Your Worships’ servant to command

H. CLAESSEN VAN HILLEGOM.

* * * * *

IX.

(1618).  VOYAGE OF THE SHIP MAURITIUS FROM THE NETHERLANDS TO INDIA UNDER THE COMMAND OF SUPERCARGO WILLEM JANSZ OR JANSZOON AND SKIPPER LENAERT JACOBSZ(OON).  FURTHER DISCOVERY OF THE WEST-COAST OF AUSTRALIA.—­WILLEMS-RIVER.

Letter Of supercargo WILLFM JANSZ(OON) to the Managers of the Amsterdam Chamber, Oclober 6, 1618.

A.

Worshipful Wise Provident Discreet Gentlemen,

(Sailed 1000 miles to eastward in in 38 degrees with notable success.)

The present serves only to inform you that on the 8th of June last with the ship Mauritius we passed Cape de bon esperence, with strong westerly winds, so that we deemed it inadvisable to call at any land, after which we ran a thousand miles to eastward in 38 degrees Southern Latitude, though we should have wished to go still further east.

{Page 13}

On the 31st of July we discovered an island and landed on the same, where we found the marks of human footsteps—­on the west-side it extends N.N.E. and S.S.W.; it measures 15 miles in length, and its northern extremity is in 22 deg.  S. Lat.  It bears Eendracht S.S.E. and N.N.W. from the south-point of Sunda at 240 miles’ distance; from there (Eendrachtsland [*]) through God’s grace we safely arrived before Bantam on the 22nd of August...

[* This marginal note was made by an official of the East India Company, when the letter had reached its destination.]

Done on board the ship ’t Wapen van Amsterdam, October 6, 1618.

Your Worships’ Obedt.  Servant

WILLEM JANSZ.

B.

Worshipful Wise Provident Discreet Gentlemen,

See the Maps numbered VII, C and D (1616).

* * * * *

X.

(1619)?  FURTHER DISCOVERY OF THE SOUTH-COAST OF NEW-GUINEA BY THE SHIP HET WAPEN VAN AMSTERDAM? [*]

Instructions for Tasman 1644.

...In the interim in the year 1619 the ship ’t Wapen van Amsterdam, passing Banda on her way thither, was east on the south-coast of Nova Guinea where also some of her crew were slain by the barbarian inhabitants, so that no certain information respecting the situation of the country was obtained...

[* I place a note of interrogation here.  The matter is not quite clear.  For the sake of completeness I mention it here, but without drawing any conclusion.  On p. 95, note 5 of my “Life of Tasman” in Fred. Muller’s Tasman publication I say:  “Leupe, Zuidland, p. 35, cites a letter sent by the Directors to the Gov.-Gen. and Councillors, of Sept. 9, 1620.  In this letter there is question of the discoveries made by d’Eendracht, Zeewolff, ’t Wapen van Amsterdam, and quite recently by Commanders Houtman and D’Edel.”