The Discovery of Australia and New Zealand

Australia and New Zealand were discovered in 1642 by the Dutch explorer Tasman. It was thought that they were part of a Great South Land in which civilized human beings lived. Scientists in Britain wanted to find out if this land really existed, so in 1768 they sent an expedition to the southern seas to look for it. The leader of the expedition was Captain James Cook, one of the greatest explorers of all times. He took with him on board his ship «Endeavour» scientists and artists whose job was to make records of all the strange things they might discover on the voyage. Cook never discovered the mysterious South Land, but he discovered the east coast of New Zealand, and he raised the Union Jack (государственный флаг Великобритании) to claim it for Britain.

Cook and his companions came back to face with the Maoris, the native people who had come to New Zealand from the South Pacific Islands in the 14^th century.

After leaving New Zealand, Cook sailed northwest. He believed that with luck he might find another land, and he did it nineteen days later. It was Australia. They landed in a bay on the northeast coast which is today part of Sidney, and to their astonishment they saw plants and creatures that no white man had ever seen before: kangaroos and wombats and koalas, brilliantly coloured bird butterflies, and gray-green eucalyptus trees of all kinds. Cook named the play «Botany Bay». They also met the dark-skinned Aborigines. The crew was scornful of them and called them animals, but Cook admired their simple way of life. He wrote in his diary: «With all our professions and comfortable way of life, we do not seem as happy as they are».

Ten years later, Australia’s first settlers landed in Sidney Harbour, which was only a few miles up the coast from Botany Bay. Captain Arthur Phillip, the commander of the little fleet, wrote: «We had the satisfaction of finding the finest harbour in the world». Not many people would disagree with him today. These first settlers were convicts, women as well as men, who had been sent to that wild land as a punishment. There were also soldiers to guard them. Only 10 per cent of Australians are descended from convicts, most of whom were not really criminals. There were rebellious Irishmen, English labourers who had formed unlawful trade unions, girls who had stolen half a loaf of bread for their starving children.

By 1840 the borders of six separate colonies had been decided. These colonies stretched right round the coast from Queensland in the northeast of Western Australia to the far southwest. Each colony was ruled by a governor appointed by the British Government. In 1902 the six colonies formed a confederation of states which was called the Commonwealth of Australia.

New Zealand was colonized much later. The first colony of British settlers did not arrive until 1840, and twelve years later they were given self-rule. Like Australia, New Zealand became an independent country within the British Commonwealth and Empire.