Able Dutch navigator, planned a voyage to the East without passing the Cape of Good Hope or crossing the Magellan Straits - two routes authorized only for ships of the Dutch East India Company. The expedition, of which Jacob Le Maire was also a member, left in 1615 and effectively found a new southern passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Schouten's new route came to be routinely used by the Dutch. Schouten made many other voyages to the East, and died on his way home from an expedition in 1625.