Isaac Le Maire was a prominent Dutch merchant, who had developed a competitive dislike for the East India Company. In spite of his agitations against the company, he was granted the privilege to trade in the Indo-West Pacific. Ordinarily, this legal permission could be expected to cause the East India Company concern about competition with its monopoly in the region. However, the charter of the East India Company guaranteed no other Dutch company could use either the Straits of Magellan or the Cape of Good Hope routes to effect trade within the East Indies.

Le Maire had two reasons to be optimistic that there was passage south of the Strait of Magellan between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.

• Magellan doubted the land south of his passage of the tip of South America was a continent. He suspected there was open water.
• Drake had been in the area previously and had been taken significantly south of Magellan's Strait by a storm.

Le Maire believed there was passage from the Atlantic into the Pacific which would not use the disallowed Strait of Magellan, and he hired a competent navigator, who had already made three trips to the South Seas islands. His name was Willem Schouten. Together, they put together a plan for their new company. The company was to travel in search of the South Pacific gold riches prominently mentioned by Quiros. Le Maire, Schouten, and Le Maire's son (Jacob) joined with the city leaders of the town of Hoorn and raised money for two ships, which were outfitted for the passage. The outfit was known as the Goldseekers.

The ships were the larger Eendracht and the smaller Hoorn, and sailors were hired for a journey, the details of which they were not to know. Where these ships were to go was not public knowledge, but the company had come to be known as the Goldseekers, though it was more properly recorded as The Australian Company. The company sailed from England in May 1615.

Crossing the Atlantic and reaching the South America shore was not done without mishap, but both ships survived the problems. With relief, the sailors properly beached the ships on the shore of Patagonia in order to clean them before continuing on to the Pacific. It was in this process that the Hoorn was accidentally set alight and burned to destruction. The expedition continued with the Eendracht alone.

In January 1616 (southern summer) Le Maire and Schouten did pass the Eendracht through a route south of the Straits of Magellan, a route now called the Straight of Le Maire. To his left Le Maire noted the land mass (unexplored) as Staten Landt, perhaps a portion of the great southern continent. In fact, the land was an island, but the possibility of a large Staten Land persisted. Tasman considered New Zealand may be part of Le Maire's Staten Land.

As Le Maire and Schouten passed the most southerly tip and moved into the great ocean to the west they noted the point and called it Cape Hoorn, which has endured onto maps today.

The Eendracht entered the great southern ocean and crossed with pauses at several island groups along the way. Then Le Maire wished to pursue a more southerly course into Java, Schouten was leery of the southern side of New Guinea and believed it not possible to pass on that side.

The Duyfken had reportedly come to a westward opening bay in the region now know to be Torres Strait between New Guinea and Cape York of Australia. Torres had passed through these waters in the same year as the Duyfken cruise, but his report was buried in Spanish archives and unseen by the remainder of the contemporary sailing world.

Schouten insisted and prevailed on a northern route around New Guinea. The cruise came to an end in October 1616 in Batavia.

The expedition failed in its attempt to discover gold riches, but it was highly successful as a well managed voyage into ocean regions unknown, and plotted the absence of a great southern continent through its track across the Pacific. Only three sailors died on the more-than-sixteen-month voyage, and none from scurvy.

Three days following their arrival in Batavia, Le Maire and Schouten were imprisoned on charge of violating the monopoly of the Company. The Company directors on Java did not believe a new passage had been found around the tip of South America and sent the two men back to Holland. On that trip, the 31-year-old Le Maire died. For the next two years, Le Maire's father worked to sue the Company and was finally successful. The new path around Cape Hoorn was recognized and the East India Company was ordered to return the vessel and its cargo to the Australia Company, paying all expenses and interest since its taking.