Isaac Le Maire

Isaac le Maire was a native of Tournai who learned the trade from his merchant brother-in-law. By 1584, Isaac was registered in Antwerp as a wealthy grocer and was also captain of the company of the Antwerp militia. In 1585, after the fall of Antwerp, he fled to the northern Netherlands and settled in Amsterdam.

In Amsterdam, le Maire and his partner constituted a company for trading in Russia. His ships carried Baltic grain and timber to Spain, and ships with leather, wax, fur and caviar from Archangelsk often were destined for Venice and Livorno. The company also traded in bills of exchange, chartering and marine insurances. In the second part of the 1590s, le Maire had a major position in the fish trade between British ports and Spain.

Like other enterprising merchant of his time, le Maire started to trade with East Indies. In 1599 he was one of the founders of the Brabant Company, which carried out two voyages to the Indies, and quickly yielded the company 400% profit. In 1602, all Dutch trading companies for the East merged into the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Le Maire applied for shares for the sum of 85,000 guilders and he became the largest shareholder in the VOC. However, le Maire got into conflict with other directors of the VOC for reasons unknown, and in 1605 he stepped down as a director.

He tried to get involved in the Indies trade in 1608 when he became involved in preparations for setting up a French East India Company. The plans for the French company failed, in part because of the murder of the French King, Henry IV, in May 1610. His other attempt to get back into Indies trade was in 1614 when he founded the Austraalse Compagnie for the purpose of discovering the passage which would fall outside the VOC monopoly, as the VOC owned, by patent from the States-General, the Dutch monopoly on travels to the Indies via the Cape of Good Hope and through the Strait of Magellan, until then the only two known passages to the Indies. Le Maire’s ships discovered new round Cape Horn and traveled to the Indies, but were confiscated by the VOC.