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Throughout the sixteenth century the spice trade in the East Indies built excessive wealth in Portugal. Like most commercial advantages of the time, this was achieved by control of sea routes, particularly the domination of the route to the East Indies via the Cape of Good Hope. After one hundred years of Portuguese monopoly, the Dutch responded by taking control of the spice trade at its source and, for over twenty-one years, they dominated trade and navigation to the Indies including the routes east of the Cape of Good Hope and to the west via the Straits of Magellan. In 1602 Dutch merchants trading in the East Indies joined together to form the VOC – the Dutch East Indies Company. It soon became the most powerful of Holland’s trading houses and later became the world’s largest company, in existence for over two hundred years. It built over 1600 ships called East Indiamen.
JACOB LE MAIRE AND HIS VOYAGE
It was nutmeg and pepper that drove the wealthy and powerful Dutch merchant Isaac Le Maire to try to break the VOC monopoly on trade routes to the East Indies, and inspired him to mount an expedition that would forge a new route to the lucrative spice sources via the southern-most tip of America, through uncharted and dangerous waters. Influenced by the famous voyage of Pedro Ferdinandos de Quiros, the Portuguese navigator who believed he had touched upon Terra Australis, the great southland, Le Maire set up The Australian Company (Australische of Zuid Compagnie). The expedition he mounted had a dual goal: to chart a new course to the Pacific and to find the great southern continent.
Le Maire appointed his son Jacob, the eldest of his twenty-two children, to command the expedition. He was joined by experienced mariner Willem Schouten, who skippered the Eendracht, and Jacob’s younger brother Jan, who skippered the Hoorn. The ships sailed on 14 June, 1615 on a mission whose purpose was kept secret from the crew for four months. The expedition successfully plotted a new sailing route to the Pacific under Cape Horn (which they named in honour of their home-base), rather than going through the VOC-controlled Straits of Magellan. As a result they established for evermore a new sailing route from the "old world" to the Pacific. For centuries after, the Pacific discoveries they made would be admired by great explorers including Tasman, Bougainville and James Cook. In fact, their voyage was a prelude to the 1642-3 voyage of Abel Tasman who, on the final leg of his voyage, sailed through seas first crossed and charted by Le Maire.
Such was their navigational achievement that when the ship arrived in Jakarta in October 1616, the Governor-General, Jan Pietersz Coen, refused to believe that Le Maire and Schouten could have found a new passage to the Pacific. He ordered the seizure of the Eendracht (the Hoorn had earlier been lost to fire) with its precious cargo and highly important charts and papers. Le Maire and Schouten were deported on a VOC ship under the command of Joris van Speilbergen. Tragically, Jacob Le Maire died en route, at the age of only thirty-one.
THE BOOK "MIRROR OF THE AUSTRALIAN NAVIGATION"
In this series, the original Dutch edition is accompanied for the first time by a faithful facsimile of the English text prepared by one of the great Pacific historians of the eighteenth century, Alexander Dalrymple. Alexander Dalrymple was the first and only scholar to produce a detailed study of the Le Maire voyage in an English edition, published in 1770 in An Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean. Dalrymple was the leading English hydrographer of his time, and his work reflects his passionate involvement in the centuries-old debate over the possible existence of a southern continent – the fabled Terra Australis. One of the documents central to Dalrymple’s debate was the journal of the Le Maire expedition. In fact Number 3 in the Maritime Series was Dalrymple's An Account of the Discoveries made in the South Pacifick Ocean previous to 1764 (click here to see further details).
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Review 1.
Mercator's World, Vol. 5 Number 3, May/June 2000
Review by Ian McKay
Reprinted by kind permission of the author.Isaac le Maire may well have been the largest shareholder in the Dutch East India Company (VOC), but he was not at all averse to independent ventures - one of which forced him to resign his trusteeship - and it was an attempt to circumvent the company's monopoly on East Indies trade, as well as the thought of finding the fabled southland, "Terra Australis", that led him to form an "Australian Company".
The voyage of 1615-16 that resulted from that decision was not the economic coup that Isaac had desired, and it cost the life of his eldest son. However, before he died, Jacob le Maire, in company with Willem Schouten, a skipper with East Indies experience and his father's business partner, had defined the southern limits of South America, opened up a new sea route to the Spice Islands, and, had they held their westerly course for longer, might even have found the eastern shoreline of Australia, 150 years before Cook.
Their story is told in this fifth title from the Australian Maritime Series, a limited edition volume presenting facsimiles of the Dutch text of Isaac le Maire's Spieghel der Australische Navigatie of 1622, the first true publication of the journal of the Le Maire/Schouten expedition, and an English version produced many years later by Alexander Dalrymple, the great hydrographer and chronicler of Pacific voyages.
Dalrymple's text is neither a comprehensive or exact translation, drawing on both a 1622 Latin text edition of the Spieghel, or "Mirror", and an English translation of a 1618 French edition of the so-called "Journal" of Willem Schouten, a widely reprinted and translated account that was only later revealed to be based on Le Maire's log.
The Dalrymple version only summarizes the early part of the voyage and ends with expedition's arrival in New Ireland, but as the introductory essay by Edward Duyker, an expert in the Dutch voyages to the Pacific, points out, "the sub-text of virtually every page is indeed an English version of Spieghel der Australische Navigatie". It is also vital for those who cannot read Dutch in black letter type!
In his introductory essay, Duyker explains the political, economic and exploratory background to the voyage, with some diversions into Jacob le Maire's secret dealings with Henry IV of France and Henry Hudson, and outlines the story of the voyage. Jacob commanded the expedition, though the 220 ton Eendracht was skippered by Schouten and his younger brother Jan commanded the 110 ton armed jacht, the Hoorn, named for the north Dutch town that was home to many of the voyagers. The Hoorn caught fire while being "scorched" clean of seaweed on Patagonian shores, forcing everyone to crowd into the Eendracht, which then sailed south and, ignoring the Straits of Magellan, found a new channel, the Strait Le Maire, between Terra del Fuego and an island they named Staten Landt for the Dutch parliament, or States General. Four days later, on 19 January 1616, they became the first Cape Ho(o)rners and gave that wild end of the world its now familiar name before sailing north to Juan Fernandez island and then, taking advantage of a good wind, set out westwards across the southern Pacific.
Numerous islands were found and visited before the expedition finally reached Ternate in the Moluccas, where they were at first warmly welcomed but later refused permission to trade by the local Dutch governor. After releasing some crew members into VOC service, Le Maire and Schouten voyaged on through the Indies until they reached Jakarta and ran afoul of the ruthless Jan Pietersz. Coen, president of the Council of the Indies and a future governor-general. Coen refused to believe that they had found a new passage to the Indies and promptly seized the Eendracht, along with its charts and papers. Le Maire and Schouten were deported to Holland, but Jacob died en route. Though Isaac did eventually vindicate his son and gain compensation for the confiscated vessel, the VOC retained its monopoly.
As usual this is a handsome publication - though larger than the small folio format of the earlier book - and is one of an edition of 950, bound in quarter tawed goatskin and marbled boards.
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Review 4.
Book Club of California
Quarterly News-Letter Vol. LXV Number 4, Fall 2000Review by Dr. Robert J. Chandler, Senior Researcher, Historical Services, at Wells Fargo Bank, San Francisco; Director, The Book Club of California, and Chairman of the QN-L Committee.
Reprinted by kind permission of the author.Australian Maritime Series No. 5, a handsomely-printed facsimile publication of Jacob Le Maire, Mirror of the Australian Navigation, Being an Account of the Voyage of Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten [Amsterdam 1622; 96 pages] coupled with an English translation by Alexander Dalrymple (London, 1770; 65 pages], edited by Dr. Edward Duyker. Sydney: Hordern House for the Australian National Maritime Museum, 1999): 196 pages; 15 illustrations, many in color; 12 x 7 ¾inches; 950 copies including 50 deluxe; Australian $248 (about $150). Order from Hordern House, 77 Victoria Street, Potts Point, Sydney, New South Wales 2001, Australia, or www.horden.com
Merchant Isaac Le Maire of Hoorn, Holland, was an odd duck; more like the Australian duck-billed platypus. When he died, aged about sixty-five, in 1624, his tombstone memorialised his eccentricities: "During his trading life in all the quarters of the world," the carved stone declared, he "has been so richly blessed by God, that in thirty years he lost over 1,500,000 Guilden."
Such quirkiness needs a master editor. Dr. Edward Duyker, a New South Wales History Fellow and author of The Dutch in Australia, a 1987 study of early Dutch voyages in the surrounding seas, is such an expert.
First, some background. In the sixteenth-century, Portuguese monopolised the spice trade through control of sea routes via the Cape of Good Hope. In the early seventeenth century, the Dutch leapfrogged to the source of nutmeg and pepper, the Spice Islands. With the backing of the States-General, the governing body of the Netherlands, the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) formed in 1602. Under Dutch law, VOC exploration of distant lands gave it exclusive rights to Indonesian trade through its newly discovered harbors. The company grew to be the largest in the world; upon its dissolution in 1798, the Dutch government took control of its colonies.
In 1605-1606 Portuguese navigator Pedro Ferdinandez de Quiro crossed the great Pacific to discover unknown lands in the South Seas. One he named "Australia." Since Roman times, geographers had predicted a great counterbalancing southern continent, using "auster," the "south wind" as an adjective; Quiro became the first to make it a noun, tied to a geographic spot. Was this the true "Australia"? Map makers faced a huge void in their charts.
Merchant Isaac Le Maire had a dream; Quiro showed the way. Not only would Le Maire find a new route to the Pacific, avoiding the VOC-claimed Strait of Magellan, but marvellously, he would discover the missing continent, abundant in treasured spices, and forever break the VOC East Indian monopoly.
Forming The Australian Company, Le Maire received from the States-General rights to any new passages and harbors discovered and outfitted two ships. The command of the expedition went to thirty-year-old Jacob Le Maire, the eldest of Isaac's twenty-two children (more congratulations are due wife Maria!), who had made one trading voyage to the tip of Africa. Navigator Willem Schouten, veteran of three trips to the East Indies, captained the three-masted, 220-ton Eendracht (or "Concord") and her crew of sixty-five men, while Jan Le Maire claimed the smaller 110-ton Hoorn and twenty-two men.
On June 14, 1615, the ships departed on their gold-seeking mission - or so the crew thought. Passing by Africa, they took aboard bananas and lemons at Sierra Leone, auspicious for a healthy voyage. Eventually, only three men died en route to the Spice Islands. Crossing the Atlantic to South America, in December the ships prepared for their great adventure. While careened so that her fouled bottom could be cleaned by fire, the Hoorn burnt, and the Eendracht sailed alone, south along a coast of unknown length. On January 25, 1616, the ship entered the Strait of Le Maire, separating Tierra del Fuego from Staten Landt (named for the States-General), and on January 29,1616, the men of Hoorn became the first Cape Homers, as that famed feature gained the name of their home port.
Following Quiro's lead, a solitary three-master headed across the wide expanse of the Pacific. The voyage began to prove unhealthy for Le Maire when Jan died. The Eendracht arrived at the Molucca Islands on September 17,1616, and while it was warmly welcomed, the East Indies Company governor naturally refused permission to trade. A harsher reception awaited when they dropped anchor at Jakarta on October 29. Jan Pietersz Coen, President of the Council of the Indies and later Governor-General, refused to believe that Le Maire and Schouten had found a new passage to the Pacific. He seized their ship and sent the two commanders and twenty of the crew who did not wish to join the VOC home on an East Indiaman commanded by Joris van Speilbergen. In December 1616, Jacob Le Maire followed brother Jan in death; of the four lost on this round-the-world trip, two were Le Maires.
What Quixotic idea did merchant Isaac Le Maire have to break the VOC monopoly? Certainly sending a ship to ports to which the Dutch East Indies Company had exclusive rights was not the way to do it. Though Le Maire received full compensation, plus interest for the Eendracht, VOC navigators had already claimed enough of the surrounding lands to keep their monopoly. Undoubtedly, Le Maire's priority appeared in the name of his adventurous firm, "The Australian Company."
Navigator Willem Schouten rushed to print in 1618 with a popular, readable journal of the voyage that went through many editions; Captain van Speilbergen followed with his Voyage Around the World, 1614-1617 in 1619, and in 1622, the Le Maires published their account, which is reproduced here in heavy, black, gothic letters. Much of the preliminary narrative feuds with Schouten over the quick glory gained by the master mariner, but recent scholarship shows that Jacob Le Maire kept the only log; Schouten reworked it. In contrast with Schouten's 1618 publication, Le Maire's version had limited circulation; a few presentation copies contained graphic, informative hand-colored plates, reproduced in this edition. Map collectors will enjoy especially the track of the Eendracht rounding a pink Caap Hoorn.
This Dutch book might have remained an unknown antiquarian curiosity except for Alexander Dalrymple, the dynamo behind eighteenth-century English exploration of the Pacific. Dalrymple believed passionately there was a Southern Continent, an "Australia," and set about proving it. He compiled accounts, reconciled conflicting navigation, and (as An Account of the Discoveries Made in the South Pacifick Ocean Previous to 1764 (1767); No. 3 of the Australian Maritime Series) published sailing directions for the South Seas. Dalrymple hoped to culminate his career leading the Australian discovery expedition, but command went to doughty Captain James Cook. Alexander Dalrymple, like Isaac, Jacob, and Jan Le Maire and Willem Schouten before him, had dreamed the dream-and it turned out true. Although the Le Maires found no Australia, gained no fortune, and lost two sons, ever afterward, any deepwater sailor worth his salt knew that intrepid Hollanders had rounded South America before him.
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Review 5.
International Journal of Maritime History
Volume XII Number 2, December 2000Review by Lodewijk J. Wagenaar, Amsterdam Historical Museum.
Reprinted by kind permission of the author.Jacob Le Maire (incl. facsimile reprint of English translation by Alexander Dalrymple; intro. Edward Duyker). Mirror of the Australian Navigation. Amsterdam, 1622; facsimile reprint, "Australian Maritime Series" No. 5; Potts Point, NSW, Australia: Hordern House [www.hordern.com], 1999. 32 + 72 + 64 pp., maps. AUS $248 (+ postage), cloth; ISBN 1-875567-25-9.
After the Spaniards took Antwerp in 1585, Isaac Le Maire, like many fellow Flemish merchants, moved to the rising Dutch Republic. There he continued his mercantile business. The Dutch seaborne empire owed much to him and his compatriots, who formed the backbone of many successful enterprises. With his fabulous wealth Le Maire could afford to invest 97,000 guilders in the new United Dutch India Company (VOC), founded on 20 March 1602. Yet from the very outset, Le Maire had a difficult relationship with the Company, whose monopolistic policies he abhorred. In March 1608 he therefore met Pierre Jeannin, French ambassador in The Hague, to discuss the possibility of establishing a French East India Company. A year later an agreement was reached that led in May 1609 to an abortive attempt to find a navigable northeasterly route to Asia. That same year Le Maire clashed openly with the directors of the VOC, who accused him of organised speculation "à la baisse," based on VOC shares not actually in the possession of Le Maire and his fellow conspirators. The States General supported the view of the Company, with the result that trading in "blanco" shares became illegal.
This in brief explains much about the background of the founding of the "Australian Company" in 1614 by Le Maire and some of the wealthy citizens of the city of Hoorn. Trade with the mythic "Terra Australis" may well have been simply an excuse for opening up a new route to the Pacific via the most southern route around America. Besides, the reports about the initial encounters of the sailors of Duyfken with Australian aborigines in 1606 had not been at all positive. Nevertheless, the possibility of eventual success could not be ruled out entirely. There is certainly evidence that Le Maire believed this. In a dispute with the shipper of Eendracht, Willem Schouten, Le Maire's son Jacob advocated a route that, had it been followed, might have touched the east coast of Australia. However, Schouten was able to win the ship's council to his way of thinking, with the result that Eendracht followed a route which took it past New Guinea (Irian Jaya) along the northern coast.
Isaac Le Maire's objective had been to break the monopoly of the Dutch India Company. Based on the charter granted to the VOC by the States General, other Dutch enterprises were barred from using routes to the Indies via the Cape of Good Hope or the Straits of Magellan. Le Maire's goal was therefore to find an even more southerly route, and in this respect he was successful. On 24 January 1616, half a year after his departure from the roadstead of Texel, his son Jacob discovered the route that his father desired. Upon safely reaching the waters of the Pacific, the ship's council on 12 February officially named this passage the Lemaire Strait. Six months later, in September 1616, Eendracht arrived at Ternate, then the strategic base of the VOC in the Moluccas, and in late October Jacob Le Maire arrived at the roadstead of Jacarta. He and his officers were immediately summoned before Jan Pietersz Coen and the Dutch India Councillors, and their ship and its cargo were confiscated. The sailors were given a choice: they could either enter into the service of the VOC, or be sent back to the Dutch Republic. Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten were given no such option, and were obliged to return on Amsterdam. All had been in vain.
One may wonder at the considerations that led to the publication of this facsimile edition of Le Maire's account of that ill-fated voyage. The expected arrival of the beautiful Dutch replica of the East Indiaman Batavia to the Olympic City of Sydney may have provided the excuse for yet another publication linking the "discovery" of Australia with the history of the Dutch VOC. The introduction by Edward Duyker clearly places the expedition of the two ships, Eendracht and Hoorn (which burned during maintenance on the shores of South America), within the context of early European contacts with "Terra Australis" - failed missions included. Yet this aspect could have been elaborated, especially with regards to the motives and hopes of Isaac Le Maire in connection with the opening up of trade with Australia.
The eighteenth-century editor of travel journals, Alexander Dalrymple, was known for his interest in the geographical secrets of Australia. This, however, does not in itself justify the reprint of his limited edition of the journey of Eendracht. It is interesting that Dalrymple combined for the first time texts by both Schouten and Le Maire. The full context is missing, since Dalrymple focussed on the leg after the passage of Lemaire Strait. The story in this reprint ends in June 1616, long before the ships reached New Guinea and the familiar waters of the Moluccas. Had the editor meant to introduce to (Australian) readers the place of Isaac Le Maire in the history of Australia by elucidating the discussion between Jacob Le Maire and shipper Willem Schouten about the route to be followed, he might better have reprinted the relevant parts of both journals. The latter was published in Dutch in 1618, followed by an English translation only one year later. This journal could have been combined with the same chapters of Jacob Le Maire's Spieghel, edited by his father Isaac in 1622, and could as well have been nicely accompanied by a selected reprint of the translation of the 1906 Hakluyt Society edition. Instead, the general reader of this latest edition cannot fully appreciate the interesting parts reprinted from Alexander Dalrymple's 1770 edition. Alas, only a limited number of people will be able to read the beautiful Dutch reprint. Most buyers will therefore miss the fascinating remarks and descriptions. Of all those I only mention the typical Dutch observation about the wild grapes Le Maire saw in Sierra Leone: "If only the grapes were cultivated in an orderly fashion, what a beautiful wine one would get" (folio 9, 2 September 1615).
