HISTORY. 
205 
It was doubtless appointed that the discoveries of Columbus 
should first be peopled, and when the way for their being so 
was opened out, that then the attention of our age should be 
directed to Australasia and Polynesia. 
Ihe earliest claim set up for the discovery of New Zealand, 
is advanced by the French, in behalf of their countryman, 
the Sieur Binot Paulnier, who sailed from France in June 
1503, pursuing a south-west course to 60° south lat.; he then 
veered towards the west north-west and north-west, when he 
fell in with many strange lands, and finally reached a large 
continent, peopled by a numerous race of amiable savages, 
amongst whom he remained above a year, and quitted with 
regret July 3, 1504. The son of one of the chiefs accompanied 
him to France, and afterwards married into his family. The 
account of his course is too vague to make out anything 
satisfactory from it, but there is little probability that his 
amiable savages were New Zealanders ; as they would have 
been more inclined to regard the Sieur as a fit subject to 
exercise their gastronomic powers upon. The description 
seems rather to apply to the natives of the Philippine Isles, 
and this west north-west and north-west course was as likely 
to bring him there as to New Zealand. 
In 1576, Juan Fernandez sailed from South Western 
America for about a month, in a south-west direction, and 
reached a land, fertile and pleasant, inhabited by white people, 
well made, and dressed in a kind of woven cloth. This also is 
a very vague account: the description will apply to the Tahai- 
tian as well as to the New Zealander, and the length of the 
voyage would be more likely to bring him to that island than 
to New Zealand; for even in the present day, six weeks is 
considered a quick passage from New Zealand to South 
America. 
On the 14th of August 1642, Abel Tasman sailed from 
Batavia, with two vessels, the Heemshirk and the Zeehaen; 
on the 9th of September, he was in lat. 42° 37' south, and 
Ion. 176° 29', the variation being 3° to the east; on the 13th, 
being in lat. 42° 10', variation 7° 30' east, he discovered a 
high mountainous country. The natives played on a kind of 
