Stories from Marco Polo, who returned from China to Venice in 1295, confirmed the Ancient Greek presumption that Terra Australis alias Australasia might very well exist. Renaissance researches in astronomy and hydrography further confirmed the presumption. Thus, by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries European experts knew that there must be a great Southern Continent.
By 1603f, King James the First of England and Scotland had created the "Greater Union" flag — combining England's St. George's cross with Scotland's St. Andrew's cross. Then, in 1605 — just a decade before the Synod of Dordt — the Dutchman Jansz, sent by the Protestant Dutch East India Company to explore what is now the southern coast3 of Indonesia, entered Australia's Gulf of Carpenteria in his ship Duyfken — and followed the coast to Cape Keer-Weer (or Cape 'Turn-Back') in Queensland.
