If that should be found impracticable, it was further resolved, that they should endeavour to fall in with the land, or islands, said to have been discovered by Quiros.
In the six months which Lieutenant Cook had spent in the examination of New Zealand, he made very large additions to the knowledge of geography and navigation.

That country was first discovered in the year 1642, by Abel Jansen Tasman, a Dutch navigator.

He traversed the eastern coast from latitude 34 deg.

43', and entered the strait now called Cook's Strait; but being attacked by the natives soon after he came to an anchor, in the place which he named Murderer's Bay, he never went on shore.

Nevertheless, he assumed a kind of claim of the country, by calling it Staaten Land, or the Land of the States, in honour of the States General.