On This Day March 30, 1791

Convict James Ruse is given the first land grant in the colony of New South Wales.

James Ruse was born on a farm in Cornwall around 1759. At age 22, he was convicted of burglary and, due to severe over-crowding in British gaols, spent over four years on the prison hulks in Plymouth Harbour. He was one of the convicts who was transported in the First Fleet to New South Wales, sailing on the 'Scarborough'.

Governor Phillip was aware of the need to build a working, farming colony as soon as possible. Thus, in November 1788, Phillip selected Ruse to go to Rose Hill (now Parramatta), west of Sydney Town, and try his hand at farming. Ruse was allocated one and a half acres of already cleared ground and assisted in clearing a further five acres. He was given two sows and six hens and a deal was made for him to be fed and clothed from the public store for 15 months. In return, if he was successful, he was to be granted 30 acres. Ruse's farming venture was indeed successful, and in February 1791, he declared that he was self-sufficient. Governor Phillip rewarded Ruse with thirty acres, including the area he was already occupying, on 30 March 1791. This was the first permanent land grant in the new colony.

On This Day March 30, 1772

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 This Day March 20, 1602.

The Dutch East India company, which was indirectly responsible for many discoveries in the Pacific, is formed.

The Dutch East India Company, also known as the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC, was established on 20 March 1602, when the Estates-General of the Netherlands granted it a monopoly to trade from the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Magellan. It was the first multinational corporation in the world and it was the first company to issue stocks. The company traded throughout Asia, exploring and establishing new routes through to the Asian countries and Pacific colonies for the sole intent of expediting trade to that region. The company operated for around 200 years, trading spices like nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and pepper, and other consumer products like tea, silk and chinese porcelain. In the process, they touched on the coast of Australia, which they called New Holland, drawing rough charts to indicate the western and northern coasts, though the south and east remained largely unknown.

The Australian state of Tasmania owes its discovery to the Dutch East India Company. Abel Tasman was a Dutch seafarer who joined the Company and was ordered to explore the south-east waters in order to find a new sea trade route to Chile in South America. In November 1642, he discovered a previously unknown island on his voyage past the "Great South Land", or "New Holland". He named the island "Antony Van Diemen's Land" in honour of the High Magistrate, or Governor-General of Batavia. It was later renamed Tasmania by the English.

On This Day March 17, 1912.

Lawrence Oates, of Scott's ill-fated expedition to the Antarctic, utters his famous last words: 'I am just going outside and I may be some time.'
 

Robert Falcon Scott, born in 1868, was a Royal Naval officer and explorer who commanded the National Antarctic Expedition in Discovery which began in 1900. In December 1902, Scott's expedition reached the farthest point south of any known exploration party. Following new discoveries in the Antarctic region, Scott was keen to be the first to reach the South Pole. He took with him Lieutenant Henry Bowers, Dr Edward Wilson, Petty Officer Edgar Evans and army Captain Lawrence Oates. Upon reaching the Pole on 17 January 1912, he found that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten him to it by just one month.

Scott's party made slow progress, due to a combination of particularly severe weather, and their own determination to forge ahead laden with their rock samples. Evans died after a fall which resulted in a quick physical and mental breakdown. Lawrence Oates lost a foot to frostbite and was suffering residual effects of an old war wound. Oates is remembered as the consummate British sacrificial hero as, feeling he was holding the party back, he departed their shelter one morning, uttering the famous words, "I am just going outside and I may be some time." This was on 17 March 1912. He did not return. The bodies of the remaining three members of Scott's party were found in their camp on 10 February 1913, just twenty kilometres from a substantial depot of supplies. With them were their diaries detailing their journey and their demise.

On This Day March 17, 1830.

Sturt's party reaches the junction of the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers on their arduous journey upstream to Sydney.
 

Captain Charles Sturt was born in India in 1795. He came to Australia in 1827, and soon after undertook to solve the mystery of where the inland rivers of New South Wales flowed. Because they appeared to flow towards the centre of the continent, the belief was held that they emptied into an inland sea. Sturt first traced the Macquarie River as far as the Darling, which he named after Governor Darling. Pleased with Sturt's discoveries, the following year Governor Darling sent Sturt to trace the course of the Murrumbidgee River, and to see whether it joined to the Darling. Sturt followed the Murrumbidgee in a whaleboat and discovered that the Murrumbidgee River flowed into the Murray (previously named the Hume).

Sturt continued to trace the course of the Murray southwards, arriving at Lake Alexandrina, from which he could see the open sea of the southern coast, in February 1830. However, the expedition then had to face an agonising journey rowing back up the Murray against the current. The men rowed in shifts from dawn until dusk each day, low on rations, through extreme heat, and against the floodwaters heading downstream. On 17 March 1830, they reached the junction of the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers. By the time they reached their depot at Maude on the Murrumbidgee, they had rowed and sailed 3,000 km on Australia's inland rivers, with no loss of life.

On This Day March 14, 1790.

Captain William Bligh arrives back in London a year after the Mutiny on the Bounty, in which he was cast off his own boat.

William Bligh was born in Plymouth, south-west England, on 9 September 1754. He was only 8 when he first went to sea. At age 22, he was chosen to join Captain Cook's crew on the 'Resolution', and became commander of the 'HMAV Bounty' eleven years later.

The famous mutiny on the Bounty occurred after Bligh left Tahiti on his way to the Caribbean. For reasons undetermined by historical records, Master's Mate Fletcher Christian led the mutiny, with the support of a small number of the ship's crew. On 28 April 1789, Bligh and his own supporters were set adrift on a 7m launch, and given a sextant and enough provisions to enable them to reach the closest ports, but no means of navigation. Bligh chose not to head for the closer Spanish ports, which would have slowed down the process of bringing the mutineers to justice, but used his recollection of Cook's maps to head for Timor on a 41-day journey of nearly six thousand kilometres. From here, he stood a better chance of communicating quickly to British vessels which could pursue the mutineers.

After recovering in Timor and being tended to by the inhabitants of the Dutch colony, Captain Bligh finally returned to England, arriving there on 14 March 1790. His men had suffered starvation, scurvy and dehydration. Whilst some of the died from the ravages of the journey, many of them survived to serve in the Royal Navy once more. Bligh himself was honourably acquitted in a London court, and later assigned as Governor to the fledgling colony of New South Wales.