What is here called the West, must have been the North-west Coast; which the vessels appear to have made somewhat to the south of the western Cape Van Diemen.  The point which they passed, was probably this same Cape itself; and in a chart, published by Mr. Dalrymple, Aug. 27, 1783, from a Dutch manuscript (possibly a copy of that which Struyck had seen), a shoal, of thirty geographic miles in length, is marked as running off, from it; but incorrectly, according to Mr. Mc.  Cluer.  The gulph here mentioned, was probably a deep bay in Arnhem’s Land; for had it been the Gulph of Carpentaria, some particular mention of the great change in the direction of the coast, would, doubtless, have been made.

From this imperfect account of the voyage of these three vessels, very little satisfactory information is obtained; and this, with some few exceptions, is the case with all the accounts of the early Dutch discoveries; and has usually been attributed to the monopolizing spirit of their East-India Company, which induced it to keep secret, or to destroy, the journals.

COOK. 1770.

The north coast of Terra Australis does not appear to have been seen by any succeeding navigator, until the year 1770; when our celebrated captain JAMES COOK passed through Endeavour’s Strait, between Cape York and the Prince of Wales’ Islands; and besides clearing up the doubt which, till then, existed, of the actual separation of Terra Australis from New Guinea, his more accurate observations enabled geographers to assign something like a true place to the former discoveries of the Dutch, in these parts.  Captain Cook did not land upon the main; but, at Possession Island, he saw ten natives:  “Nine of them were armed with such lances as we had been accustomed to see, and the tenth had a bow, and a bundle of arrows, which we had never seen in the possession of the natives of this country before.” *

[* Hawkesworth’s Voyages, Vol.  III. page 211.]

Mc.  CLUER. 1791.

At the end of the year 1791, lieutenant JOHN Mc.  CLUER of the Bombay marine, in returning from the examination of the west side of New Guinea, made the Land of Arnhem, in longitude 1351/4 deg., east of Greenwich.  He then sailed westward, along the shore, to 129 deg. 55’; when the coast was found to take a southern direction.  The point of turning is placed in 11 deg. 15’ south latitude; and is, doubtless, the Cape Van Diemen of the old charts, and the west extremity of the north coast of Terra Australis.

It does not appear that any other account has been given of this navigation, than the chart published by Mr. Dalrymple, in 1792.  According to it, though lieutenant Mc.  Cluer constantly had soundings, in from 7 to 40 fathoms; yet he was generally at such a distance from the land, that it was not often seen; and, consequently, he was unable to identify the particular points.  No landing seems to have been effected upon the main; but some service was rendered to navigation, by ascertaining the positions of several small islands, shoals, and projecting parts of the coast; and in conferring a certain degree of authenticity upon the discoveries of the early Dutch navigators.