he _Unity_ and _Horn_ fitted out--
Sail--Touch at Dover and Plymouth--Put into Sierra Leone--Fruit and
water obtained--The _Horn_ struck by a sea-unicorn--Make the coast of
South America--Attempting to enter Port Desire, the _Unity_ strikes a
rock--Both vessels nearly lost--The vessels put on shore to clean--The
_Horn_ burnt--Penguins--Sea-lions--Discovery of the Straits of Le
Maire--Cape Horn named and doubled--Steer for Juan Fernandez--Unable to
find anchorage off it--Touch at Dog, Water, and Fly Islands--Fire at a
double canoe--Some of the natives killed--The _Unity_ anchors off an
island--Natives swarm around her--Boat attacked--Natives become
friendly--Their chief visits the ship--The savages attack the ship--
Course changed to the northward--Two savages killed--Friendly
intercourse with others--The King and his courtiers take to flight at
the sound of a great gun--Meeting of two Kings--A feast--Other islands
visited--Coast of New Guinea reached--Natives attack the ship--Shock of
an earthquake felt on board--Sail along western coast of New Guinea--
Hostility of the natives--Barter with the natives at the south end--
Touch at Gilolo and Amboyna--The _Unity_ confiscated at Batavia--Death
of La Maire--Captain Schouten reaches Holland.

The Dutch, from an early period of their history, had actively engaged
in commercial enterprises. They had followed the Spaniards and
Portuguese to India, and having successfully competed with them for its
trade, had established settlements and factories in many of the most
fertile portions of the Eastern Archipelago. They had, notwithstanding,
no idea of the advantages of free trade, and the Dutch East India
Company having been formed, obtained from the States General of the
United Provinces--as their government was then called--exclusive
privileges, prohibiting all the rest of their subjects from trading to
the eastward beyond the Cape of Good Hope, or westward through the
Straits of Magellan, in any of the countries within those limits,
whether known or unknown, under the heaviest penalties. This
prohibition gave great dissatisfaction to many of the wealthy merchants
of Holland, who wished to employ their ships in making discoveries and
trading at their own risk. Among them was Isaac Le Maire, a rich
merchant of Amsterdam, then residing at Egmont, who had a desire to
employ his wealth in acquiring fame as a discoverer.

Le Maire was a person of determination, and having consider