Sir,–Some time ago, I made, by your Majesty's order, overtures to an Amsterdam merchant, named Isaac Le Maire, a wealthy man of considerable experience in the East India trade. He offered to make himself useful to your Majesty in matters of this kind, and intends to form (for this purpose) an association with some other merchants. He also wishes to engage the services of some mariners, pilots, and sailors, acquainted with northern navigation, whose services he has provisionally retained. He has now repeatedly urged me to give him an answer, and I have always told him that your Majesty could not come to any decision in this affair before it had been settled, whether the present negotiations to obtain a truce for the States General would be successful or not. Le Maire considered this to be perfectly fair, and was satisfied with the answer. But a few days ago he sent to me his brother, to inform me that an English pilot, who has twice sailed in search of a northern passage, has been called to Amsterdam by the East India Company, to tell them what he had found, and whether he hoped to discover that passage. They had been well satisfied with his answer, and had thought they might succeed in the scheme. They had, however, been unwilling to undertake at once the said expedition, and they had only remunerated the Englishman for his trouble, and had dismissed him, with the promise of employing him next year, 1610.