France
makes its first formal claim to Australian territory.
Over
150 years before English explorer Lieutenant James Cook ever sighted eastern
Australia, the Dutch landed on the Western coast. In 1616, Dutch sea-captain
Dirk Hartog landed at Cape Inscription, where he left a pewter plate with an
inscription recording his landing. However, it was the French who made the
first formal claim to Western Australian soil.
On 30 March 1772, French vessel Gros Ventre, under the command of Louis-François-Marie Aleno de Saint-Aloüarn, anchored off Turtle Bay on the northern coast of Dirk Hartog Island, Shark Bay. Mid-morning, Saint-Aloüarn sent a crew to reconnoitre the mainland. After venturing inland for some 14km without sighting any other living person, officer Mingault or Mengaud (spellings vary in documentation) took formal possession of the land, raising the flag. The occasion was documented, and the papers placed in a bottle and buried at the foot of a small tree, together with two coins (écus) of 'six francs' each, enclosed in lead capsules. The ship's log refers to this Bay as the 'Baie de Prise de Possession' (the Bay of Taking of Possession).
The first of the coins, dated 1766, was recovered in 1998 in an expedition led by Mr Philippe Godard of Noumea, together with Max Cramer, Kim Cramer, John Eckersley, Tom Bradley and Chris Shine of Geraldton. This prompted another expedition which retrieved a bottle containing only sand, with no trace of the document, despite the contents being carefully analysed by an archaeological team.
On 30 March 1772, French vessel Gros Ventre, under the command of Louis-François-Marie Aleno de Saint-Aloüarn, anchored off Turtle Bay on the northern coast of Dirk Hartog Island, Shark Bay. Mid-morning, Saint-Aloüarn sent a crew to reconnoitre the mainland. After venturing inland for some 14km without sighting any other living person, officer Mingault or Mengaud (spellings vary in documentation) took formal possession of the land, raising the flag. The occasion was documented, and the papers placed in a bottle and buried at the foot of a small tree, together with two coins (écus) of 'six francs' each, enclosed in lead capsules. The ship's log refers to this Bay as the 'Baie de Prise de Possession' (the Bay of Taking of Possession).
The first of the coins, dated 1766, was recovered in 1998 in an expedition led by Mr Philippe Godard of Noumea, together with Max Cramer, Kim Cramer, John Eckersley, Tom Bradley and Chris Shine of Geraldton. This prompted another expedition which retrieved a bottle containing only sand, with no trace of the document, despite the contents being carefully analysed by an archaeological team.
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