of that country, which, for any thing we can tell, maye much fuperior to any country yet known : the only choice therefore that the Dutch bad left, was to referve this mighty difcovery till the feafon arrived, in which theyhould be either obliged by neceffity, or invited by occafion, to make ufe of it; but°ugh this country be referved, it is no longer either unknown or negle&ed by the»tch, which is a point of very great confequence. To the other nations of Europe ,he fouthem continent is a chimera, a thing in the clouds, or at leaft a country about which
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