It Is, Secondly,
Observable, That As New Guinea, Carpentaria, And New Holland, Had
Been Already Pretty Well Examined, Captain Tasman
Fell directly to
the south of these; so that his first discovery was Van Diemen's
Land, the most southern part
Of the continent on this side the
globe, and then passing round by New Zealand, he plainly discovered
the opposite side of that country towards America, though he visited
the islands only, and never fell in again with the continent till he
arrived on the coast of New Britain, which he mistook for that of
New Guinea, as he very well might; that country having never been
suspected to be an island, till Dampier discovered it to be such in
the beginning of the present century. 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:
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