When the Netherlanders set sail for India for the first time, they
naturally took the route which they knew to be followed by the
Portuguese. After doubling the Cape of Good Hope, they directly continued
their voyage on a north-eastern course, along the west-coast, or close by
the east-coast, of Madagascar, and then tried to reach India coming from
the west. To this route there were grave objections both as regards the
winds prevailing in those latitudes, the intense heat soon encountered,
the great number of "shallows or foul islands," etc. Besides, the voyage
was apt to last very long. In 1611, however, certain ships going from the
Netherlands to India followed another route: directly after leaving the
Cape they ran on an eastern course (in about 36° S. Lat.) for a
considerable time, after which they tried to navigate to Java on a
northerly course. The commander of these ships, the subsequent
Governor-General {Page xiv} Hendrik Brouwer, wrote to the Managers of the
E.I.C. about "this fairway" in highly laudatory terms. They adopted the
idea suggested by Brouwer, of henceforth prescribing this route in the
instructions for the commanders and skippers sailing for the Indies,
leaving them a certain scope certainly as regards the latitude in which
the said easterly course was to be followed, and the degree of longitude
up to which it was to be kept. As early as the beginning of 1613 such a
route was enjoined on the ships' captains by the Managers of the E.I.C.
The ship Eendracht also was directed to follow this course: she ran so
far to eastward as to come upon the west-coast of Australia, and the same
thing happened to subsequent vessels.

Although in the sense thus indicated we must here speak of _acczdental_
discoveries on the west-coast, yet the Dutch authorities were fully aware
of the importance of such discoveries. As early as 1618, the Managers of
the E.I.C. were considering the possibility of "discovering the Southern
Lands in passing," and in a letter of September 9, 1620, with reference