24 



the centre of Australia was written the simple word " Unex- 

 plored," almost the only names appearing on the Western 

 Coast were those Riven 200 years before by the captains of 

 the ships of the Dutch East India Company in the early years 

 of the 17th century. Beginning with Nuyts Land in the 

 Great Australian Bight, and going north, we had Leeuwin 

 Land, Edel Land, Eendragt Land, De Wit, Land, and Arnhem 

 Land. A few names still remain as evidence of the Dutch 

 discoveries — Cape Leeuwin, Houtinan's Abrolhos, Dirk 

 Hartog's Island, and the Gulf of Carpentaria. 



Such was the state of Dutch knowledge of Australia when 

 Antony Van Diemen became Governor-General of the Dutch 

 Indies' in the year 1636. Van Diemen was one of the most 

 notable of the "many notable men who served the East India 

 Company in the early years of its power. Being involved in 

 debt he "had gone to the Indies, either to escape his creditors 

 or to retrieve his fortunes. He showed so much capacity that 

 he was appointed Secretary to Governor-General Coen. From 

 this time his rise was rapid. In 1626 he became one of the 

 Councillors of the Indies, and, after important, services, he was 

 appointed Governor-General, in 1639.* 



He came to his government at a time when the Dutch 

 power had been so firmly consolidated by Coen, Carpentier, 

 Brouwer, and others of his predecessors in office, that, the 

 Dutch were undisputed masters of the Eastern Archipelago, 

 and had a virtual' monopoly of the trade. Freed from the 

 difficulties with the native powers and foreign rivals which 

 had embarrassed his predecessors, he had the leisure and the 

 means to prosecute new enterprises. His zeal for discoveries 

 which might bring increased wealth and power to his Company 

 was unbounded, and is shown not only by his frequent 

 despatches on the subject to the Council of Seventeen in 

 Holland, but by the expeditions which he planned and sent, 

 out during the term of his nine years' government. 



It will be observed that the first attempts at exploration from 

 the Dutch East India Settlements were directed to the regions 

 east of the Banda Sea, and had for their chief object the 

 exploration of New Guinea, and especially the determination 

 of the question whether New Guinea and the known South 

 Land formed one continent, or whether there was a strait, 

 between them by which access could be gained to the Great, 

 South Sea. It was to the solution of this problem that Van 

 Diemen first applied himself in the very year in which he 

 received his appointment as Governor-General, ignorant of 

 the fact that the Spaniard Torres had already solved the 



* Du Bois : Vies ties Gouverimirs Qen&ravx. 



