Isaac Le Maire - Dutch East India Company Monopoly Broken

Dutch East India Company Monopoly Broken

Isaac Le Maire sold his property in Amsterdam and retired to his possessions in Egmond aan den Hoef, which he had bought between 1598 and 1600 from the estate of the Count of Egmont. After some time, he again started to make plans to break the VOC monopoly. The VOC owned by patent from the States-General the Dutch monopoly on travels to the Indies via the Cape of Good Hope and through the Strait of Magellan, until then the only two known passages to the Indies. From various travel accounts Le Maire assumed that south of the Magellan Strait another passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean could exist. In 1614 he founded the Austraalse Compagnie for the purpose of discovering this passage, which would fall outside the VOC monopoly. The voyage was prepared in Hoorn. Two ships were fitted out, the Eendracht and the Hoorn. The journey would be made under the responsibility of his son Jacob Le Maire. Willem Schouten was recruited as an experienced captain. The sailing orders expressly forbade a passage through the Strait of Magellan, even if a new route to the Pacific Ocean could not be found. Furthermore, the expedition was forbidden to trade on the coasts where the VOC had a trading post. At that time, there was still the expectation that a great unknown South Land would exist. Isaac Le Maire hoped to discover it, and in this way tap into an unimagened trading area. But above all, his motive was to circumvent the VOC monopoly. But Isaac gave his son a remarkable secret instruction: although the official sailing order was that no trade should be driven on the coasts where the VOC was established, on arrival in the Indies his son had to make clear to the administrators of the VOC that their monopoly had not been violated, because they had not sailed via the Cape of Good Hope or the Strait of Magellan. Then, he should ask permission to still be allowed to trade. Isaac le Maire anticipated it would not be granted, so Jacob would then have to do everything needed to win Governor-General Gerard Reynst, who had been, like Isaac Le Maire, a participant in the Brabant Company, for their cause. This even went so far as to Jacob asking Van Reynst the hand of one of his daughters. In this way Isaac le Maire tried to sow dissension within the VOC, because if Gerard Reynst allowed them to trade in this way it could lead to a major conflict within the VOC.

On June 14, 1615 the two ships set sail from Texel. The journey was a success in that, with the discovery of the passage round Cape Horn, the monopoly of the VOC was indeed broken, but the unknown South Land was not discovered, and the secret instruction could not be put into action because Gerard Reynst was already deceased.

After the ships had left Texel, the VOC got wind of the real intention of the travel. Therefore the order was sent to the Indies that, if the expedition would arrive there, the ships would have to be confiscated because of a breach of the VOC's patent. And so it happened. Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten were sent back to the Republic, but Jacob Le Maire died during the return voyage. The VOC attempted to rewrite history by assigning the new discoveries to Willem Schouten.