Dutch merchant, trader and historian Jan Huygen van Linschoten (1563 – 1611) spent six years in India as secretary to the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa (1583 – 1588). He collected previously classified information he published in his Itinerario (1596) during his time there. Published in English as Discours of Voyages into Ye East & West Indies, the work was an invaluable resource for early Dutch and English expeditions to India and the East Indies. He also sailed with Willem Barents on his 1594 and 1595 voyages in search of a northeast passage to the Orient. He published his journal of the expeditions in 1601.