A NEW PASSAGE TO THE PACIFIC. 



355 



the commercial ardor of the country, and it soon became the 

 study of navigators and merchants to discover some safe means 

 of eluding the law, it being hard, they said, that Government 

 should close up the channels which Nature had left free. Isaac 

 Lemaire, a rich trader of Amsterdam, was the first to whom the 

 idea occurred of seeking another passage from the Atlantic to 

 the Pacific than the Strait of Magellan. He imparted his views 

 to William Cornelison Schouten, who had been three times to 

 the East Indies in the different capacities of supercargo, pilot, 

 and master. He too was convinced that to the south of Terra 

 del Fuego lay another passage from one ocean to the other. 

 Could they find this passage, they might legally trespass upon 

 the monopoly held by the Company. They determined to at- 

 tempt the discovery, and Lemaire advanced half the necessary 

 funds, Schouten and his friends furnishing the other half. Two 

 ships were fitted out, the larger, — the Concord, — of three hun- 

 dred and sixty tons, being manned by sixty-five men, and pierced 

 for twenty-nine guns of small calibre ; the Horn, of one hundred 

 and ten tons, carrying eight cannons, four swivels, and twenty- 

 two men. Schouten was master and pilot of the expedition, and 

 James Lemaire, the son of Isaac, supercargo. The object of 

 the voyage was kept a profound secret, the officers and men 

 being bound by their articles to go wherever they should be 

 required, and, in compensation for this unusual condition, re- 

 ceiving a considerable advance upon the ordinary wages. The 

 little fleet was equipped in the port of Horn, and left the Texel 

 on the 14th of June, 1615, proceeding towards the coast of 

 Africa. 



On the 30th of August, they cast anchor in the roads of 

 Sierra Leone, where they drove a brisk trade in lemons, easily 

 purchasing a thousand for a handful of worthless glass beads. 

 Fresh water was obtained by holding casks under a bountiful 

 cascade, and thus easily were the materials for lemonade pro- 

 cured in this favored spot. They then made directly for the 



