The Making of Australasia
A Brief History of the Origin and Development of the British Dominions in the South Pacific (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Making of Australasia: A Brief History of the Origin and Development of the British Dominions in the South Pacific<br><br>Of all the vast regions opened to European enterprise and settlement after the navigators of Portugal and Spain had burst the bars of ocean, Australia and New Zealand were the last to be occupied and peopled by men of the white race. By the time settlement in Australia entered on its faint beginnings the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the New World of America were nearly three centuries old. Almost three centuries had passed since the Portuguese had commenced to hold the gorgeous East in fee and very nearly two since the Dutch began to dispute with them the trade of India, China, and the East Indies. Even Great Britain herself, a comparatively late-comer in the field of overseas exploration and settlement, had already gained a great Empire in North America, had in turn lost the better part of it, and had begun to acquire her Indian Empire. The Dutch had been established in South Africa for over two centuries. France, defeated over thirty years before in the struggle for the control of North America and of India, had had some vague idea of finding in the Southern Hemisphere compensation for what she had lost in the north; but nothing came of it.<br><br>More remarkable perhaps than the delay in occupying Australasia was the fact that, alone amongst the great overseas divisions of the British Empire, it fell to Great Britain without a struggle. Except in New Zealand, the native inhabitants were quite unable to make any serious or combined efforts at resistance, and no European nation disputed with Great Britain the possession of these lands away at the world's end.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.