EARLY DISCOVERIES. 



royal master that the Dutch Hast India Company had long been aware of the existence 

 of a rich unknown country to the southward of Java, but fearing commercial competi- 

 tion and having already more trade than it could satisfactorily protect, the knowledge 

 was suppressed under threatened penalties of the severest description. 



International hatreds and jealousies were doubtless the cause of so many years of 

 uncertainty as to the value of the unknown land. There was a bitter rivalry between 

 the Spanish and Portuguese 

 Governments for the world's 

 commerce and the extension 

 of their colonial possessions, 

 and the famous Bull of Pope 

 Alexander VI., by denning 

 the different portions of the 

 earth's surface in which each 

 power might energetically 

 prosecute maritime discovery, 

 endeavoured to promote har- 

 mony and avoid a cause of 

 quarrel between these irascible 

 nations. It is, however, more 

 than probable that the peace- 

 able designs of the Pontiff 

 were defeated by the confi- 

 guration of the globe itself, 

 and that the early Portu- 

 guese discoverers were appre- 

 hensive that the continent 

 fell within the limit of the 

 Spanish boundary ; hence they 

 were little inclined to lay claim ANTONY VAN IMKMKN. 



to the honour of a discovery 



the substantial benefits of which would accrue to their hated, stronger, and too often 

 successful rivals. The Dutch were at war with the Spaniards, and might well have 

 dreaded the possibility of having them for close neighbours in the South ; France appears 

 to have had no interest in the prosecution of maritime discovery until a much later 

 period, and there is no record of England having been in any way identified with the 

 new Continent prior to the landing of Dampier on the north-west coast in 1688. 



In the year 1606, the expedition of De Quiros, as he is called by the Spaniards, 

 discovered the largest island of the New Hebrides Group, and supposing that this 

 must be the Great Southern Land of ancient tradition, " la qnarta partc del iinindo Aus- 

 trialia incognita" he bestowed upon it the name of " Terra Aitstrialia del Espiritu 

 Santo." But it is not so much as a discoverer as the apostle of discovery that De 

 Quir will be remembered. In the language of W. A. Duncan in the preface to his 

 translation of the " Rclacion " of "El Capitan Pedro Fernandez dc Ouir " : "It seems 







