gally
sailing within the boundaries of their charter.

* * * * *

In consequence of the seizure of the Unity, captain Schouten and Jaques
Le Maire, with others of their people, embarked at Bantam in the
Amsterdam and Zealand on the 14th December, 1616, on which they set sail
for Holland. On the 31st of that month Jaques Le Maire died, chiefly of
grief and vexation on account of the disastrous end of an enterprise
which had been so successful till the arrest of the ship and cargo. He
was, however, exceedingly solicitous about his journal, which he had
kept with the utmost care during the voyage, and left a recommendation
that it should be published, that the world might know and judge of the
usage they had received. The Amsterdam arrived in Zealand on the 1st
July, 1617, where her consort had arrived the day before. Thus was this
circumnavigation of the globe completed in two years and eighteen days;
which, considering the difficulties of the course, and other
circumstances of the voyage, was a wonderfully short period.[131]

[Footnote 131: In the Collection of Harris this voyage is succeeded by a
dissertation on the high probability of a southern continent existing,
and that this supposed continent must be another _Indies_. Both of these
fancies being now sufficiently overthrown by the investigations of our
immortal Cook, and other modern navigators, it were useless to encumber
our pages with such irrelevant reveries.--E.]

CHAPTER VII.

VOYAGE OF THE NASSAU FLEET ROUND THE WORLD, IN 1623-1626, UNDER THE
COMMAND OF JAQUES LE HERMITE.[132]

[Footnote 132: Harris I. 66. Callend. II. 286.]

INTRODUCTION.

The government of the United Netherlands, considering it proper to
distress their arch enemy the king of Spain by every means in their
power, determined upon sending a powerful squadron into the South Sea,
to capture the ships of his subjects, to plunder the coasts of his
dominions, and to demolish his fortifications. Accordingly, in autumn
1622, a final resolution for this purpose was entered into by the States
General, with the concurrence of their stadtholder, Prince Maurice of
Orange, who even advanced a considerable sum of money towards it from
his own funds; and a fleet of no less than eleven ships of war, besides
smaller vessels, were ordered to be fitted out for the expedition, by
the several admiralties of the Union and the East India Company. This
fleet was in con