Le Maire had two reasons
to be optimistic that there was passage south of the Strait of Magellan
between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.
- Magellan doubted the land south of his passage
of the tip of South America was a continent. He suspected there was
open water.
- Drake had been in the area previously and had
been taken significantly south of Magellan's Strait by a storm.
Le Maire believed there was passage from the
Atlantic into the Pacific which would not use the disallowed Strait of
Magellan, and he hired a competent navigator, who had already made three
trips to the South Seas islands. His name was Willem Schouten. Together,
they put together a plan for their new company. The company was to travel
in search of the South Pacific gold riches prominently mentioned by
Quiros. Le Maire, Schouten, and Schouten's son (Jacob) joined with the
city leaders of the town of Hoorn and raised money for two ships, which
were outfitted for the passage. The outfit was known as the Goldseekers.
The ships were the larger Eendracht and
the smaller Hoorn, and sailors were hired for a journey, the
details of which they were not to know. Where these ships were to go was
not public knowledge, but the company had come to be known as the
Goldseekers, though it was more properly recorded as The Australian
Company. The company sailed from England in May 1615.
Crossing the Atlantic and reaching the South
America shore was not done without mishap, but both ships survived the
problems. With relief, the sailors properly beached the ships on the shore
of Patagonia in order to clean them before continuing on to the Pacific.
It was in this process that the Hoorn was accidentally set alight
and burned to destruction. The expedition continued with the Eendracht
alone.
In January 1616 (southern summer) Le Maire and
Schouten did pass the Eendracht through a route south of the
Straits of Magellan, a route now called the Straight of Le Maire. To his
left Le Maire noted the land mass (unexplored) as Staten Landt, perhaps a
portion of the great southern continent. In fact, the land was an island,
but the possibility of a large Staten Land persisted. Tasman considered
New Zealand may be part of Le Maire's Staten Land.
As Le Maire and Schouten passed the most
southerly tip and moved into the great ocean to the west they noted the
point and called it Cape Hoorn, which has endured onto maps today.
The Eendracht entered the great southern
ocean and crossed with pauses at several island groups along the way. Then
Le Maire wished to pursue a more southerly course into Java, Schouten was
leery of the southern side of New Guinea and believed it not possible to
pass on that side.
The Duyfken had reportedly come to a
westward opening bay in the region now know to be Torres Strait between
New Guinea and Cape York of Australia. Torres had passed through these
waters in the same year as the Duyfken cruise, but his report was
buried in Spanish archives and unseen by the remainder of the
contemporary sailing world.
Schouten insisted and prevailed on a northern
route around New Guinea. The cruise came to an end in October 1616 in
Batavia.
The expedition failed in its attempt to discover
gold riches, but it was highly successful as a well managed voyage into
ocean regions unknown, and plotted the absence of a great southern
continent through its track across the Pacific. Only three sailors died on
the more-than-sixteen-month voyage, and none from scurvy.
Three days following their arrival in Batavia, Le
Maire and Schouten were imprisoned on charge of violating the monopoly of
the Company. The Company directors on Java did not believe a new passage
had been found around the tip of South America and sent the two men back
to Holland. On that trip, the 31-year-old Le Maire died. For the next two
years, Le Maire's father worked to sue the Company and was finally
successful. The new path around Cape Hoorn was recognized and the East
India Company was ordered to return the vessel and its cargo to the
Australia Company, paying all expenses and interest since its taking.
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