INTRODUCTION. 
xviii 
of its coasts : during the seventeenth cen- 
tury several voyages were made by differ- 
ent Dutch navigators, from whom we have 
the first-recorded description of its shores ; 
but from the jealous disposition of their 
East India Company, under whose orders 
these voyages were performed, the ac- 
counts of them were so concealed, and 
consequently lost or destroyed, that few 
particulars of a detailed nature have been 
handed down *. 
* In the voyages of Gautier Schouten, published at 
Amsterdam in 1708, duod. vol. i. p. 41, et seep, there 
is the following curious account of the wreck of a ship 
on the coast of New Holland 
« II me semble que je ne dois pas omettre ici une his» 
toire, de la certitude de laquelle on n’eut pas lieu de 
douter. Des-que la nouvelle fut venue a Batavia, [Anno 
1659,] que le vaisseau le Dragon , qui venoit de Hol- 
lande aux Indes, avoit fait naufrage sur les cotes d’une 
Terre Australe inconnue, on y envoia la flute laBouee a 
la V exile , pour ramener ceux des gens de 1 equipage qui 
auroient pu se sauver, et les efets qui auroient et6 con- 
servez. 
“ La flute fetant conduite par ceux qui 6toient echapez 
