Discovery of Van Diemen's Land in 1642 with Notes on the Localities Mentioned in Tasman's Journal of the Voyage
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( No. 80.) 1891. PARLIAMENT OF TASMANIA. DISCOVERY OF ·VAN DIEMEN'S LAND . IN 1642 :. WITH NOTES ON THE LOCALITIES MENTIONED IN TASlVIAN'S JOURNAL OF THE VOYAGE. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by His Excellency's Command .. THE D'ISCO'VERY OF VAN D'lEMEN~s LAND IN 1642; WI'£H NOTES ON THE LOC .A.LITIES :MENTION E,n IN TASMAN'S JOURNAL OF THE VOYAGE. BY JAMES BAOKHOUSE WALKER ABEL J anszoon Tasman was unquestionably one of East Indies published in 1726, gave a inore extended the greatest, if not the greatest, of the navigators between account, illustrated by copies of Tasman's maps and Magellan, who in the early years of the 16th century sketches. But the joumal itself remained practically first crossed the Pacific Ocean, and Cook, who in the unknown until a copy of it and of the original sketches latter years of the 18th practically opened Oceania and and charts was discovered in London in 1776 and pur Austrnlia to Europe. chased for half a guinea. This MS. aftei:wards came Little is known of Tasman's personal history, except into the possession of Sir Joseph Banks, and he employed that he was born about the year 1602, at Hoorn on the the Rev. C. G. Waide, a Dutch clergyman living in Zuyder Zee, a seaport which produced many another London," to make a translation of it. Thirty years later hardy navigator. Tasman has made familiar in our seas the substance of this translation was printed by Dr. the name of one of these fellow townsmen, the Cornelis Burney in his "History of Discovery in the South Sea," zoon Schouten, who in 1616 doubled the Cape, :softerwards published in J 814. Woide's MS. is now in the British called the Horn in honour of the birthplace of its dis Museum, and a verbatim copy of the part relating to coverer. our island has lately been made by Mr. Bonwick for the That Tasman's merit has not received clue re,2ognition, Tasmanian Government. In Tasman's own country his and that his fame has not been as wide as his achievements originaljournal remained neglected for more than two deserved, is the fault of his own countrymen. In the 16th cent!1ries, until in the year 1860 it ,,·as printed in extenso and 17th centuries the persistent policy of the Dutch was at Amster<lam nnder the editorship of Mr. Jacob Swart/' to conceal the discoveries of their navigators, and. suppress Tasman's expedition was probably the first systematic their charts, for fear other nations should reap advantage attempt made by the Dutch to explore the Great South from the knowledge and rival them in the eastern seas. Land. In the early years of the 17th r;entnry the In later times when this motive had lost its force, Tasman's Western Coast of Australia had been sevel'a! times countrymen were strangely indifferent to the honour sighted by Dutch Captains. Ships, bound for the Dutch wl1ich their great sailor had won for his native land. Of settlements at Batavia, had been driven to the southward. his second voyage in 1644-in which he explored the uor- by storms, and the 1·esulting discoverie:, had, therefore, . thern coast of Australia, and laid down with painstaking been to a large extent involuntary, or at least accidental. accura9y the shores ·of the Gulf ofCarpentaJ'ia -we have In the year 1642, howeve1·, the Governor-General, . to this day only meagre hints and the record contained in Anthony Van Diemen, and the Council of Netherlands a sketch map. Of his more fan1ous voyage to the Great India, determined to despatch from Batavia a properly Southland in 1642-in which he discovered Tasmania and equipped expedition, having for its sole object the dis N e,v Zealand, and made a great step towards solving the coverv of_ the Great Southern Continent. The instruc vexed problem of the fancied Terra Australis-the journal tions· to the commander, prepared by their direction, remained unpublished foi· more than two eenturies. have been preserved. They cont~in a detailed statement It is true that a short abstract of this voyage was pub of all that was then known by the Dutch of the geography lished in Holland late in the 17th century, and was shorqy of those parts, and they prescribe the course that_ ~he afterwards translated into English, and included in sev·eral ships Were to pmsue. The command of the expecht1on collections of voyages made by English ·and French " .rournaal van de reis naar het onbckende Zuidland in. ,Jen jare 164~, door editors, and that Valentyn, in his great work on the Dutch Abel .ransz. 'rasman; medegedeeld rloor .faeob Swart. Amsterdtlm, 1860. 4 was entrusted to Tasman, then '40 years old, and the ship in those days the ascertainment of longitude by obser Heemslti,·k was assigned to him fo1· the service, with the vation was always very uncertain. little fly-boat Zeeltan as tender. Tasman sailed from It is generally stated that 'the first land sighted by Batavia on August 14; reached Mauritius (then a Dutch Tasman was near Point Hibbs, ancl llis little chart of settlement) on September 5, and sailed thence for the Van Diemen's Land appears to favour this opinion, but South on October 5. He held a S.E. course until on an examination of his journal leads us to a different November 6 he had reached lO0deg. E. long. in lat. conclusion. From the entries iR the journal it is evident 49deg. S., without finding any signs of the supposed that his position on November 24, when he first saw the continent. A council of officers was held, and the land, is not laid clown on the chart at all. The latitude chief pilot, Francis Jacobsen, advised that the course entered for noon that clay is 42 deg. 25 min. As the should be altered, and that the ships should make for lat. weather was clear this was probably the observed lati 44deg. S. until 130deg. E. long. was reached, when, if tude, and making allowance for the usual error we may no mainland was meet with, they should sail into 40deg. place it some miles more to the north, say 42 deg. 20 min. S. lat., and steer on that parallel until they reached or 42 deg. 15 min. From noon he sailed fou:r hours E. 200deg. E. long. By this course he-thought they would ~ by N. before lie sighted land bearing E. by N. 40 be sure to fall in with islands, anq having so far solved English miles di11tant. When evening fell some three the problem of the great southern continent, he advised hours later this course would have brought him to a that they should stand north for the Solomon Islands, latitude a little to the northward of Cape Sorell ( 42 deg. whence they might shape their course for home. By 12 min.) This position would agree very well with his the middle of November they came to the conclusion description of the land as he saw it on that evening, and that they had passed thr Jxtreme limits of the supposed which he describes as " very high." " Towards evening continent, but on the ~-lth of the month land was we saw three high mountains to the E.S.-E. and to the seen bearing east by north, distant 10 Dutch miles ( 40 N .E. We also saw two mountains, but not so higb as miles English.) Unlike the invariable low sandy shore those to the southward." which former captains had described as characteristic Flinders in his circumnavigation of the island identi .of the Great Southland, the country before them was fied the two mountains to the N.E. as those named by mountainous, and clothed with dark forest. Tasman him Heemskirk and Zeehan after Tasman's ships. 'l'hey says : "This is the furthest land in the South Sea we are visible at about 30 miles· distance. Now with met witl1, and as· it has not yet been known to any Heemskirk and Zeehan bearing N.E., at a distance of European we called it Anthony Van Diemen's Land, in say 20 miles, Mount Sorell, die southern peaks of the honour of the Governor-General, om· maste1·, who sent West Coast Range, and the Frenchman's Cap, would be us out to make discoveries. The islands round about, as nearly E.S.E., while the centre of the West Coast Range many as were known to us, we named in honour of the seen over the low sandy foreshore north of Macquarie Council of Inclia." They skirted the newly-discovered Harbour would fit Tasman's description of the very high land, and on December 1 came to an anchor in a bay on land in front of him. If the land near Point Hibbs had the east coast. On December 3 they weighed anchor been first sighted, Mount Heemskirk would have been and sailed north nnti\ they reached a point about St. at least 50 miles distant, and not visible. It is therefore PatrLCk's· Head, from whence they stood away eastward probable that the first land seen by the Dutch navigator to make new discoveries. After eight days they sighted was the mountainous country to the north of Macquarie land, which Tasman called Staten Land, thinking that Harbour. Without further observations the point must it might be part of the Southern continent and joined to remain doubtful, but when we get the much-needed and Staten Land, east of Tierra del Fuego.