William Dampier came across Australia quite by accident. He initially stumbled across "New Holland", the western part of the continent, as part of his journeys as a pirate.
In January 1688, his ship the 'Cygnet' was beached on the northwest coast of Australia, at King Sound near Buccaneer Archipelago on the north-west coast of Australia. While the ship was being repaired Dampier made notes on the fauna and flora he found there. He was unimpressed by the dry, barren landscape, the lack of water and what he described as the "miserablest people in the world" - the native population.
Eleven years later, Dampier was back, after the British Admiralty commissioned him to chart the north-west coast, hoping to find a strategic use for this new land which bordered the Indian Ocean. In July 1699, Dampier reached Dirk Hartog Island near Shark Bay in Western Australia. He was looking for water, so he followed the coast northwards, reaching the Dampier Archipelago and then Roebuck Bay. After finding no sign of water, he was forced to head north for Timor.
Dampier's negative reports on New Holland delayed British colonisation of the continent for many years, until Cook found the verdant eastern coast.
William Dampier was a pirate and a naturalist. He was a meticulous observer of nature and note-taker, and to this end, his curiosity led him to explore.
William Dampier is most remembered for his negative opinion of Australia. Dampier was unimpressed by the dry, barren landscape, the lack of water and what he described as the "miserablest people in the world" - the native population. His negative reports led to the delay of England's colonisation of what is now Australia.
Dampier was unimpressed by the dry, barren landscape, the lack of water and what he described as the "miserablest people in the world" - the native population. His negative reports led to the delay of England's colonisation of what is now Australia.
The first Englishman in Australia was William Dampier, who arrived in 1688. An experienced sea captain and pirate, Dampier became the first Englishman to explore and map parts of New Holland and New Guinea. On 4 January 1688, his ship the 'Cygnet' was beached on the northwest coast of Australia, at King Sound near Buccaneer Archipelago on the north-west coast of Australia. While the ship was being repaired Dampier made notes on the fauna and flora he found there. Dampier was actually completely unimpressed by the dry, barren landscape, the lack of water and what he described as the "miserablest people in the world" - the native population. His negative reports led to the delay of England's colonisation of what is now Australia. It was not until 1770 that James Cook reported positively on the green, fertile countryside of New South Wales (on the eastern coast), and England sought to colonise the previously unknown continent.
He discovered the northern wet part of Australia and landed in Roebuck bay Cygnet bay and shark bay which he named and landed not far from where Dirk Hartog landed 70 years ago.His first ship was in The Cygnet,(a baby swan)1688and second in The Roebuck,1699.He was an English Bucaneer and was well educated.
Australia was not discovered by William Dampier, but he was the first Englishman to land on its shores. On 4 January 1688, his ship the 'Cygnet' was beached on the northwest coast of Australia, at King Sound near Buccaneer Archipelago on the north-west coast of Australia. While the ship was being repaired Dampier made notes on the fauna and flora he found there. Dampier was unimpressed by the dry, barren landscape, the lack of water and what he described as the "miserablest people in the world" - the native population. His negative reports led to the delay of England's colonisation of what is now Australia. It was not until 1770 that Captain James Cook reported positively on the green, fertile countryside of New South Wales, and England sought to colonise the previously unknown continent.
Robert O'Hara Burke and William Wills led the 1860-61expedition to try to cross Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north.
Merriweather Lewis and William clark
Initially, there was not a lot of impact. William Dampier landed on Australia's far northwestern shores, where the land is dry and infertile. He was unimpressed by the dry, barren landscape, the lack of water and what he described as the "miserablest people in the world" - the native population. He even returned eleven years later to see if the countryside was as bad as he remembered it - and it was. His negative reports led to the delay of England's colonisation of what is now Australia. It was another 70 years or so before England sent anyone else to investigate the continent.
His observations and analysis of natural history helped Charles Darwin's and Alexander von Humboldt's development of their theories,He made innovations in navigation technology that were studied by James Cook and Horatio Nelson.Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, was inspired by accounts of real-life castaway Alexander Selkirk, a crew-member on Dampier's voyages.[5]His reports on breadfruit led to William Bligh's ill-fated voyage in HMS Bounty.He is cited over a thousand times in the Oxford English Dictionary notably on words such as 'barbecue', 'avocado', 'chopsticks' and 'sub-species'. That is not to say he coined the words, but his use of them in his writings is the first known example in English.His travel journals depicting Panama influenced the undertaking of the ill-fated Darien Scheme, leading to the Act of Union of 1707.His notes on the fauna and flora of northwestern Australia were studied by naturalist and scientist Joseph Banks, who made further studies during the first voyage with Captain James Cook. This helped lead to the naming of and colonization of Botany Bay and the founding of modern Australia.He is mentioned in the Gabriel García Márquez short story The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship.Jonathan Swift explicitly mentions Dampier in his Gulliver's Travels as a mariner comparable to Lemuel Gulliver.He is believed to have influenced the writing of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner".
Robert O'Hara Burke and William Wills led the 1860-61 expedition to try to cross the continent of Australia, from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north.
Lieutenant James Cook officially claimed the eastern coast of Australia for Britain in 1770.The First Fleet arrived on January 26 1788.However, prior to that, Captain William Dampier, an English pirate and sea explorer, had seen the western coast of Australia, first in 1688, and then a decade later. Dampier was unimpressed with the dry barrenness of the northwest coast, and claimed that the indigenous people were "the miserablest people in the world". It was Dampier's negative report which put off further British interest in the Australian continent for almost another 100 years.