<P> With the exception of further Dutch visits to the west, however, Australia remained largely unvisited by Europeans until the first British explorations . John Callander put forward a proposal in 1766 for Britain to found a colony of banished convicts in the South Sea or in Terra Australis to enable the mother country to exploit the riches of those regions . He said: "this world must present us with many things entirely new, as hitherto we have had little more knowledge of it, than if it had lain in another planet". </P> <P> In 1769, Lieutenant James Cook in command of the HMS Endeavour, travelled to Tahiti to observe and record the transit of Venus . Cook also carried secret Admiralty instructions to locate the supposed Southern Continent: "There is reason to imagine that a continent, or land of great extent, may be found to the southward of the track of former navigators ." This continent was not found, a disappointment to Alexander Dalrymple and his fellow members of the Royal Society who had urged the Admiralty to undertake this mission . Cook decided to survey the east coast of New Holland, the only major part of that continent that had not been charted by Dutch navigators . </P> <P> On 19 April 1770, the Endeavour sighted the east coast of Australia and ten days later landed at Botany Bay . Cook charted the coast to its northern extent and, along with the ship's naturalist, Joseph Banks, who subsequently reported favourably on the possibilities of establishing a colony at Botany Bay . Cook formally took possession of the east coast of New Holland on 21 / 22 August 1770, and noted in his journal that he could "land no more upon this Eastern coast of New Holland, and on the Western side I can make no new discovery the honour of which belongs to the Dutch Navigators and as such they may lay Claim to it as their property (italicised words crossed out in the original) but the Eastern Coast from the Latitude of 38 South down to this place I am confident was never seen or viseted by any European before us and therefore by the same Rule belongs to great Brittan (italicised words crossed out in the original). </P> <P> In 1772, a French expedition led by Louis Aleno de St Aloüarn, became the first Europeans to formally claim sovereignty over the west coast of Australia, but no attempt was made to follow this with colonisation . The ambition of Sweden's King Gustav III to establish a colony for his country at the Swan River in 1786 remained stillborn . It was not until 1788 that economic, technological and political conditions in Great Britain made it possible and worthwhile for that country to make the large effort of sending the First Fleet to New South Wales . </P>

Where did the english first settle in australia