PLANS OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 345 



perhaps by Parliament, should send a small squadron to 

 sail in Tasman's tracks, and to get exact up-to-date informa- 

 tion, so that " we might know, as well and as certainly 

 as the Dutch, how far a colony settled there might answer 

 our expectations." " By this means all the back (East) 

 coast of New Holland and New Guinea might be thoroughly 

 examined." If the East India Company refused to do 

 its duty, this would give opportunity to the Royal African 

 Company, who might establish a colony in Madagascar, 

 and thence trade with New Guinea, or better still, with 

 New Britain, "the properest place for them to settle in," New Britain 



and a convenient centre for trading with the East Indies "the proper- 

 est place to 

 on the one side, and with Terra Australis on the other, settle in." 



If the Royal African Company also refused, here would 

 be the chance for the South Sea Company to do something 

 to justify its name. The Company had not yet sent 

 a single ship on voyage of discovery in the South Sea. 

 Here they might gain some equivalent of the lost Assiento 

 Contract. They should first settle Juan Fernandez. 

 Sailing thence, they might take slaves from New Guinea 

 to Peru. Thence also they might sail, in a two months' 

 voyage, to Van Diemen's Land. They might make a 

 settlement on the South coast of Terra Australis (Nuyts- 

 land ?), and get perchance a trade in gold and spices. 



Meanwhile, the French enemy also was thinking of The story of 

 the Southern Continent, and the direction of his thought ^nie (r^oT) 

 was determined by a curious historical incident. In 1663 published 

 there was published in Paris a book with the title " Memoirs x 

 concerning the establishment of a Christian Mission in 

 the Austral Land." The author signed himself " J.P.D.C. 

 Pretre Indien." He had a curious story to tell. In 

 1503 the Sieur de Gonneville sailed South, with the design 

 of sailing in the course of Vasco de Gama to the East 

 \ Indies. He was driven from this course by a furious 

 j storm, and cameto a large country^ which he called Southern 

 ( India^ where he stayed six months. Then he sailed home, 

 accompanied by a native prince, whom he promised 

 to return to this country " instructed in the European 



