induced the Dutch East India Company to be at so much pains
about these discoveries.

CHAPTER XX: CONSEQUENCES OF CAPTAIN TASMAN'S DISCOVERIES.

In the first place, then, it is most evident, from Captain Tasman's
voyage, that New Guinea, Carpentaria, New Holland, Antony van Diemen's
Land, and the countries discovered by De Quiros, make all one continent,
from which New Zealand seems to be separated by a strait; and, perhaps,
is part of another continent, answering to Africa, as this, of which we
are now speaking, plainly does to America. This continent reaches from
the equinoctial to 44 degrees of south latitude, and extends from 122
degrees to 188 degrees of longitude, making indeed a very large country,
but nothing like what De Quiros imagined; which shows how dangerous a
thing it is to trust too much to conjecture in such points as these. It
is, secondly, observable, that as New Guinea, Carpentaria, and New
Holland, had been already pretty well examined, Captain Tasman fell
directly to the south of these; so that his first discovery was Van
Diemen's Land, the most southern part of the continent on this side the
globe, and then passing round by New Zealand, he plainly discovered the
opposite side of that country towards America, though he visited the
islands only, and never fell in again with the continent till he arrived
on the coast of New Britain, which he mistook for that of New Guinea, as
he very well might; that country having never been suspected to be an
island, till Dampier discovered it to be such in the beginning of the
present century. Thirdly, by this survey, these countries are for ever
marked out, so long as the map or memory of this voyage, shall remain.
The Dutch East India Company have it always in their power to direct
settlements, or new discoveries, either in New Guinea, from the Moluccas,
or in New Holland, from Batavia directly. The prudence shown in the
conduct of this affair deserves the highest praise. To have attempted
heretofore, or even now, the establishing colonies in those countries,
would be impolitic, because it would be grasping more than the East India
Company, or than even the republic of Holland, could manage; for, in the
first place, to reduce a continent between three and four thousand miles
broad is a prodigious undertaking, and to settle it by degrees would be
to open to all the world the importance of that country which, for
anything we can tell, may be much superi