well armed men in red coats, with gold and silver facings. They asked to be taken on board, but after sternly ordering them to throw their arms into the sea, failing which they would be sunk, Pelsart seized and put them all in irons. One of them, John Bremen, confessed to slaying no fewer than twenty-seven persons. The worthy navigator subsequently seized the remainder of the conspirators on Cornelis's island, recovered the jewels dispensed among the people, except one gold chain, and also secured by the efforts of divers nearly all the chests of sunken treasure. The Batavia was broken into many pieces. Owing to the overcrowded state of the Sardam, and the danger of having so many ruffians on board, together with valuable treasure, Captain Pelsart called a council, and decided to forego the custom of taking the prisoners to Batavia to be tried, and a number of the worst were then and there executed. Cornelis was taken to Seal Island, had both hands chopped off, and was hung. Weybehays, who was rewarded by a Sergeantship, and his company were after some difficulty got on board, and the Sardam, on 28th October, 1629, sailed for Batavia. Two conspirators were placed on the mainland—near Champion Bay,—and there left. These determined villains, were, as far as is known, the first white inhabitants of Australia. The beginning was not a noble one, and formed grim augury of the destiny which awaited these young lands two centuries later. The stories of Pelsart and his company’s adventures are taken from Dutch records, and they give the first detailed account of the Australian coast.
Captain Stokes, R.N., of H.M.S. Beagle, when examining, in April, 1840, the Abrolhos Islands, during his Admiralty surveys of the north-west coast, reported that
"On the south-west point of an island the beams of a large vessel were discovered, and as the crew of the Zeewyk, lost in 1728, reported having seen the wreck of a ship on this part, there is little doubt that the remains were those of the Batavia, Commodore Pelsart, lost in 1627. We in consequence named our temporary anchorage Batavia Road, and the whole group Pelsart Group."
The yachts Klyn, Amsterdam, and Wezel, commanded by Gerrit Thomaz Pool, made the next voyages to Australia. Pool, or Poel, left Banda for the Great South Land, but, like Carstens, he was murdered at New Guinea. The supercargo, Pieterz Pieterson, then took command, and in 1636 touched on the coast of Arnhem, or Northern Territory of South Australia, which was named Van Diemen's Land after the Governor-General at Batavia. Although Pieterson saw no natives, he observed the smoke of their fires.
All these many voyages were made at the instigation of the Dutch Government and the Dutch East India Company. They sought to acquire more thorough and reliable information regarding this continent, and now went to considerable trouble and expense to fit out an expedition of discovery. They chose Abel Janszen Tasman to command this expedition, who, therefore, was likely to be one of their most esteemed navigators. Those in charge of the affairs of the company at Batavia compiled a valuable record of previous Dutch discoveries in Australia for Tasman's benefit, preparatory to giving exhaustive instructions for his guidance. From the MS. is gathered that they desire careful surveys, accurate descriptions, and anticipate as one result new discoveries. Tasman carried out his instructions with admirable faithfulness. Two years previously, on August 14, 1642, he sailed with the vessels Heemskirk and Zee-Haan, and discovered many islands—more than a score,—and among them Tasmania—named by him Van Diemen's Land, and New Zealand. In 1644 he set out on his second voyage per his instructions, and confined his attention to the South Land. His journal was probably lost, and only a few of his remarks remain, but maps published years later suggest his route. He proved the continuity of the north-west coast as far south as about the 22nd degree, near North West Cape of Western Australia, probably landed at Roebuck Bay, and examined the country from the Northern Territory to Exmouth Gulf. One writer has it that he sailed in the yachts Limmen, Zeemeuw, and De Brak. The maps imply that the appellation New Holland was first attached to Australia by him. His charts prove that his soundings were well worked out, although more recent navigators have sometimes failed to secure similar results, probably because of a difference in distance from the shore. From quotations which are understood to have been taken from his journal he evidently saw numerous natives. These, he reports, were malicious, shot at his company with bows and arrows, and hazeygayes and kalawayes, and threw stones at them. He also mentions that traditional custom of Australian aborigines of lighting fires at intervals along the coast to acquaint their neighbours that enemies are near. Australian settlement has proved that this custom is very general in various parts of the continent, in the interior as well as on the coast. As for the rest, we are told by him that the natives possessed rude canoes made of the bark trees, slept in the open, were quite naked, and, among other things, eat yams and roots. The coasts were barren and somewhat dangerous. For actual results, and value of his charts and remarks, Tasman must be considered as among the most successful Australian navigators, and his name is perpetuated in the colony of Tasmania by the old appellation of Van Diemen's Land being dropped in favour of a shorter, more suitable, and purely historical designation.
Evidently disappointed with the prospects of opening up a lucrative trade with New Holland, there is now a long gap in Australian coastal exploration by the Dutch. From Tasman's voyage to near the close of the seventeenth century no reliable information is obtainable as to special voyages, though several were made, but not for the purposes of discovery so much as to search for wrecked vessels and men. The Dutch, however, notwithstanding their absence of trade with Australia, included it within the line of demarcation of the East India Company's lands. The sterile coastal country viewed by most navigators was worth nothing to the white man, and the black was allowed to roam his hunting-grounds in freedom. Another wreck is believed to have taken place in 1656. The De Vergulde Draeck, from Texel, is said to have struck reefs on the mainland at latitude 30° 49’, which would bring it near Rottnest Island, in April, 1656. The yawning waves enveloped 118 of the ship's company, and the ship almost immediately sank. While 68 survivors were left on the mainland, seven men went in a boat to Batavia for assistance, where they arrived after intense suffering. Several disasters were brought about in successive efforts to relieve the shipwrecked people. First, the vessels Witte Valck and Goede Hoop were despatched by the East India Company, and sailed down the coast, but after losing a boat with eleven men they returned. The Vinck was instructed to call at New Holland, but she also failed in her mission. The Waeckende Boey and the Emeloort, in 1658, visited the mainland, and off the coast of Endraght Land foolishly abandoned fourteen men who had gone on shore in a boat and did not return within twenty-four hours. These men sought to reach Batavia. After terrible and poignant privations four of them reached that port, all of their companions having succumbed to their sufferings on the way. The fly-boat Elburg and the Bonne à la Veille joined in the search. But while several of these vessels observed many pieces of wreckage, evidently from the De Vergulde Draeck, such as planks and blocks, a piece of mast, a taffrail, fragments of barrels and other objects, scattered along the coast, they saw no white men, and the
