In 1768 Lieutenant James Cook set sail from England for the South Pacific with instructions to find the Great South Land. There he was to make friends with the Indigenous people and investigate the potential for trade in goods and resources. He was explicitly ordered not to take possession of any territory without the consent of the inhabitants.
In 1770, Cook claimed to take possession of the whole east coast of Australia by raising the British flag at Possession Island off the northern tip of the Cape York Peninsula - claiming the land as "terra nullius" (empty land). After an encounter with local people in Botany Bay, Cook wrote: "all they seemed to want was us to be gone".
~ NSWALC
La Perouse
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