The British ship Trial ran aground and broke up in the Monte Bello Islands group off the Western Australian coast in June 1622. Its crew arrived in Batavia and related the story of running hard aground during the night in the longitude of the western edge of Java at 20 degrees 10 minutes south latitude. Subsequent maps charted rocks in that locale, but such rocks have never been found there as they had incorrectly determined the exact position of the wreck. The incident served to support action already underway by the Directors of the Dutch East Indies Company in Datavia (modern day Jakarta) to more accurately chart the coast of New Holland.
Carstenz (Pera and Arnhem) 1623
Herman van Speult, the Governor of Amroyna, commissioned Jan Carstensz, with fellow explorer Van Colster, to sail two ships, the Arnhem and Pera, with the aim of expanding on the reports from the Duyfken, which made the first recorded sighting of the Australian coast in 1606. The coast sailed by the Duyfken was the northern section of the east coast of Cape York peninsula.
Like the Duyfken before them, the Pera and Arnhem were instructed to sail the southern coast of New Guinea and the region of the west coast of Cape York (believed to be a continuance of New Guinea). Furthermore, Carstenz was directed to carry out the broad instructions of an earlier, non-starting Dutch exploration to the area, to ascertain as much of the situation and nature of these regions as possible.
In January 1623 these ships sailed from Amboyna and to the coast of New Guinea. Coasting easterly, Carstenz was not able to make good report of the area's fruits and minerals, but did note the natives were "belligerent and cannibalistic". At one point the captain and several of the crew of the Arnhem were killed by natives.
Carstenz proceeded to the region of Torres Strait and concluded that this maze of reefs and shallows (as he moved east) could be nothing but a westward opening bay, even though a chart he was carrying indicated the high possibility of an opening to the greater Pacific, which would later be known as Torres Strait. He retracked to the west, then south along the west coast of Cape York, similar to the route the Duyfken travelled. Carstenz continued past Cape Keer-Weer, the turning point of the Duyfken, but at the Staaten River his concern of being trapped against a southern bay by a north breeze caused him to turn north again.
Soon after turning at the Staaten River, the mutinous crew of the Arnhem left Carstenz. The Pera continued gathering what information it could about the peoples and the potential trading commodities along the coast, but none of the information was optomistic to the trading interests of the Company. Carstenz returned to Amboyna on 6th June, expecting the Arnhem to have abandoned the mission and made for pleasurous ports. This apparently was not true.
Following separation from the Pera, the Arnhem was blown west across the unproven and as yet un-named Gulf of Carpenteria, making land on the east-facing shore of the opposite side. From there, she explored north and west across the top of the region that is called Arnhem Land after their vessel, before returning to home.
Pool (Klein Amsterdam / Wesel) 1636
By 1630, the Dutch had pieced together much of the picture of the western half of continental south land, but the spotty discoveries created many questions about the geography and the potential trading value of the regions below the Indo-West Pacific archipeligo. An ambitious plan for exploration of these lands was set forth and command given to Gerrit Pool in 1636. Early in the expedition, Pool was killed and the expedition was abandoned, though not before they contacted the region west of the Arnhem discoveries in and around the region of what is now named Melville Island.
Tasman (Limmen,/ Zeemeeuw / Braq) 1644
The first white man to have seen Sweers Island and the southern shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria was most likely Abel Tasman in June or July 1644, Tasman had been the first European to explore the shores of Tasmania two years earlier. He had been sent by the Dutch Governor-General with three ships, the Zeemeeuw, Limmen and Bracq, to determine whether a strait existed between New Guinea and New Holland as shown on Franco-Portuguese maps.
Tasman failed to find Torres Strait, probably because he sailed too far offshore, however he did map the north coast of Australia, making observations on the land and its people. The dissatisfaction with Tasman's voyage is best reflected in that a further exploratory expedition was sent to the same area with almost identical orders in 1756. Presumably, that expedition returned with a similarly disappointing report.
Although rebuked by the directors of the Dutch East India Company for unremunerative exploration - "Why bother about barren and remote countries inhabited by wild and unprofitable savages?" - Tasman's rank of commander was confirmed and, in November 1644, he was appointed to the Council of Justice in Batavia.
In May 1648 Tasman was put in charge of an expedition sent to Manila to try to intercept and loot Spanish silver ships coming from America, but he had no success and returned to Batavia in January 1649. Later that year he was charged and found guilty of having in the previous year hanged one of his men without trial, was suspended from his office of commander, fined, and made to pay compensation to the relatives of the sailor. Tasman retired from the Company in 1651, becoming a wealthy merchant until his death in 1659.
Maarten van Delft (de Vossenbosch, Waaier and Nova Hollandia) 1705
Three ships - de Vossenbosch, Waaier and Nova Hollandia - under the command of Commander Maarten van Delft explored the Gulf of Carpentaria and the northern coast of New Holland.
Lavienne Lodewijk van Asschens (Rijder, Buis) 1756
The ships Rijder, with Captain Jean Gonzal, and Buis, skippered by Captain Lavienne Lodewijk van Asschens, further explored the Gulf of Carpentaria making landfall a number of times.
Exit The Dutch - Enter The British
By the time the great Dutch East India Company went bankrupt and was formally dissolved in 1800, 30 years had passed since British navigator Lieut. James Cook in HMS Endeavour had sailed up the east coast of Australia and claimed it for Britain.
The British followed up on Cook's claim in January 1788 when they establishied a penal colony in New South Wales, which was the birthplce of contemporary Australia.
As the majority of sightings and landings up until Cook had been Dutch, the land had inherited the name New Holland. Though the Dutch Government never bothered to validate the territorial claim of New Holland made by one of its navigators (it was also claimed by a Frenchman, but he was thrown into gaol for his actions!), it was nonetheless seen as Dutch territory by the rest of the world.
This was acknowledged by Cook when he claimed only the east coast of Australia for Britain. The place where he did this - Possession Island, off the tip of Cape York - before leaving Australia's shores, was just just 250 kilometres north of Pennefather River in the Gulf of Carpentaria, where the crew of the Duyfken had made the first recorded landfall 164 years earlier.
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