Now for something completely different

[Aus Traveller]

1 minute ago, NSWP said:

I did not construe that the indigenous felt that the Brits had the right to colonise this country, I was addressing the alternatives, that might have been.

I agree with your comments on the alternatives.

[MicCanberra]

4 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

I don't look at it that way. Cook explored and mapped the east coast of the continent. There is absolutely no evidence that Britain considered colonizing the country in the early 1770s.

 

Britain was sending their convicts to the American colonies and making money by selling their labour. After the American War of Independence that began in 1775 started turning against Britain, they needed somewhere else to send their convicts. Sir Joseph Banks (not Cook) recommended Australia, specifically Botany Bay. As we know, it was unsuitable and Arthur Phillip set up the convict colony in Port Jackson. For Britain, this was a much more expensive way to house their convicts, but the American colonies weren't available.

From the state library.

James Cook's first Pacific voyage (1768-1771) was aboard the Endeavour and began on 27 May 1768. Cook’s voyage had three aims; to establish an observatory at Tahiti in order to record the transit of Venus (when the planet passed between the earth and the sun), on 3 June 1769. The second aim was to record natural history, led by 25-year-old Joseph Banks. The final secret goal was to continue the search for the Great South Land. 

Cook reached the southern coast of New South Wales in 1770 and sailed north, charting Australia’s eastern coastline and claiming the land for Great Britain on 22nd August 1770.

[Aus Traveller]

8 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

From the state library.

James Cook's first Pacific voyage (1768-1771) was aboard the Endeavour and began on 27 May 1768. Cook’s voyage had three aims; to establish an observatory at Tahiti in order to record the transit of Venus (when the planet passed between the earth and the sun), on 3 June 1769. The second aim was to record natural history, led by 25-year-old Joseph Banks. The final secret goal was to continue the search for the Great South Land. 

Cook reached the southern coast of New South Wales in 1770 and sailed north, charting Australia’s eastern coastline and claiming the land for Great Britain on 22nd August 1770.

All true. Cook claimed the east coast of the continent, not the whole continent, but there were no plans to colonize the territory until several years later.

 

Of course, the Australian continent was not the Great South Land Cook was searching for. The Australian continent was well-known, having been discovered and some of it explored by explorers from other European nations. The Portuguese kept the existence of the Torres Strait secret for a couple of hundred years, but Britain found out about it not too long before Cook set off on his first great voyage of discovery. He was able to said through the Strait after charting the eastern coast. In his next two voyages of discovery, he kept searching for the Great South Land that was believed to lie between New Zealand and South American, but obviously he did not find it because it didn't exist.

Edited June 9, 2021 by Aus Traveller

[Chiliburn]

17 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

From the state library.

James Cook's first Pacific voyage (1768-1771) was aboard the Endeavour and began on 27 May 1768. Cook’s voyage had three aims; to establish an observatory at Tahiti in order to record the transit of Venus (when the planet passed between the earth and the sun), on 3 June 1769. The second aim was to record natural history, led by 25-year-old Joseph Banks. The final secret goal was to continue the search for the Great South Land. 

Cook reached the southern coast of New South Wales in 1770 and sailed north, charting Australia’s eastern coastline and claiming the land for Great Britain on 22nd August 1770.

Wasn’t one of the main reasons to do some celestial observations from the other side of the world and since you’re there see if you can find down under.

 

But they must have been brave to sail into the unknown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_voyage_of_James_Cook

Edited June 9, 2021 by Chiliburn

[MicCanberra]

1 hour ago, Aus Traveller said:

All true. Cook claimed the east coast of the continent, not the whole continent, but there were no plans to colonize the territory until several years later.

 

Of course, the Australian continent was not the Great South Land Cook was searching for. The Australian continent was well-known, having been discovered and some of it explored by explorers from other European nations. The Portuguese kept the existence of the Torres Strait secret for a couple of hundred years, but Britain found out about it not too long before Cook set off on his first great voyage of discovery. He was able to said through the Strait after charting the eastern coast. In his next two voyages of discovery, he kept searching for the Great South Land that was believed to lie between New Zealand and South American, but obviously he did not find it because it didn't exist.

Yes, you are right, the british were just finding, charting and claiming a land just for the sake of saying it is theirs with no intention of ever using it, that makes perfect sense. 

[Aus Traveller]

1 minute ago, MicCanberra said:

Yes, you are right, the british were just finding, charting and claiming a land just for the sake of saying it is theirs with no intention of ever using it, that makes perfect sense. 

Your post sounds sarcastic. ☹️ Cook claimed the land for Britain to stop the French who they believed were going to colonize the land called New Holland. However, there is also no evidence that the French had such plans.

 

I stand by my previous post as factual.

[Russell21]

59 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

Your post sounds sarcastic. ☹️ Cook claimed the land for Britain to stop the French who they believed were going to colonize the land called New Holland. However, there is also no evidence that the French had such plans.

 

I stand by my previous post as factual.

And I agree with you.

[MicCanberra]

All of which would be useless with out a settlement to maintain possession of the lands. Otherwise the French or any other country may have come and taken it as well.

 

International law at the time required settlement / occupation as well.

[Aus Traveller]

2 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

All of which would be useless with out a settlement to maintain possession of the lands. Otherwise the French or any other country may have come and taken it as well.

 

International law at the time required settlement / occupation as well.

Exactly. There was not much point in Cook's having claimed possession of the east coast of the continent, but he did. He also claimed New Zealand, or part thereof, but the British didn't settle there either.

[MicCanberra]

4 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

Exactly. There was not much point in Cook's having claimed possession of the east coast of the continent, but he did. He also claimed New Zealand, or part thereof, but the British didn't settle there either.

I think you will find NZ is part of the commonwealth just like us.They even speak English in NZ or at least a version of it.

[Aus Traveller]

1 minute ago, MicCanberra said:

I think you will find NZ is part of the commonwealth just like us.They even speak English in NZ or at least a version of it.

You missed the point I was making. Your argument seemed to be that Cook claimed possession of Australia (actually it was only the east coast) so therefore Britain planned to colonise the country. That is not so.

 

I used NZ as an example. I didn't feel I needed to set out the dates and details but apparently I did. 😁 Cook claimed NZ in 1769, but Britain did not colonise the country until 1840 - an even longer delay than in the case of Australia. This proves that Cook's claim of sovereignty over the land (Aust or NZ) did not necessarily mean that Britain intended to colonise the country. In neither case did they.

[ilikeanswers]

9 hours ago, NSWP said:

Thank you, there you go, Uncle Les was right and I did not even go to skool in Straya.  Thank goodness the British did colonise this land, imagine if the Spanish Conquistadors or the Portuguese had claimed it, another South America, extermination of the natives, Incas/Aztecs, you know what I mean.

 

We really need to stop perpetuating this high school myth 😳. It is as bad as Columbus discovering the world is round myth🙄. Spanish made barely a claim in the Pacific let alone to Australia and Spanish for all their brutality did more to preserve native American history then British did with Native Australian history. No one wrote volumes of books detailing the culture of the land, next to no Aboriginal stone structures were preserved, their farms and farming technologies wiped out, their aquaculture was destroyed, no one even thought to write down the recipes of native breads (which would be handy for all those gluten free people😜). The British couldn't even recognise the genius of the boomerang whose design is employed in the wings of every aeroplane. Just last year we blew up a 46000 year old archaeological site😔. Don't see anyone blowing up Inca sites in the 21st century. 

Edited June 9, 2021 by ilikeanswers

[ilikeanswers]

10 hours ago, Chiliburn said:

Yep ,if the pomies didn’t we would be a basket case like the Philippines or a Central African country.

And the French would have eaten the natives.

 

Hindustan, the Middle East and East Africa might disagree😂. 

[MicCanberra]

10 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

You missed the point I was making. Your argument seemed to be that Cook claimed possession of Australia (actually it was only the east coast) so therefore Britain planned to colonise the country. That is not so.

 

I used NZ as an example. I didn't feel I needed to set out the dates and details but apparently I did. 😁 Cook claimed NZ in 1769, but Britain did not colonise the country until 1840 - an even longer delay than in the case of Australia. This proves that Cook's claim of sovereignty over the land (Aust or NZ) did not necessarily mean that Britain intended to colonise the country. In neither case did they.

I don't care how long it took for them to start a colony/settlement. The simple fact is they claimed possession and with the intention to occupy it, which they did in both cases.

No country would claim possession of a land without that intention even if it is down the track. It is ludicrous to think otherwise as another country could just come and do the same.

[Chiliburn]

8 hours ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

Hindustan, the Middle East and East Africa might disagree😂. 

Did the French eat the locals?

[Aus Traveller]

54 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

I don't care how long it took for them to start a colony/settlement. The simple fact is they claimed possession and with the intention to occupy it, which they did in both cases.

No country would claim possession of a land without that intention even if it is down the track. It is ludicrous to think otherwise as another country could just come and do the same.

Sorry. The historical accounts do not agree with what you suggest were Britain's motives. Your comment that they have to have the intention of settling "even if it is down the track" isn't logical. 🙂 If they wanted to colonize Australia, I feel it is reasonable to suggest they would have done so much earlier - not waited 18 years. They only did so when they had to find a solution to their over-crowded prisons.

 

Eighteen years after Cook explored the east coast, Britain established a penal colony. When Cook left Britain in 1768, Britain was sending its convicts to its American colonies and actually making a profit by hiring out their labour. With the American War of Independence, by the late 1770s they had to find another solution. It took 18 years before the colony was established in New South Wales but this was a very expensive alternative. Many years passed before it was financially self-supporting and many before it was a free colony.

 

With NZ, it was around 80 years after Cook's first visit. There were many reasons for Britain's later involvement in NZ and they didn't involve convicts.

[ilikeanswers]

59 minutes ago, Chiliburn said:

Did the French eat the locals?

 

Of course not. Everyone knows the French will not eat indigenous food 😜

[ilikeanswers]

5 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

Your comment that they have to have the intention of settling "even if it is down the track" isn't logical. 🙂

 

I wouldn't say illogical. The Spanish put a claim on the Marquesas so they could have the option to take it but in the end they had no motive to go ahead with the take over so the French moved in. I could see Britain acting in a similar way. 

[lyndarra]

12 minutes ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

Of course not. Everyone knows the French will not eat indigenous food 😜

Unless it's an amphibian or a gastropod.😨

[Aus Traveller]

14 minutes ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

I wouldn't say illogical. The Spanish put a claim on the Marquesas so they could have the option to take it but in the end they had no motive to go ahead with the take over so the French moved in. I could see Britain acting in a similar way. 

Cook claimed territory on the Australian continent and also NZ in the name of King George III, but Britain had no way of sustaining that claim without establishing a colony which the the British historical records say they didn't intend to do. Subsequent events support this because they did not immediately colonize either country.

 

Consider also where they had colonies. The North American colonies started for religious-freedom reasons. Colonies in the Caribbean were plantations that produced sugar etc - all valuable. India was important for trade, as were other areas Britain grabbed.

 

Cook and Banks weren't impressed with Australia. There were absolutely no opportunities for trade, and they did not report that the country had potential. Cook reported that Norfolk Island had timber that could be used for ships' masts and flax that could be used for ropes - both very important. However, the timber was too brittle and the flax unworkable.

[NSWP]

Something different now...MSC Virtuosa on a British Isles cruises was denied docking in Greenock, Scotland the other day, due to Scottish Govts concerns for local health.  Greenock is the port call for Glasgow and a few others tour options.

[OzKiwiJJ]

2 minutes ago, NSWP said:

Something different now...MSC Virtuosa on a British Isles cruises was denied docking in Greenock, Scotland the other day, due to Scottish Govts concerns for local health.  Greenock is the port call for Glasgow and a few others tour options.

You'd think the cruise line would have sorted things like that out before offering the itinerary, or at least before the cruise started.

[MicCanberra]

[Chiliburn]

45 minutes ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

I wouldn't say illogical. The Spanish put a claim on the Marquesas so they could have the option to take it but in the end they had no motive to go ahead with the take over so the French moved in. I could see Britain acting in a similar way. 

The main reason the Spanish had a presents in the pacific was for the conquistadors to bring the gold back from South America for the Catholic Church.

 

[nnps]

32 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

Amen, let's hope it gets through.