Flinders is most famous for his circumnavigation of Australia with his cat, but I’m going to break down what I think is the most important things he did in terms of colonial strategy. I think this is interesting because it goes some ways to show how colonial explorers are not randomly meandering about – but are playing a chess game with their competitors.
Flinders did the following;
- 1798 – charted Bass Strait and charted detailed parts in Van Diemen’s Land/Tasmania
- 1801 – charted the unknown south coast (Great Australian Bight + more)
- In August 1802 discovered and named Port Curtis
- Charted the north coast of New South Wales up to a point at approximately Melville Bay and Point Dundas.
- Championed the name “Australia” to apply to the geographical land-mass he circumnavigated – on which the political territories of New South Wales and New Holland are situated
There are specific areas explored by Flinders with extra detail. I’m going to break down why these areas were of focus from a strategic point of view.
1. Van Diemen’s Land and Bass Strait
Flinders explored certain areas in the area of Van Diemen’s Land and the Bass Strait in finer detail. These are Port Darlymple (where Georgetown was later established), Fredrick Henry Bay (around Hobart area) and Wilsons Prom (on mainland).
The detailed places lie at similar longitudes, all around 147 E. The map below shows 147 E (pink) in relation to the location of forts/settlements that were made shortly after Flinders’s exploration.
147 E is a candidate longitude for the Treaty of Saragossa demarcation line. This treaty is very old (1529); it was between the Spanish and Portuguese at the start of colonialism. It is a demarcation of the east and west hemispheres of the world. The Dutch became the successors of Portuguese possessions in the East Indies in a treaty* sometime around 1661 at the end of the Dutch-Portuguese war. Upon the treaty, this line became the eastern limit of the Dutch East Indies. Was New Holland part of Dutch East Indies? You could possibly argue that it is. If so, this line would form the western extremity of New Holland. That is why Flinders paid special attention to these areas. He was exploring the “Dutch border”. The British established forts in these borderlands shortly after.
*(I’m still yet to locate the exact treaty as it applies to the East Indies, there were multiple treaties to end this war. This is an important document to track down.)
Flinders also explored Wilson’s Promontory in detail, which also lies near 147 E on the southern extremity of the mainland.
The latitude of Guam (red line on map above) is also a candidate for the Treaty of Saragossa line. Guam is part of the Mariana Islands which was also used as a landmark to reckon the demarcation of the Treaty of Saragossa. Flinders also charted in detail Port Phillip Bay (Melbourne), which is at the same longitude of Guam. The British then put the Sullivan’s bay settlement in Port Phillip Bay on the Guam line, even though it was a very poor site. Here is an example of how settlements are often put in stupid places, because colonisers are going off raw coordinates (or previous discoveries, or old treaties) to strategically out-do other European colonial powers, with secondary regard for practical matters such as availability of fresh water and other essential materials.
One other note is that Flinders has marked Fredericks Henry Bay on his charts. Now – there is a bay that Tasman called Fredericks Henry Bay – but this is not it. I don’t know why Flinders did this – perhaps he made a mistake, or it was to sow confusion as to later discredit Tasman’s landing and Dutch claim. Tasman’s charts are at first glance already confusing, but when you consider Tasman was blown out to sea in a storm mid-charting that confusion is eliminated.
2. The south coast
The south coast was uncharted, even though NSW was already proclaimed up to 135E (half the continent). This was a problem for the British, and the charting of the coast by Flinders helped to forestall competitors claiming it. The French explorer Baudin was hot on Flinders’s heels. Flinders filled in the gap in the map.
3. Moreton Bay, Hervey Bay and Port Curtis
I’ve put a ‘strikethough’ of this section because I’ve got some new ideas and I’ve done some new, more precise calculations on Flinders and his exploration of Moreton Bay and Hervey Bay.
I’ll write something up soon – but briefly – Redcliffe/Pumicestone River/Passage lie half way in latitude between Cape York and South West Cape in Tasmania. Hervey’s Bay/Hervey Bay lies half way in latitude between Cape York and Wilsons Prom.
Take the northern most latitude of the original New South Wales (Cape York) and the southern most latitude (South Cape, Tasmania) and find the half-way point. Draw a theoretical border there for “North Australia” (26 S – about Tin Can Bay, current northern border of South Australia). This latitude is also a symmetric coincidence, as it is close to the latitude of Australia’s western-most point in Shark Bay. The idea is – if the Dutch put up a fight, let them have the north half or the west half – and the British can keep the south or the east. Now search either side of the proposed northern border to find good east-coast ports for a sacrificial northern capital (Port Curtis), and/or for a port to mark the north of British territory in case of a north/south split (Redcliffe). The British were in a process of preparing for potential halving or quartering of the land-mass in a war with the Dutch.
Flinders was scouting for a strategic port and settlement. He started with a 1799 expedition of detailed exploring of Moreton Bay (including naming Redcliffe) to Hervey Bay. On Flinders’s later 1802 expedition – Port Curtis was discovered as a decent place for a harbour. Port Curtis later became the capital of the annulled colony of “North Australia“. This is the same Port Curtis that Cardinal Moran claimed Quirós discovered.
In the end, the idea of “North Australia” was reinvented to become Queensland and was extended slightly southwards to incorporate the already established Moreton Bay settlement as capital. The Moreton Bay settlement initially began at Redcliffe not long after the 1824 Anglo Dutch treaty. The British then waited-out the settlement date of the treaty before moving it up a river to present day Brisbane.
4. Charting the northern coast of “Australia”
Flinders circumnavigated anti-clockwise and more or less stopped charting the north coast purportedly due to ship problems. These problems were found at approximately the 135 E meridian limit of New South Wales, which makes it seem like a cover reason for not stepping too far into New Holland. He did not publicly identify “Melville Bay” as an island, and he named Port Dundas. I don’t think the Dutch knew it was an island either, it looks connected on all of their charts.
A few years after Flinders, in 1817-1818 Philip Parker King identified Melville Bay as being an island, but his work was much less well known than Flinders. The knowledge that Melville Bay/Melville Island is an island played a very important role strategically during British actions after the 1824 Anglo-Dutch Treaty. Gordon Bremer claimed the north coast of Australia to 129 E degrees whilst standing at Port Essington with the knowledge that is on the mainland, he then moved on to Melville Island to set up the Fort Dundas settlement.
5. Giving the name “Australia”
One of the most significant things Flinders did was championing the name “Australia” to apply to the continent of New Holland. The interesting thing about this name is the similarity to the name of Australia del Espiritu Santo. Where did Flinders get the name from? I think Flinders may have been largely inspired by Darlymple’s book “An Historical collection of the several voyages and discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean“. In the book’s introduction, Darlymple set the groundwork by suggesting a new partition of the world “comprehending the discoveries at a distance from America to the eastward” be called Australia. “To the eastward” must mean in the eastern hemisphere (just beyond the ‘Spanish lake’ Pacific Ocean), as Australia is west of America. The name Australia eventually caught on.
Image by Rick Brown from Pixabay