Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Polynesia were quite distinct from the southern continent and its
offshore islands. He, too, urged persistence in the quest for
terra aus-
tralis,
though he, naturally, wanted it to be discovered and settled by
the French. De Brosses was the first to suggest that any newly-dis-
covered distant territory would be the ideal place to send the unfor-
tunates of European society such as the poor, orphans and - crimin-
als. These and other works had a wide circulation and frequently ran
to new editions and foreign translations. Most of the writers were
armchair geographers. Not so Alexander Dalrymple.
Dalrymple joined the East India Company in 1752 at the age
of fifteen. He served at Madras and made two voyages to China and
the East Indies. These experiences and his wide reading of ancient
travels stirred in him a passion for the extension of British com-
merce and colonisation. He returned to England in 1764 to urge the
directors of the Company to commit men and ships to Pacific ex-
ploration. Not content with private persuasion, he carried his ardent
campaigning to a wider public with
An account of Discoveries Made
in the South Pacific Ocean Previous to 1764
(1767) and followed this
up three years later with
A Historical Collection of Voyages
. . .
in the
South Pacific Ocean.
He 'proved' the existence of a southern contin-
ent, vast and populous which had:
a greater extent than the whole civilised part of Asia, from Turkey,
to the eastern extremity of China. There is at present no trade from
Europe thither, though the scraps from this table would be sufficient to
maintain the power, dominion and sovereignty of Britain, by employ-
ing all its manufactures and ships.
2
All that was needful, in Dalrymple's view, was for brave captains
of the stamp of Magellan to come forth, men spurred on, not by ma-
terial considerations, but by passionate curiosity and the spirit of ad-
venture.
