OCCASION AND OBJECT OF THE PRESENT WORK.

In writing my biography of Tasman, forming part of Messrs. Frederik
Muller and Co.'s edition of the Journal of Tasman's celebrated voyage of
discovery of 1642-1643, I was time and again struck by the fact that the
part borne by the Netherlanders in the discovery of the continent of
Australia is very insufficiently known to the Dutch themselves, and
altogether misunderstood or even ignored abroad. Not only those who with
hypercritical eyes scrutinise, and with more or less scepticism as to its
value, analyse whatever evidence on this point is submitted to them, but
those others also who feel a profound and sympathetic interest in the
historical study of the remarkable voyages which the Netherlanders
undertook to the South-land, are almost invariably quite insufficiently
informed concerning them. This fact is constantly brought home to the
student who consults the more recent works published on the subject, and
who fondly hopes to get light from such authors as CALVERT, COLLINGRIDGE,
NORDENSKIOLD, RAINAUD and others. Such at least has time after time been
my own case. Is it wonderful, therefore, that, while I was engaged in
writing Tasman's life, the idea occurred to me of republishing the
documents relating to this subject, preserved in the State Archives at
the Hague--the repository of the archives of the famous General Dutch
Chartered East-India Company extending over two centuries (1602-1800)--and
in various other places? I was naturally led to lay before Messrs.
Frederik Muller and Co. the question, whether they would eventually
undertake such a publication, and I need hardly add that these
gentlemen, to whom the historical study of Dutch discovery has repeatedly
been so largely indebted, evinced great interest in the plan I submitted
to them.[*]