134 



AUSTRALASIA. 



Australa- commodious harbours afford a convenient reception 



, ^ a ' to vessels employed in the Australasian whale and 



1700- V 1810. sea ' f ls ' le, 7 : a,u ^ merchants have found a ready mart 

 for their adventures in traffic from the Cape of Good 

 Hope, or India. All this resulting in so short a time, 

 and when opposed by obstacles unexampled in forming 

 other establishments, ought more and more to increase 

 our wonder that it has been attained. The French na- 

 vigator^ express their lively astonishment at the matu- 

 rity of our Australasian colonies. Let us cite the 

 report of the Imperial Institute on the voyage of dis- 

 covery submitted to their opinion. " Every wherein 

 the regions traversed by M. Peron he has found the 

 rivals of his country. Every where have they formed 

 the most interesting establishments, of which erro- 

 neous and imperfect ideas prevail in Europe" 



" No subject can be more curious or interesting, both 

 to the soldier and statesman, than the colony of Bo- 

 tany Bay, so long despised in Europe. Never was 

 there a more conspicuous example of the omnipotence 

 of laws and institutions over the characters of indivi- 

 duals. To convert the most hardened villains, the 

 most daring robbers, into honest and peaceable citi- 

 zens, or industrious agriculturists. Then to operate 

 the like revolution in the vilest prostitutes : to change 

 them by infallible means to faithful wives and excel- 

 lent mothers. Next to watch over the rising popula- 

 tion ; to preserve them by the most assiduous care 

 from the contagion of their parents, and thus breed 

 up a generation more virtuous than the race from 



which it sprung ; such is the impressive picture Australa- 

 wluch the English colonies present." The justice of sia - 

 these observations we ought not to dispute ; but whe- Jt" 'C?7? 

 ther the benefit derived from Australasia shall be per- 

 manent, can be unfolded by time alone. 



See De Brosses Navigations aux Tares Australes. 

 Voyages de la Compagnie des Tales Orientates, torn, 

 v. vi. Dalrymple's Voyages to the South Sea. Cal- 

 lander, Terra Australis Incognita. Laborde I/isloirc 

 Abregee de la Mer du Sud. Burney's Voyages in 

 the South Sea. Fleurieu, Discoveries of the b'rench 

 to thi : South-east qfKcv. -Guinea. Dampi'er's Voyages, 

 vol ii. iii. Bougainville, Voyage autour du Monde. 

 Wallis, Byron, and Carteret, Voyages round the 

 World. Cook's first, second, and third Voyage. 

 Crozet, Nouveau Voyage de Marion el Ducletmeur. 

 Forrest's Voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas. 

 Sonnerat, Voyage a la Noucelle Guiiee, p. 153. 156. 

 Maurelle, Voyage from Manilla, in Perouse Voyages, 

 torn. i. Collins' Account of Botany Bay. Phillip's 

 Voyage to Botany Bay. White's Voyage to Neve- 

 South Wales. Vancouver's Voyage, vol. i. Hun- 

 ter's Voyage to Botany Bay. Labillardiere's Voyage 

 in search of La Perouse. Flinders' Voyage. Grant's 

 Narrative of a Voyage of Disco-eery. Missionary 

 Voyage to the Southern Pacific ikean, p. '295. 

 Tuckey, Voyage to Bass's Straits. Turnbull's Voy- 

 ages, vol. i. iii. Savage, Account of New Zealand. 

 Peron, Voyage aux Terres Australes. Horsburgh's 

 Sailing Directions, 1809, p. 85 97. (c) 



AUSTRIA. 



Austria. Austria, in German Osterreich, or Ostreich, is a 

 i y -' considerable province of southern Germany, which 

 has given fourteen emperors to that country, six kings 

 to Spain, and has made a conspicuous figure in Europe 

 for ten centuries. Of the early history of this fine 

 region we are almost totally ignorant. Charlemagne 

 conquered it in 791, after he had previously pushed 

 the eastern boundary of his empire to the present 

 frontiers of Bavaria and Austria ; and, crossing the 

 Austria river Ens, which now divides Upper from Lower Au6- 

 conquered tria on the south side of the Danube, he drove the 

 by Char- eastern tribes, who were invading Germany, beyond 

 lemagne. t jj e r ; ver Raab, j n Hungary, and entrenched its 

 , banks as the limit of his western empire. He ap- 

 pointed governors, by the title of margraves, (or 

 wardens of marches,) in the conquered country, and 

 granted them various privileges, as protectors of the 

 adjacent provinces against the barbarians of the East. 

 It is probable, that the name of the principality, as 

 well as its extent, varied during the period which 

 elapsed from its establishment as a separate margra- 

 viate in 791, to the reign of the Emperor Otho III. 

 who, in 996, gives it the present name in a written 

 document still extant. The document in question, 

 dated 1st November 996, refers to a grant of a vil- 

 lage then called Nuiwanhova, now Waidhofen, made 

 by the emperor to the church of Freisingen. " Nos 

 Otho &c. quasdam nostri juris res in regione vulgari 

 nomine Ostirrichi, in March! et in Comitatu Hain- 

 rici conutis, filii Luitpaldi marchionis in loco Nui- 



wanhova dicto : id est cum eadem carte et in proxi- Austria, 

 mo confinio adjacentes xxxx regales hobas concessi- ' v "' 

 inns." llund Metr. Salisb. cum notis Christ. Ger- 

 tvoldi. Ratisp. 1719, fol. torn. i. p. 94. 



It is probable that Oster-reich (eastern kingdom, 

 or principality) had for a considerable time been the 

 vulgar name ot the country, before the date of this 

 grant, and that the vernai ul .nguage of the peo- 

 ple was the same as it is ncv/, since its first conquest 

 and partial colonization by CharW.agne. Certain 

 it is, that they have been nearly the same f-om 996 

 to the present times. 



Austria continued a margraviate until 1156. Du- 

 ring the 4-00 years which intervened between its 

 establishment under that title and its exaltation to an 

 archduchy by the Emperor Frederick I., in favour of Exalted to 

 his friend and relative Henry If. of Austria, Ger- an Arch- 

 many had been convulsed with wars, occasioned by <J urh y un- 

 claims to the succession to it. In 1156, however, er Henr 5 

 the emperor just mentioned united Upper and Lower 

 Austria (pretty much in their present extent in 

 1810) into one dukedom, and that too with such ex- 

 tensive privileges, that its bonds of dependence as a 

 part of the foederal Germanic body were almost total- 

 ly dissolved. Henry and his successors ranked im- 

 mediately after the electors, and before all the other 

 princes and dukes ot Germany. By the solemn act 

 concluded at Ratisbon in 1156, the new dukedom 

 was declared hereditary in Henry's family ; failing of 

 males, it was to descend to females ; and, in the event 

 2 



