They Next Coasted The North Side Of New Britain And New Guinea, And Arrived
At Batavia In October, 1616.[5]
Except some discoveries on the western and northern coasts of New Holland,
no important voyage to the Pacific Ocean
Was undertaken till 1642, when
Captain Tasman sailed from Batavia, with two ships belonging to the Dutch
East India Company, and discovered Van Diemen's Land; a small part of the
western coast of New Zealand; the Friendly Isles; and those called Prince
William's.[6]
Thus far I have thought it best not to interrupt the progress of discovery
in the South Pacific Ocean, otherwise I should before have mentioned, that
Sir Richard Hawkins in 1594, being about fifty leagues to the eastward of
the river Plate, was driven by a storm to the eastward of his intended
course, and when the weather grew moderate, steering towards the Straits of
Magalhaens, he unexpectedly fell in with land, about sixty leagues of which
he coasted, and has very particularly described. This he named Hawkins's
Maiden Land, in honour of his royal mistress, Queen Elizabeth, and says it
lies some threescore leagues from the nearest part of South America.
This land was afterwards discovered to be two large islands, by Captain
John Strong, of the Farewell, from London, who, in 1689, passed through the
strait which divides the eastern from the western of those islands. To this
strait he gave the name of Falkland's Sound, in honour of his patron Lord
Falkland; and the name has since been extended, through inadvertency, to
the two islands it separates.
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