First Fleet
The First Fleet was commanded by Commodore Arthur Phillip, who was given instructions authorising him to make regulations and land grants in the colony. The ships arrived at Botany Bay between 18 and 20 January 1788; HMS "Supply" arrived on 18 January, "Alexander", "Scarborough" and "Friendship" arrived on 19 January, and the remaining ships on 20 January.
History of Australia
The first known landing in Australia by Europeans was by Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon in 1606. Twenty-nine other Dutch navigators explored the western and southern coasts in the 17th century, and dubbed the continent New Holland. Macassan trepangers visited Australia's northern coasts after 1720, possibly earlier. Other European explorers followed and, in due course, navigator Lieutenant James Cook wrote that he claimed the east coast of Australia for Britain when on Possession Island in 1770, without conducting negotiations with the existing inhabitants, though before his departure, the President of the Royal Society, one of the voyage's sponsors, wrote that the people of any lands he might discover were
'the natural, and in the strictest sense of the word, the legal possessors of the several Regions they inhabit. No European Nation has a right to occupy any part of their country, or settle among them without their voluntary consent. Conquest over such people can give no just title: because they could never be the aggressors.'