CHAPTER XVI 



TASMAN'S VOYAGE OF 1644 



AUTHORITY : 

 HEERES' Tasman. 



GOVERNOR-GENERAL and Council heard Tasman's " happy " Dutch 

 news with calmness. He had discovered two lands of calmness - 

 an apparently unprofitable character, and he claimed 

 that he had discovered a passage from the Indian Ocean 

 into the South Sea through which ships might sail to the 

 gold-bearing coast of Chili ; a claim that needed investi- 

 gation by more inquisitive successors. He had "found 

 no treasures or matters of great profit." Yet officers 

 and crew should have their reward : the former two 

 months' pay, the latter one month's pay. " Our Masters " 

 in Amsterdam heard the news with calmness so great 

 that they did not think it worth while to say anything 

 about it. 



Governor-General and Council, however, thought the 

 news about the alleged passage " promising " enough 

 to justify another voyage, which should seek to make 

 way thereby to Chili, form alliance and trade connec- 

 tions with the Chilese, and with God's aid obtain some 

 good booty in the South Sea. But the plan for a voyage in Plan of a 



October 1643 was frustrated by new war with " the over ge 1 

 bold Portuguese," who were, no doubt, " bringing about 

 their own destruction," but were, unhappily, at the 

 same time " doing the Spaniards such staunch service 

 that for the moment we are forced to leave the latter 

 unmolested in the South Sea, and elsewhere." But they 

 resolved to stand by the plan, and to send the voyage 



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