the dispatching of
ships also to the west-coast of Australia for the purpose of further
discovery and of definitely ascertaining the real state of affairs there.

[* See below.]

[** See below, No. XIII, B (pp. 18 ff.)]

But not for the purpose of further discovery exclusively, although this
continued to be "the principal end in view." The instructions of
September 29, 1622, also point to other motives that led the
Netherlanders to reckon also with regions to be first discovered, in
carrying out their colonial policy. The commanders of this expedition
were "specially to inquire what minerals, such as gold, silver, tin,
iron, lead and copper, what precious stones, pearls, vegetables, animals
and fruits, these lands yield and produce";--the commercial interests of
the E.I.C.--and what was more natural in the case of a trading
corporation?--were to take a foremost place. Wherever possible, also
political connections were to be formed, and the countries discovered
"to be taken possession of". The authorities were even considering the
idea of at some future date "planting colonies" in some of the regions
eventually to be discovered.

Here we have the colonial policy of the E.I.C. of the period to its full
extent: commerce, increase of territory, colonies. And these ideas were
at the bottom of most of the voyages of discovery to the north-coast of
Australia before Tasman, and of Tasman's voyages themselves. The
celebrated voyage of the ship Duifken (1605-6) {Page xv} bears a
character of intentionality, and if we bear in mind that the same ship's
voyage of 1602 had for its professed object the extension of the
Company's mercantile connections, we need not be in doubt as to this
being equally the motive or one of the motives of the expedition on which
she was dispatched in 1605-6. We know, moreover, that New Guinea was then
reported "to yield abundance of gold." The three principles of colonial
policy just mentioned also underlay the voyage undertaken by Jan
Carstensz in 1623; for we know that this commander got the instructions
drawn up for the ships Haring and Hazewind, but not then carried into
effect, since these ships did not sail on their ordained expedition [*].
These principles are found set forth with more amplitude than anywhere
else in the instructions drawn up for Tasman and his coadjutors in 1642
and 1644 [**]. The voyages, then planned, were to be undertaken "for the
enlargement, increase and improvement of t