Lang, Transportation and Colonisation Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century... Lewis, Government of Dependencies London Evening Post Globe ... Longman's School Geography for Australasia Lucas, Introduction to a Historical Geography of the British Colonies Maiden, Description of some Sixteenth Century Maps Archæologia.. Prince Henry the Navigator Malte Brun, Geographie Universelle Mann, Present Picture of New South Wales Massey, Reign of George the Third Merivale, Lectures on Colonisation Mitchell, Journals of an Expedition Monthly Review Mulhall, Dictionary of Statistics Mundy, Our Antipodes McGregor, British America... Napier, Remarks on Military Law... New Monthly Magazine North, Life of Lord Keeper Guildford Notes and Queries ... Parliamentary History of England... 23, 24, 59, 76, 224, 233-4, 370-5, 384-6, 491-2 Tuckey, Account of a Voyage to establish a colony at Port Phillip 202-3, 318 116-8, 215, 350, 408 Whitworth, Gazetteer of New South Wales 388 163 134, 254 AN INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. Ar the time when Cook sailed into Botany Bay in 1770 most Englishmen, it might be said, knew as much about New Holland as they did about the countries lying round the North Pole. They knew that there was a large tract of land to the south of New Guinea, which had been so far explored that its existence was an ascertained fact; but they knew very little more than that. The big folios in which all the known voyages and travels in different parts of the world had been collected by enterprising publishers from time to time-and which had for many years supplied the place of the old romances of chivalry among the reading public-told them very little about New Holland. The latest edition of Harris's collection of voyages (1764), gave them only the voyages of de Quiros, Pelsart, Tasman, and Dampier. Callander's collection, entitled Terra Australis Cognita (1766-8), contained those voyages and also a short historical summary of the Dutch explorations from 1616 to 1705. These portions of the collection were-like the rest of it -mere translations from a French original. By far the most popular publications on the subject were the various editions of Dampier. His New Voyage Round the World appeared in 1697, and his Voyage to New Holland in the year 1699 was published in 1703; each passing rapidly through several editions. How much they suited the taste of the age may be seen in a French translation published at Amsterdam in 1701-5, in four neat duodecimos evidently intended for the ship's cabin as well as the library on shore. Dampier's popularity seems to have spread over all Europe, and naturally, for up to that time no such tales of the sea had appeared in print. There was none of the romance about them which made the voyages of the great discoverers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries seem so marvellous; but they were distinguished from all other works of the kind by the author's power of observation and the graphic style of his narrative, which almost rivalled that of his contemporary De Foe. Other navigators might have been as exact in their nautical and astronomical calculations, but they did not enter into competition with him in the art of story-telling-an art which lost none of its power from being clothed in the homely language of a sailor. So far as New Holland was concerned, his account of it became stereotyped in the memory of his countrymen; an unfortunate fact for the country itself, since the impression left behind was as unfavourable as it could well be. The land rose up before the reader's imagination in the shape of a barren, sandy region, "destitute of Water, except you make Wells," and of everything else that could make a new country attractive to either trader or traveller; inhabited, too, by a race. of beings described as the lowest and most degraded type of mankind. Such were the ideas associated with every mention of New Holland, down to the time when the lieutenant in command of the Endeavour determined to explore its eastern coast on his way home from New Zealand. It is not a very difficult task to identify the known geography of the country at that time; and it is well worth the trouble to do so, in order to get some clear idea of the opinions held by Cook and his companions on the subject. We have only to recall to mind the various works then in circulation, and to glance in imagination at the book-shelves in the cabins of the Endeavour. The little library on board, we may be sure, comprised every work of any value to the geographer and naturalist in the South Sea. First on *Dampier's account of the Moskito Indian who had been left ashore at Juan Fernandez in 1681, looks like the first rough sketch of Robinson Crusoe. It is worth while to compare his description, which will be found in his Voyage round the World, vol. i, pp. 84-92, ed. 1729, with De Foe's. The story of Alexander Selkirk appeared in Captain Woodes Rogers's Voyage Round the World (1712), p. 124. |