Thirdly, By This Survey,
These Countries Are For Ever Marked Out, So Long As The Map Or
Memory Of This Voyage, Shall Remain.
The Dutch East India Company
have it always in their power to direct settlements, or new
discoveries, either in New Guinea, from the Moluccas, or in New
Holland, from Batavia directly.
The prudence shown in the conduct
of this affair deserves the highest praise. To have attempted
heretofore, or even now, the establishing colonies in those
countries, would be impolitic, because it would be grasping more
than the East India Company, or than even the republic of Holland,
could manage; for, in the first place, to reduce a continent between
three and four thousand miles broad is a prodigious undertaking, and
to settle it by degrees would be to open to all the world the
importance of that country which, for anything we can tell, may be
much superior to any country yet known: the only choice, therefore,
that the Dutch had left, was to reserve this mighty discovery till
the season arrived, in which they should be either obliged by
necessity or invited by occasion to make use of it; but though this
country be reserved, it is no longer either unknown or neglected by
the Dutch, which is a point of very great consequence. To the other
nations of Europe, the southern continent is a chimera, a thing in
the clouds, or at least a country about which there are a thousand
doubts and suspicions, so that to talk of discovering or settling it
must be regarded as an idle and empty project: but, with respect to
them, it is a thing perfectly well known; its extent, its
boundaries, its situation, the genius of its several nations, and
the commodities of which they are possessed, are absolutely within
their cognisance, so that they are at liberty to take such measures
as appear to them best, for securing the eventual possession of this
country, whenever they think fit. This account explains at once all
the mysteries which the best writers upon this subject have found in
the Dutch proceedings. It shows why they have been at so much pains
to obtain a clear and distinct survey of these distant countries;
why they have hitherto forborne settling, and why they take so much
pains to prevent other nations from coming at a distinct knowledge
of them: and I may add to this another particular, which is that it
accounts for their permitting the natives of Amboyna, who are their
subjects, to carry on a trade to New Guinea, and the adjacent
countries, since, by this very method, it is apparent that they gain
daily fresh intelligence as to the product and commodities of those
countries. Having thus explained the consequence of Captain
Tasman's voyage, and thereby fully justified my giving it a place in
this part of my work, I am now at liberty to pursue the reflections
with which I promised to close this section, and the history of
circumnavigators, and in doing which, I shall endeavour to make the
reader sensible of the advantages that arise from publishing these
voyages in their proper order, so as to show what is, and what is
yet to be discovered of the globe on which we live.
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