A belief that to the south of the strait of Magellan there would be
found an open sea, or some other passage leading to the South Sea, had
many years been gaining ground, when a company of Dutch merchants
determined to make the experiment, which, if successful, would open to
them, as they belived, the trade to India, by a new, instead of an
interdicted passage, which the strait of Magellan then was.
Jacob le Maire was appointed principal merchant, and president of the
ships; and Wilhelm Schouten, an able seamen, received the charge of
patron or master mariner. The vessels fitted out were the Eendracht, a
ship of three hundred and sixty tons, nineteen guns, and sixty-five
men, and a galliot, named the Horne, of one hundred and ten tons,
eight guns and twenty-two men. The president, Le Maire, and Patron
Schouten, sailed in the former; the latter was commanded by Jan
Schouten, brother to the patron, with Adrian Claesz as merchant.
June the 4th, 1615, they quitted the Texel, and in three days anchored
in the Downs, where an English gunner was hired. On the 30th of
August, dropped anchor in the road of Sierra Leone, where a stock of
twenty-five thousand lemons was purchased from the natives, for a few
beads. On the 5th of October, were in latitude four degrees seventeen
minutes N. when a great noise was heard on board the Eendracht, and
immediately after the sea around it became red with blood. Afterwards
a piece of the horn of some sea animal was found sticking in the
bottom of the ship, seven feet below the water line, having penetrated
through the planking, and into one of the ribs: about the same length
remained without; it was similar in shape and size to the end of an
elephant’s tooth.
Having passed the line, they struck soundings in seventy-five fathoms
depth, on the 4th of December, and two days after saw the American
coast. On the 8th, anchored in Port Desire, where they took a large
supply of birds, etc. On the 19th, the Horne caught fire, and was
totally consumed. On the 13th of January, 1616, the Eendracht quitted
Port Desire, and on the 20th, passed the latitude of the entrance of
the straits of Magellan. On the 24th saw Terra del Fuego to the right,
not more than a league off, and on the 29th passed to the north of
some rocky islets: Terra del Fuego appeared to the W. N. W. and W.,
all hilly land covered with snow, with a sharp point which they called
Cape Horne, in honor of the vessel which they had lost. On the 30th,
having passed to the south of the Cape, steered west, encountering
great waves with a current to the westward; and afterwards steered
north. The ship continued to advance northward, and on the 1st of
March, made the island of Juan Fernandez, and caught two tons of fish,
but could find no anchorage. Steering for the East Indies they visited
a number of small islands, and on the 5th of August came to the Isle
of Goley, subject to the King of Tidore. Sailed again next day; and,
after being much delayed by calms, met, September the 7th, with a ship
of their own country, anchoring the same day at the Island of Ternate.
They were kindly received by the people in power; the Eendracht had
not lost one of her crew in her long cruisings, and they had
discovered a new passage to the South Sea; yet these merits did not
avail them, for on the arrival of the ship at Batavia, she was seized
and condemned, on a supposed infringement of the rights of the Dutch
East India Company, the officers and crew being put on board other
ships, to be conveyed to Europe.
On the 31st of December, during the passage home, died the president,
Jacob Le Maire, a victim to the unworthy treatment he had received――a
worthy man and a skillful navigator; and on the 1st of July, 1617, his
companions arrived at Holland, by the way of Good Hope, having been
absent two years and seventeen days.