Читать книгу The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 - J. E. Heeres - Страница 7

In writing my biography of Tasman, forming part of Messrs. Frederik Muller and Co.'s edition of the Journal of Tasman's celebrated voyage of discovery of 1642–1643, I was time and again struck by the fact that the part borne by the Netherlanders in the discovery of the continent of Australia is very insufficiently known to the Dutch themselves, and altogether misunderstood or even ignored abroad. Not only those who with hypercritical eyes scrutinise, and with more or less scepticism as to its value, analyse whatever evidence on this point is submitted to them, but those others also who feel a profound and sympathetic interest in the historical study of the remarkable voyages which the Netherlanders undertook to the South-land, are almost invariably quite insufficiently informed concerning them. This fact is constantly brought home to the student who consults the more recent works published on the subject, and who fondly hopes to get light from such authors as CALVERT, COLLINGRIDGE, NORDENSKIOLD, RAINAUD and others. Such at least has time after time been my own case. Is it wonderful, therefore, that, while I was engaged in writing Tasman's life, the idea occurred to me of republishing the documents relating to this subject, preserved in the State Archives at the Hague--the repository of the archives of the famous General Dutch Chartered East-India Company extending over two centuries (1602–1800)--and in various other places? I was naturally led to lay before Messrs. Frederik Muller and Co. the question, whether they would eventually undertake such a publication, and I need hardly add that these gentlemen, to whom the historical study of Dutch discovery has repeatedly been so largely indebted, evinced great interest in the plan I submitted to them.[*]

[* See my Life of Tasman, p. 103, note 10.]

Meanwhile the Managing Board of the Royal Geographical Society of the Nether lands had resolved to publish a memorial volume on the occasion of the Society's twenty-fifth anniversary. Among the plans discussed by the Board was the idea of having the documents just referred to published at the expense of the Society. The name of jubilee publication could with complete justice be bestowed on a work having for its object once more to throw the most decided and fullest possible light on achievements of our forefathers in the 17th and 18th century, in a form that would appeal to foreigners no less than to native readers. An act of homage to our ancestors, therefore, a modest one certainly, but one inspired by the same feeling which in 1892 led Italy and the Iberian Peninsula to celebrate the memory of the discoverer of America, and in 1898 prompted the Portuguese to do homage to the navigator who first showed the world the sea-route to India.

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How imperfect and fragmentary even in our days is the information generally available concerning the part borne by the Netherlanders in the discovery of the fifth part of the world, may especially be seen from the works of foreigners. This, I think, must in the first place, though not, indeed, exclusively, be accounted for by the rarity of a working acquaintance with the Dutch tongue among foreign students. On this account the publication of the documents referred to would very imperfectly attain the object in view, unless accompanied by a careful translation of these pieces of evidence into one of the leading languages of Europe; and it stands to reason that in the case of the discovery of Australia the English language would naturally suggest itself as the most fitting medium of information[*]. So much to account for the bilingual character of the jubilee publication now offered to the reader.

[* The English translation is the work of Mr. C. Stoffel, of Nijmegen.]

Closely connected with this consideration is another circumstance which has influenced the mode of treatment followed in the preparation of this work. The defective acquaintance with the Dutch language of those who have made the history of the discovery of Australia the object of serious study, or even, in the case of some of them, their total ignorance of it, certainly appears to me one, nay even the most momentous of the causes of the incomplete knowledge of the subject we are discussing; but it cannot possibly be considered the only cause, if we remember that part of the documentary evidence proving the share of the Netherlanders in the discovery of Australia has already been given to the world through the medium of a leading European tongue.

In 1859 R. H. MAJOR brought out his well-known book Early Voyages to Terra Australis, now called Australia, containing translations of some of the archival pieces and of other documents pertaining to the subject. And though, from P. A. LEUPE'S work, entitled De Reizen der Nederlanders naar het Juidland of Nzeuw-Holland in de 17th en 18th eeuw, published in 1868, and from a book by L. C. D. Van Dijk, brought out in the same year in which MAJOR'S work appeared, and entitled Twee togten naar de golf van Carpentaria; though, I say, from these two books it became evident that MAJOR'S work was far from complete, still it cannot be denied that he had given a great deal, and what he had given, had in the English translation been made accessible also to those to whom Dutch was an unknown tongue. This circumstance could not but make itself felt in my treatment of the subject, since it was quite needless to print once more in their entirety various documents discussed by MAJOR. There was the less need for such republication in cases which would admit of the results of Dutch exploratory voyages being exhibited in the simplest and most effective way by the reproduction of charts made in the course of such voyages themselves: these charts sometimes speak more clearly to the reader than the circumstantial journals which usually, though not always, are of interest for our purpose only by specifying the route followed, the longitudes and latitudes taken, and the points touched at by the voyagers. These considerations have in some cases led me only to mention certain documents, without printing them in full, and the circumstance that my Tasman publication has been brought out in English, will sufficiently account for the absence from this work of the journal of Tasman's famous expedition of 164⅔.[*]

[* I would have the present work considered as forming one whole with my Tasman publication and with the fascicule of Remarkable Maps, prepared by me, containing the Nolpe-Dozy chart of 1652–3 (Cf. my Life of Tasman, pp. 75 f). Together they furnish all the most important pieces of evidence discovered up to now, for the share which the Netherlanders have had in the discovery of Australia.]

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The documents, here either republished or printed for the first time, are all of them preserved in the State Archives at the Hague[*], unless otherwise indicated. They have been arranged under the heads of the consecutive expeditions, which in their turn figure in chronological order. This seemed to me the best way to enable readers to obtain a clear view of the results of the exploratory voyages made along the coasts of Australia by the Netherlanders of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

[* My best thanks are due to Jhr. Th. Van Riemsdijk, LL. D., Principal Keeper, and to Dr. T. H. Colenbrander, Assistant-Keeper, of the State Archives of the Hague.]

For this and this only, was the object I had in view in selecting the materials for the present work: once more, as completely and convincingly as I could, to set forth the part borne by the Netherlanders in the discovery of the fifth part of the world. I have not been actuated by any desire to belittle the achievements of other nations in this field of human activity. The memorial volume here presented to the reader aims at nothing beyond once more laying before fellow-countrymen and foreigners the documentary evidence of Dutch achievement in this field; perhaps I may add the wish that it may induce other nations to follow the example here given as regards hitherto unpublished documents of similar nature. Still, it would be idle to deny that it was with a feeling of national pride that in the course of this investigation I was once more strengthened in the conviction that even at this day no one can justly gainsay MAJOR'S assertion on p. LXXX of his book, that "the first authenticated discovery of any part of the great Southland" was made in 1606 by a Dutch schip the Duifken. All that is asserted regarding a so-called previous discovery of Australia has no foundation beyond mere surmise and conjecture. Before the voyage of the ship Duifken all is an absolute blank.