A Voyage to Terra Australis

The voyages which had been made, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by Dutch and by English navigators, had successively brought to light various extensive coasts in the southern hemisphere, which were thought to be united; and to comprise a land, which must be nearly equal in magnitude to the whole of Europe. To this land, though known to be separated from all other great portions of the globe, geographers were disposed to give the appellation of Continent: but doubts...
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The voyages which had been made, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by Dutch and by English navigators, had successively brought to light various extensive coasts in the southern hemisphere, which were thought to be united; and to comprise a land, which must be nearly equal in magnitude to the whole of Europe. To this land, though known to be separated from all other great portions of the globe, geographers were disposed to give the appellation of Continent: but doubts still existed, of the continuity of its widely extended shores; and it was urged, that, as our knowledge of some parts was not founded upon well authenticated information, and we were in total ignorance of some others, these coasts might, instead of forming one great land, be no other than parts of different large islands.

The establishment, in 1788, of a British colony on the easternmost, and last discovered, of these new regions, had added that degree of interest to the question of their continuity, which a mother country takes in favour, even, of her outcast children, to know the form, extent, and general nature of the land, where they may be placed. The question had, therefore, ceased to be one in which geography was alone concerned: it claimed the paternal consideration of the father of all his people, and the interests of the national commerce seconded the call for investigation.

Accordingly, the following voyage was undertaken by command of HIS MAJESTY, in the year 1801; in a ship of 334 tons, which received the appropriate name of the INVESTIGATOR; and, besides great objects of clearing up the doubt respecting the unity of these southern regions, and of opening therein fresh sources to commerce, and new ports to seamen, it was intended, that the voyage should contribute to the advancement of natural knowledge in various branches; and that some parts of the neighbouring seas should he visited, wherein geography and navigation had still much to desire.

The vast regions to which this voyage was principally directed, comprehend, in the western part, the early discoveries of the Dutch, under the name of NEW HOLLAND; and in the east, the coasts explored by British navigators, and named NEW SOUTH WALES. It has not, however, been unusual to apply the first appellation to both regions; but to continue this, would be almost as great an injustice to the British nation, whose seamen have had so large a share in the discovery, as it would be to the Dutch, were New South Wales to be so extended. This appears to have been felt by a neighbouring, and even rival, nation; whose writers commonly speak of these countries under the general term of Terres Australes. In fact, the original name, used by the Dutch themselves until some time after Tasman's second voyage, in 1644, was Terra Australis, or Great South Land; and when it was displaced by New Holland, the new term was applied only to the parts lying westward of a meridian line, passing through Arnhem's Land on the north., and near the isles of St. Francis and St. Peter, on the south: all to the eastward, including the shores of the Gulph of Carpentaria, still remained as Terra Australis. This appears from a chart published by THEVENOT, in 1663; which, he says, "was originally taken from that done in inlaid work, upon the pavement of the new Stadt-House at Amsterdam."* The same thing is to be inferred from the notes of Burgomaster WITSEN, in 1705; of which there will be occasion to speak in the sequel.