Extract Uittet Journael vanden...Abel janssen Tasman...
Unknown scribe
original manuscript
Extract journal of Abel Janszoon Tasman, 1642-43; compiled prior to 1647.
ML S1/72
Extract journal of Abel Janszoon Tasman
This is an edited contemporary copy of the journal kept by Abel Tasman on board his ship Heemskerck, 1642-1643. The original journal has not survived. Tasman takes possession of Van Diemen's Land for the United Provinces of the Netherlands at present-day Tasman Bay. 3 December 1642 : 'In the afternoon we went to the Southeast side of this bay in the said boats... having with us a pole with the Company's mark carried therein and the prince-flag to be set up there so that to those who shall come after us it may be clear that we have been here and have taken in (to possession and Property) the said Land... the surf ran so high that without danger of having the boat dashed to pieces we might not get near the Land. We then ordered the carpenter aforesaid to swim to the shore alone, with the pole and the flag and kept by the wind with our pinnace; we made him erect the pole with the flag in top into the earth at the centre of this little cove...'