IN 1696 the Honourable Directors of the Dutch Chartered 

 Company trading to the Dutch East Indies decided to send 

 an expedition for the purpose of searching for missing vessels, 

 especially for the Ridderschap "van Hollandt^ of which no news had 

 been received for two years. The local Board of Directors of the 

 Amsterdam Chamber of the Company was charged to carry out 

 this resolution, and it equipped three vessels which were placed 

 under the command of Willem de Vlaming. The Commander 

 was directed to search for missing vessels or for shipwrecked 

 sailors at the Tristan da Cunha Islands, the Cape of Good Hope, 

 and the Islands of Amsterdam and St. Paul in the Southern 

 Ocean. Thence he was to proceed to the ' Onbekende Zuidland^ 

 by which name, or by that of Eendragts Land, Australia was 

 designated in whole or in part in the official dispatches of the 

 Dutch East India Company in the seventeenth century. 



On the 29th of December, 1696, the vessels under the com- 

 mand of De Vlaming lay at anchor between Rottnest Island and 

 the mainland of Australia. The island was searched for wreckage 

 with little result. One piece of timber was found which, it was 

 conjectured, might have been deck timber, and a plank was 

 found, three feet long and one span broad. The nails in the 

 wreckage were very rusty. The search for shipwrecked sailors 

 on the adjacent mainland was unsuccessful. On the 20th and 

 on the 31st of December, and on the ist of January, 1697, 



£ 



