A WRITTEN DETAIL OF THE DISCOVERIES AND NOTICEABLE OCCURRENCES IN THE VOYAGE OF THE FLUYT “VOSSENBOSCH,” THE SLOOP “D’WAIJER,” AND THE PATSJALLANG “NOVA HOLLANDIA,” DESPATCHED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, Aº. 1705, FROM BATAVIA BY WAY OF TIMOR TO NEW HOLLAND; COMPILED AS WELL FROM THE WRITTEN JOURNALS AS FROM THE VERBAL RECITALS OF THE RETURNED OFFICERS, BY THE COUNCIL EXTRAORDINARY, HENDRICK SWAARDECRON AND CORNELIS CHASTELIJN, COMMISSIONED FOR THAT PURPOSE, AND FORMING THEIR REPORT TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR GENERAL, JAN VAN HORN AND THE COUNCIL OF INDIA.
My Lords.—Before entering into a detail of matters of note occurring on the abovementioned voyage, it may not perhaps be superfluous to offer a few preliminary observations, in order to throw a clearer light upon the subject; briefly these:—that the above mentioned vessels having, in accordance with the instructions delivered to their crew by your excellency, on the twentieth of January of this year, weighed anchor from the port of Batavia on the 23rd of the same month, heard on their way, at Rembang on the east coast of Java, how the sloop _Doriados_, which had been destined for this voyage instead of the _Waijer_, had been disabled, but has been helped on its way by friendly vessels to Timor, and thence to New Holland.
They arrived on the twelfth of February before Copang, on the island of Timor, where they were obliged, by bad weather, to remain for twenty days, until the second of March. A month later, namely, on the second of April, they explored the north-west corner of Van Diemen’s land, without having so far observed anything remarkable on this voyage, except that for fifty or sixty miles straight north and south from this point, the land is elevated, and along the whole of this coast there was continually found from fifty to twenty, and fewer fathoms’ water; besides, that on the passage from Timor, the compasses were on the sixth of March affected by the thunder and lightning to such a degree, that the north-end of the needle pointed due south, and was brought home in that position.
This point of Van Diemen’s land having been thus explored, they occupied themselves, from the second of April to the twelfth of July, in visiting the bays, head lands, islands, rivers, etc., to the best of their ability according to their instructions. But not being sufficiently provided with fresh provisions for so long a voyage, many men on board began to suffer and also to die, from severe sickness, principally fever, acute pains in the head and eyes, and above all, dropsy, so that they were compelled to resolve upon returning, and to direct their course to Banda; the patsjallang however alone arrived there; the fluit _Vossenbosch_, and the sloop _Waijer_, being forced by unfavourable weather and the weakness of the crew, to pass that government, and to hold on towards Macassar, as your nobilities will have already learnt by the papers from Banda and Macassar. The skipper, upper and under steersman, with most of the petty officers and sailors of the _Vossenbosch_ being already dead, and their incomplete journals alone having reached us, the new maps moreover, made by the direction of the skipper Martin van Delft, having been improperly detained at Macassar, we are not at present in a position to forward the same complete information on the subject, which the arrival of these maps would have enabled us to give, as they contain many new names, which could not possibly be found in the limited compass of the Company’s former charts. According to their own accounts, they have only been able to visit a strip of land of about sixty miles along the coast E. and W., including merely a very small portion of that great bay, which it was recommended to them to sail over and explore as much as possible.