History of New South Wales
From the Records
VOLUME 1 - GOVERNOR PHILLIP 1783-1789
G. B. Barton - 1889
PART I
Australia A Hundred Years Ago
WHO it was that originally applied the name Australia to the land once known to geographers as Terra Australis Incognita, and afterwards as New Holland, has been a standing subject of discussion for many years. When Phillip was sent out on his colonising expedition, the word Australia was certainly not in common use. The whole of the territory included within the limits of his Commission was known as New South Wales; the rest of the continent still retaining the title given by the Dutchmen to that portion of it which they claimed by virtue of discovery (1). It was not till many years afterwards that these names gave place to that of Australia as the designation of the whole continent. Flinders has been generally credited with the selection, or at least with the first public application of the word, in his Voyage to Terra Australis, published in 1814, in which he wrote:-
Had I permitted myself any innovation upon the original term, Terra Australis, it would have been to convert it into AUSTRALIA, as being more agreeable to the ear and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth.
The collection of charts published with the narrative of his voyage contains a preliminary one entitled - "General Chart of Terra Australis, or Australia." This chart having necessarily come into the hands of navigators and geographers, it may be supposed that the name applied to the country by Flinders was gradually adopted by them in the first instance, and so met with general acceptation. The change of name suggested by him seems to have been effected during the ten years which succeeded the publication of his work (2). But it would not be correct to say that he was the first geographer to make use of the word. He had seen it in Dalrymple's Collection of Voyages in the South Pacific (3) - a work which, comprising, as it did, all the geographical knowledge on the subject at that time, was certainly well known to Flinders. The author was a great authority on geography during the period in which he wrote - a fact sufficiently shown by his appointment as hydrographer to the Admiralty. In the introduction to his Collection of Voyages, alluding to the different divisions of his work adopted by de Brosses in his Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes, Dalrymple said:-
I have inserted another head of partition, AUSTRALIA, comprehending the discoveries at a distance from America to the eastward.
Under this title he classified "all the lands and islands to the eastward of South America." The idea was probably suggested by the name Austral-Asia, applied by de Brosses to the discoveries in the South Pacific, exclusive of those to which he had given the names Magellanica and Polynesia (4). As de Brosses may be fairly credited with the authorship of the term Australasia, there seems equal reason for attributing to Dalrymple the definite application of the name Australia to this country, although he gave a much more extended meaning to it in his work than we do now. The Histoire was published in 1756, fourteen years before Dalyrmple's work appeared; consequently the two publications were in the hands of every French and English geographer of the time. That Flinders was well acquainted with the writings of the English geographer is evident from his work; he quotes in his introduction, for instance, a paper translated by Dalrymple, of which he says that it "furnishes more regular and authentic accounts of the early Dutch discoveries in the East than anything with which the public was before acquainted." The paper referred to was "a copy of the instructions to Commodore Abel Jansz Tasman for his second voyage of discovery," which had been procured from the Dutch authorities by Sir Joseph Banks.
Although Flinders expressed his appreciation of the name which soon afterwards became an established title in geography, it is singular that he should have rejected it in favour of the old term Terra Australis. That he did so, and after mature consideration of the matter, is clear from his own words:-
It is necessary to geographical precision that so soon as New Holland and New South Wales were known to form one land, there should be a general name applicable to the whole; and this essential point having been established in the present voyage with a degree of certainty sufficient to authorise the measure, I have, with the concurrence of opinions entitled to deference, ventured upon the re-adoption of the original Terra Australis; and of this term I shall hereafter make use when speaking of new Holland and New South Wales in a collective sense; and when using it in the most extended signification, the adjacent isles, including that of Van Diemen's Land, must be understood to be comprehended.
This attempt to revive Terra Australis as the designation of the continent was not destined to succeed; on the contrary, the name seems to have wholly disappeared at the very time when it was expected to become popular again. It might be supposed that a practical seaman like Flinders would have been the last to adopt a suggestion which could only find favour among the pedantic geographers of his day, whose attention was concentrated on the mere history of discovery in the South Sea. Historical continuity was no doubt in favour of the old classical phrase; but as soon as the navigation of the Pacific became a mercantile speculation rather than a voyage of discovery, the question of terminology had to be settled by shipowners and their captains, whose necessities would require a more appropriate name than either Terra Australis or New Holland. The admirable charts constructed by Flinders of course superceded the old ones, from which geographers and navigators alike had previously derived their information respecting the Great South Land. Each of his charts was entitled - "Chart of Terra Australis," excepting the preliminary one, which, as already mentioned, was termed - "General Chart of Terra Australis, or Australia." The Narrative of his Voyage, too, was described on the title-page of his work as a Voyage to Terra Australis. Thus he made it clear that, notwithstanding his personal preference for Australia, he had finally settled in his own mind the name which the country was to bear in future times.
It may be said, no doubt, that if Flinders was not the first to apply the term Australia to this continent, neither was Dalrymple; seeing he found the original form of the word - Austrialia - in a memorial presented by de Quiros to the King of Spain, which appeared in a work well-known to geographers - Purchas, His Pilgrimes, published in 1625. The word Australia is substituted for Austrialia in a note appended to this memorial, entitled - "a note of Australia del Espiritu Santo, written by Master Hakluyt (5)." The memorial was also translated and published by Dalrymple in his Collection of Voyages, and consequently he had the indirect authority of de Quiros for applying the name of Australia to all the lands and islands to the eastward of South America. The land discovered by the Portuguese navigator was named by him la Austrialia del Espiritu Santo (6), which Dalrymple translated "The Australia del Espiritu Santo" - a curious compound of English and Spanish. The literal rendering of the title would be - "The Southern Land of the Holy Spirit;" and in substituting "The Australia" for the "Southern Land," Dalrymple was apparently exercising his own judgment in the selection of an appropriate name. But de Quiros, again, was not in any sense the originator of the name in question; he did nothing more than translate the old Latin term into Spanish, just as the French geographers rendered it into their language in the shape of La Terre Australe. One of the earlist records in which that title can be found is an old French map - "faicte à Arques par Pierre Descelliers, pbre: (presbytére) Jan: 1550" - in which a conjectural outline of the Great South Land is named La Terre Australle (7). The derivation of Australia from the old Latin, French, and Spanish names is so obvious that it would be useless to discuss the question of its authorship. The most rational supposition is that it came into vogue in much the same manner as the word America derived its existence from Amerigo - by a species of spontaneous generation. The distinction of authorship cannot be claimed either for Flinders, Dalrymple, de Quiros, or any other geographer in whose writings it may have appeared; but undoubtedly the publication in 1814 of the chart in which Flinders distinctly gave this name to the continent, may be said to have been mainly instrumental in fixing its place finally in our geography (8).
As there is no reason for supposing that the name Australia came into general use before 1820, it is clear that in Phillip's days it was to all intents and purposes unknown. New South Wales for the territory he was sent to govern, and New Holland for the rest of the continent, were the only names with which he could have been acquainted. Even if we suppose that he had met with the word Australia in Dalrymple's pages, he could not officially recognise any other names than those which he found on the charts which had been placed in his hands. Practically there was but one chart - that which had been constructed by Captain Cook while exploring the eastern coast from Point Hicks to Cape York. The rest of the continent was known only through the imperfect charts which had been made up from the voyages of the Dutch navigators and Dampier. How imperfect those charts were may be seen at a glance by comparing the map of New Holland, published by Stockdale in 1787 (9), with a map of Australia at the present time. The straits which separated the coast-line of New Holland from that of Van Diemen's Land had not been discovered, and the latter was consequently regarded as forming part of the mainland. Phillip's jurisdiction was supposed to stretch in an unbroken line from the South Cape to Cape York; and even the configuration of the southern coast, including that of Van Diemen's Land, was a matter of conjecture.
ABOVE: Chart of New Holland and Botany Bay
NOTES:
(1) "The original name, used by the Dutch themselves until some time after Tasman's second voyage in 1644, was Terra Australis or Great South Land; and when it was displaced by New Holland, the new term was applied only to the parts lying westward of a meridian line passing through Arnheim's Land on the north, and near the Isles of St. Francis and St. Peter on the south; all to the eastward, including the shores of the Gulph of Varpentaria, still remained as Terra Australis." - Flinders, Introduction, p. ii.
(2) In the first edition of his Description of the Colony, published in 1819, Wentworth referred to it simply as situated on the east coast of New Holland; but in the third edition, published in 1824, he added, that "the most eminent modern geographers have given to it the most appropriate name of Australia." The change of name would seem to have taken place between those dates. O'Hara's History of New South Wales, the first edition of which appeared in 1817, and the second in 1818, made no mention of Australia in either, using the old name only. As it may be assumed that neither O'Hara nor Wentworth would have overlooked a point of so much interest as the adoption of a new name for the territory, had it occurred previously to the time when they compiled their works, the change may be said to date from about 1820. See note, p. 92.
(3) An Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean, by Alexander Dalrymple, Esq., London, 1770. In his work on the Early Voyages to Terra Australis, now called Australia, published by the Hakluyt Society in 1859, the author, R.H. Major, speaks of Dalrymple as one "to whom, perhaps next to Hakluyt, this country is the most largely indebted for its commercial prosperity." According to the introduction to Cook's Third Voyage, it was owing to "the great sagacity and exceeding reading of Mr. Dalrymple" that Torres track through the straits named after him was brought to light, the geographer having pointed it out in his Chart of Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean before 1764. Dalrymple was born in 1737 and died in 1808. Among his numerous productions was an anonymous pamphlet, published in 1786, in which he attacked the proposal to found a colony at Botany Bay; post, p. 468.
(4) Captain Sturt, alluding in the preface to his Two Expeditions, 1833, to the change of name from New Holland to Australia which had taken place "of late years," said:- The change was, I believe, introduced by the celebrated French geographer, Malte Brun, who, in his division of the globe, gave the appellation of Austral-asis and Polynesia to the new discovered lands in the Southern Ocean." So far from introducing the name in question, Malte Brun endeavoured to suppress it in favour of his own invention - Oceanica:- "The fifth part of the world will be called Oceanica, and its inhabitants Oceanians; names which will supercede the unmeaning or inaccurate designations of Australasia, Notasia, Austral India, and Australia." Nor was it Malte Brun, but de Brosses, who introduced the name of Australasia and Polynesia. The first volume of the Geographie Universelle appeared in 1810.
(5) Purchas, vol. iv, p. 1426-7-9.
(6) He is supposed to have given this name for two reasons; first, because Philip the Third, King of Spain, was head of the House of Austria; and secondly, because possession of the country had been taken on the King's birthday, the festival of the Holy Spirit. Austrialia was therefore a distinctly different word from Australia. The eastern coast of New Holland, previous to the time of Cook's discoveries, was known on the maps by the name given by de Quiros. In the Carte Générale, published in 1756 by de Brosses with his Histoire des Navigations, the eastern coast is marked Terre du St. Esprit, and a point on the coast is termed Manicolo. The New Hebrides had not then been explored, and geographers had generally accepted de Quiros' assertion that he had discovered the veritable Terra Australis. Captain Cook, when sailing off Cape Tribulation, in June, 1770, wrote:- "We were now near the latitude assigned to the islands which were discovered by Quiros, and which some geographers, for what reason I know not, have thought fir to join to this land." For many years after Cook's time, de Quiros was looked upon as the first discoverer of the country. Wentworth, in his Account of the British Settlements in Austral-asia, 1824, wrote:- "New Holland is said to have been discovered by the Spanish captain, Don Pedro Fernando de Quiros, in 1609;" although in the first edition of his work the discovery was attributed to the Dutch in 1616. He had evidently not read, or had forgotten, the summary of Australian discovery given by Flinders in the introduction to his Voyage, p. viii, in which the claim of de Quiros to the discovery in question takes its proper place.
(7) The original map is in the British Museum, but fac-similes of it were obtained for the Public Libraries of Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. In another map of the same period, attributed to John Rotz, hydrographer, 1542, an outline of a large southern continent is named Jave la Grande. A curious resemblance between some of the names marked on this map of Jave la Grande and those given by Captain Cook to his discoveries, formed the subject of some animated discussions among the geographers, reviewed by Major in his Early Voyages to Terra Australis.
Captain Burney also remarked the resemblance in his History of the Discoveries in the South Sea, 1803, vol. i, p. 381:- "The coast here (of Jave la Grande) has nearly the same direction with the corresponding part of New Holland, but is continued far to the south; and by a very extraordinary coincidence, immediately beyond the latitude of 30 degrees, the country is named Coste des herbaiges, answering in climate and in name to Botany Bay. The many instances of similitude to the present charts, which are to be found in the general outline of this land, it is not easy to imagine were produced solely by chance."
These maps formed the subject of an interesting Paper read by J.H. Maiden, Esq., F.L.S., F.R.G.S., Curator of the Technological Museum at Sydney, before the New South Wales branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, on the 26th August, 1886; and published in the Transaction of the Society, vol. iv, p. 91.
(8) "In a despatch to Lord Bathurst, of April 4th, 1817, Governor Macquarie acknowledges the receipt of Captain Flinders' charts of 'Australia.' This is the first time that the name of Australia appears to have been officially employed. The Governor underlines the word. He states that it was in pursuance of his lordship's despatch of April 18th, 1816, that the expedition for prosecuting the discoveries recently made to the wetward of the Blue Mountains had been fitted out; and, in a private letter to Mr. Secretary Goulburn, M.P., of December 21st, 1817, says, speaking of the expedition which had sailed that very morning for the west coast of Australia: - Lieutenant King expects to be absent from Port Jackson between eight and nine months; and, I trust, in that time, will be able to make very important additions to the geographical knowledge already acquired of the continent of Australia; which, I hope, will be the name given to this country in the future, instead of the very erroneous and misapplied name hitherto given to it of New Holland, which, properly speaking, only applies to part of this immense continent." - Labilliere's Early History of Victoria, p. 184.
The natives of Australia are referred to by de Brosses, Histoire, p. 17, as les Australiens, but he does not apply the name to the country. So also in a French work of fiction - Les Avantures de Jacques Sadeur, published in Geneva in 1676 - the savages are described as les Australiens, but the corresponding name is not applied to the country; although in the English translation it is applied. This work, which was published in 1693, appears to be the second English publication in which the name Australia can be found. In Callander's translation, from de Brosses, of "Gonneville's Voyage to Australasia," the word "Australians" is used as equivalent to les Austraux.
In Bayle's Dictionary, the first edition of which appeared in 1710, the word "Australia" occurs three times in note [G], art. Sadeur. "Lastlt, the relations of voyages being very much in vogue at that time, he compleated his works by his Australia, as he calls it." The country was not called Australia in Sadeur, but la Terre Australe. Bayle also speaks of "the Australians" in note [D].
It may be mentioned here that Captain Cook, under date 13 August, 1770, speaks of "the islands which were discovered by Quiros, and called Australia del Espiritu Santo." The name Australia was consequently not unknown to Cook.
In the introduction to Cook's Third Voyage, published in 1784, the writer asks, p. xiii, - "Who has not heard, or read, of the boasted Australia del Espiritu Santo of Quiros?"
The following passage occurs in a work on the Zoology of New Holland, published by Dr. George Shaw in 1794 (p. 2):-
"The vast island or rather continent of Australia, Australasia, or New Holland, which has so lately attracted the particular attention of European navigators and naturalists, seems to abound in scenes of peculiar wildness and sterility."
The terms GREATER AUSTRALIA and LESSER AUSTRALIA are employed in a chart of the Missionary Ship Duff's voyage in 1796-7-8, to distinguish those countries of the Pacific Ocean which lie southward of the tropics. The Voyage was published in 1799.
And in the "Chart of the islands discovered in the South Sea to the year 1620," prefixed to vol. ii of Burney's History of the Voyages and Discoveries in the South Sea (1806), the islands discovered by de Quiros are marked "AUSTRALIA del Espiritu Santo;" - that name being used frequently by the same author in his account of the voyage of de Quiros, pp. 299-320; see also Apendix No. II.
(9) The History of New Holland, from its first discovery in 1616 to the present time, with a particular account of its produce and inhabitants; and a description of Botany Bay. London, 1787.
Some intersting communications on the antiquities of Australian geography will be found in Notes and Queries, 7th series, under the title "Australia and the Ancients;" see i, pp. 408, 492; ii, pp. 36, 97; v, p. 356.
