Departure from Holland Upon its commissioning, entered the service of the VOC. For her maiden voyage on the open ocean, set sail on 23 January 1616 from the Dutch port of
Texel in the company of several other VOC ships, on a trading venture bound for
Batavia (the present-day
Jakarta) in the
Dutch East Indies. Her captain was
Dirk Hartog, a thirty-five-year-old former private merchant, who had sailed for the VOC before but was now again in the employ of the VOC.
Route to Indian Ocean Sailing down the west Africa coastline, became separated from the others in a severe storm and reached the
Cape of Good Hope alone around August. She stayed there until 27 August when Hartog decided to set out unaccompanied across the Indian Ocean towards their destination. Hartog's course across the Indian Ocean was a much more southerly one than the route usually followed. It made use of the prevailing westerly winds at those latitudes known as the
Roaring Forties, a route which had been pioneered a few years earlier by the Dutch navigator
Hendrik Brouwer who had noted it to be a faster way to reach
Java. By this time, the VOC had not as yet instructed all its captains to take advantage of this route, which could reduce the overall travelling time from Europe by a good six months. The decision to do so was taken just a few months after Hartog departed Amsterdam. So Hartog took that decision himself. However, later the intention was to change heading northwards at a more westerly
longitude than had done. Whether Hartog had intended to maintain such a southerly course for so long via this route, or was perhaps blown a little off course, is unclear.
Landfall in Australia After approximately two months at sea, on 25 October Hartog and unexpectedly sighted land"various islands, which were, however, found uninhabited", at a
latitude around 26° South. These islands and the nearby land were previously unknown to Europeans, and had become the second recorded European ship to visit the continent of Australia, having been preceded (albeit, on the opposite side of the continent) 10 years earlier by
Willem Janszoon on sailing along, and landing on, the western shores of the
Cape York Peninsula just months before
Luís Vaz de Torres sailed through the straight that now bears his name without leaving records of seeing land at his south. Hartog and crew made landfall on the island, now known as
Dirk Hartog Island which lies off
Shark Bay in Western Australia. This was the first recorded landing on the western coastline by Europeans. The island was uninhabited, and Hartog spent three days there, finding nothing of great interest or value to him or his company. Before departing on 27 October, Hartog left behind a
pewter dish, now known as the
Hartog Plate, affixed to a post set in a rock cleft (now called
Cape Inscription). Upon the plate he had inscribed the following brief account of his visit: The Hartog Plate, measuring in diameter, is the oldest known written artifact from Australia's European history. It lay unmolested for a further eighty years, until it was re-discovered half-buried (the post had rotted away) by a Dutch expedition of three ships under the command of the
Flemish captain
Willem de Vlamingh in 1697. De Vlamingh had earlier explored
Rottnest Island and the
Swan River (later to be the site of the city of
Perth), and had been making his way up the western coast of Australia. He replaced the Hartog dish with one of his own, onto which he copied Hartog's original inscription and added an account of his own landing, installing it in the same spot nailed to a
cypress-pine trunk taken from Rottnest Island. Hartog's original dish returned with De Vlamingh later to
Amsterdam, where it is displayed in the
Rijksmuseum.
Charting the coast of Western Australia After leaving the island, sailed in a north-east direction along the Western Australian coastline, Hartog
charting as he went. He gave this land the name (), after his ship. In 1627 this name appeared on the and on subsequent charts, replacing the former mythical and postulated land of (), sparking considerable further interest by parties such as the VOC. This gave further impetus to explore this region in the hope of something notable or exploitable, leading to a long period of further exploration. Hartog's name was at first being retained for just the part he visited, when the continent he was then thought to have visited was named () by
Abel Tasman in 1644 when further unveiled by him on two expeditions during the previous two years. Hartog himself did not note anything which might be of use, making no further landfalls or contact with
Aboriginal Australians inhabiting the land. continued along the coast to about 22° South latitude, thereafter heading northwards toward the
Timor Sea. She arrived first at
Makassar on the island of
Sulawesi on 14 December 1616 where a conflict with the local chief caused the ship to leave for
Ambon where it arrived six days later. Some excerpts of a letter from Supercargo, Cornelis Buysero at Bantam to the managers of the VOC at Amsterdam, with comments from author, Jan Heeres in 1899, is of interest to the history of , as follows. Worshipful, Wise, Provident, very Discreet Gentlemen,... ...The ship Eendracht [*], with which they had sailed from the Netherlands, after communicating at the Cabo sailed away from them so far southward as to come upon 6 various islands which were, however, found uninhabited [**]... [* Commanded by Dirk Hartogs, or Hartogszoon.] [* What "uninhabited islands" the ship Eendracht "came upon", Buysero's letter does not say. Various authentic archival documents of 1618 and subsequent years, however, go to show that the land afterwards named Eendrachtsland or Land van de Eendracht, and the Dirk Hartogsreede (island) must have been discovered on this voyage.] Bantam, this last day of August, A.D. 1617. Your Worships' servant to command CORNELIS BUYSERO [*] [* Buysero was supercargo at Bantam (DE JONGE, Opkcornst, IV, p. 68,) and was therefore likely to be well informed as to the adventures of the ship, which had sailed from the Netherlands in January 1616, departed from the Cape of Good Hope in the last days of August, and had arrived in India in December of the same year, as appears from what Steven Van der Haghen, Governor of Amboyna, writes May 26, 1617: "That in the month of December 1616, the ship Eendracht entered the narrows between Bima and the land of Endea near Guno Api (Goenoeng Api) in the south of Java" (Sapi Straits).] It proves that as early as 1618 the name of Eendrachtsland was known in the Netherlands. ) by
Hessel Gerritsz, stating, ''Willems revier, besocht by 't volck van 't Schip Mauritius in Iulius A° 1618'' ("Willem's River, visited by the crew of the ship Mauritius in July 1618"). [This cropped image has been reoriented 90 degrees right from the original chart with north to top]|400px The
Willems River discovery added to the boundary of in 1618, as shown by the prominence given to as the main name on the chart as the name for this South-land. It names the as the ship used for the discovery of the Willems River. The text on this close-up cropped image says, (). ==Return voyage to the Netherlands==