442 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



Batavia the country is named New Wales; 1 which seems 

 to show that the name was given in the course of the 

 voyage from Cape York to Batavia. In the two copies 

 of Cook's Journal, which were written apparently on the 

 voyage from Batavia to England, 2 the name is " New 

 South Wales." And Banks, perhaps at the same date, 

 corrected his headline as follows : " Some account of 

 that part of New Holland now called New South Wales." 3 

 When Dr. Hawkesworth, using the Journals of Cook 

 and Banks, wrote his account of the voyage, he. generally 

 called the country " New Holland " ; but he wrote " New 

 Wales " once (vol. iii. p. 649), and New South Wales twice 

 (vol. iii. pp. 616 and 622).* There seems to be no evidence 

 as to Cook's reason for giving the name of New Wales, 

 and for changing that name to New South Wales. 5 



1 " New Wales " is written on a space from which other words had 

 been erased. I thought that patient study of the erased words might 

 throw light on this curious problem. But, as far as I can make out, 

 what the clerk wrote first was " New Whales " ! The pages of this 

 part of the Journal are headed : " New Wales, or East Coast of New 

 Holland." 



2 Cf . Banks's reference to "the Captain's own journals which the 

 clerk has copied." 



3 See photo, p. 443. 



4 Historical Records of N.S.W., vol. i. part i. p. 170. 



5 In an interesting letter in the Sydney Morning Herald, agth Jan., 

 1921, Captain James H. Watson, a very thorough and helpful student 

 of early Australian history, points to the curious fact that a territory in 

 Hudson's Bay was called New Wales, South Wales, and New South 

 Wales. If Cook, on his homeward voyage, turned over the multi- 

 tudinous leaves of Harris's Voyages, vol. ii. (1744-1748 edition) I do 

 not remember evidence that it was in the Endeavour's library, but 

 surely it was he would have read (p. 245) that in 1611 Thomas Button, 

 a Welshman, discovered " a great continent called by him New Wales." 

 On p. 413 he would have read that in 1621 Thomas James named the 

 land " the Principality of South Wales." On p. 284 he would have read 

 " all that country goes by the name of New South Wales ; and on p. 404 

 that Button " discovered another country to which he gave the name 

 of New South Wales." If he had turned to the atlas of Robert de 

 Vaugondy, geographer of Louis XV., dated 1751 surely it also was in 

 the Endeavour's library he would have found that the author, after 

 describing James's discovery, wrote " all the entrance of this bay was 

 called New South Wales." 



" This New South Wales," writes Captain Watson, " must have been 

 known to Cook, as, being on the charts of the period, it must have come 

 under his notice during the time he was engaged on survey work on the 

 coast of Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence River." It would seem 



