Among other Dutch ship captains and merchants who had been thrown into prison at Lisbon was Cornelius Houtman, who improved that opportunity to acquire, by conversation with Portuguese seamen, a knowledge of the Indian seas; and it was by his persuasion that the merchants of Amsterdam, associating as an East India Company, fitted out, in 1595, eight vessels,—four to renew the experiment of a northeastern passage, and four to proceed to India by the Cape of Good Hope. The voyage of the first four, under the direction of Hugh Linschooten,[67] who had lately returned from Goa, where he had resided six years in the service of the archbishop, resulted in the discovery of Nova Zembla, beyond which neither this expedition nor two subsequent ones were able to proceed. The four other ships, under the charge of Houtman, reached the west coast of Java, and in spite of the arts and opposition of the Portuguese, whom they found established at Bantam, in that island, they opened a trade with the natives, not without an occasional intermixture of hostilities, in which they lost more than half their numbers, besides being obliged to abandon and burn one of their vessels. The other three ships returned to Holland in 1598. This voyage had not been profitable; yet the actual commencement of the long-desired Indian traffic greatly stimulated the hopes of the merchants, and that same year not less than four distinct India squadrons were fitted out,—one of two vessels, under Houtman; another, under Jacques Mahay, of five vessels, known as Verhagen’s fleet, from the chief promoter of the enterprise; a third, of three vessels, under Oliver Noort; and a fourth, of not less than eight vessels, set forth by a new East India association, including not only the merchants of Amsterdam, but those of the other cities of the province of Holland, rudiment of the afterwards so celebrated DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY. The first and last of these expeditions proceeded by the Cape of Good Hope. The other two were to attempt the passage by the Straits of Magellan. The Dutch merchants were at this time much richer than those of England, and for these enterprises of theirs to India they obtained the assistance of quite a number of adventurous Englishmen. Houtman had an English pilot named Davis; Noort carried, in the same capacity, Thomas Melis, who had made the voyage round the world with Cavendish. The fleet of Mahay had two English pilots, William Adams and Timothy Shotten, with the former of whom, as being the first Englishman who ever reached Japan, and long a resident there, our narrative has chiefly to do.