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Updated: July 14, 2025
Since the commencement of this work, however, the following original paper has been considered worthy of attention, as it presents the most reasonable and logical theory yet put forward for the right to consider the French as the original discoverers, and readers will have pleasure in following out the various deductions as made by one of our fellow-colonists, E. Marin La Meslee, Member of the Societe de Geographie Commerciale de Paris, who has, by great research, compiled, in the following interesting article, the evidence relating to the voyage of the old Norman navigator, Paulmier de Gonneville, in 1503.
One thing is settled, however, beyond the possibility of doubt, and that is, that De Gonneville landed on no other soil but that of Australia, and nowhere else but at the mouth of some of the north-western rivers.
It is only necessary here to compare dates in order to show how misapplied would be this description to the latitudes within which Madagascar is situated. De Gonneville left Honfleur in June, 1503, and quilted Southern India on the 3rd of July of the following year.
A shadowy claim to the honour of being the first discoverer of Terra Australis has been advanced on behalf of the Frenchman Gonneville, who sailed from Honfleur in 1503, on a voyage to the East Indies.
Still John was reluctant to leave Normandy; he went south to Domfront and west to Vire before he again returned to the coast at Barfleur on November 28th, and even then he spent five days at Gonneville and one at Cherbourg before he finally took ship at Barfleur on December 5th, to land at Portsmouth next day.
It is certainly difficult when reading the description given of the "Australians," by De Gonneville, to imagine that they could possibly have had any resemblance to the races we are accustomed to meet with in almost all parts of Australia.
On his arrival at Honfleur, De Gonneville immediately entered a plaint before the Admiralty Court of Normandy, and wrote a report of his voyage, which was signed by the principal officers of his vessel. The following is a translation of the title of this document
One of the points of dissemblance which might be pointed out is the fact that De Gonneville describes them as using bows and arrows, which is at variance with our knowledge of the arms of the Australians, and equally differs from Grey's description of the same; but this objection exists also as regards the inhabitants of Madagascar, who, besides, had already attained a much higher degree of civilisation than that described by De Gonneville being acquainted with the use of iron, the manufacture of cotton and silk goods, fine mats, and many other articles of value among civilised people.
In the first place, the perfect oval shape of the head; secondly, the colour of the face, which is painted VIVIDLY WHITE, evidently for some purpose; and thirdly, the fact that the kind of dress worn over the bodies exactly resembles that described by De Gonneville as worn by the women of the Southern Indies, made of some kind of matted material, sometimes also of skins, or of feathers, girt above the haunches and reaching to the knee.
They cast anchor in a river, which they say was of the bigness of the Orne, near Caen. Here they spent six months refitting their ship, but the crew, being intimidated, obliged Gonneville to return to France.
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