Melchior van Santvoort was a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 seaman and surviving crew of the Liefde, the ship which transported William Adams

William Adams (sailor)

William Adams , also known in Japanese as Anjin-sama and Miura Anjin , was an English navigator who travelled to Japan and is believed to be the first Englishman ever to reach that country...

 to Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 in 1600.

He was allowed to leave Japan with the Liefdes Captain Jacob Quaeckernaeck

Jacob Quaeckernaeck

Jacob Jansz. Quaeckernaeck was a Dutch seaman and Captain of the Liefde, the ship which transported William Adams to Japan in 1600....

 on 1604 on a Red Seal Ship provided by the daimyo

Daimyo

is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

 of Hirado, with the destination of Patani in the Malay Peninsula

Malay Peninsula

The Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula is a peninsula in Southeast Asia. The land mass runs approximately north-south and, at its terminus, is the southern-most point of the Asian mainland...

.

From Patani, Quaeckernaeck joined the fleet of Cornelis Matelief de Jonge

Cornelis Matelief de Jonge

Cornelis Matelief , was a Dutch admiral who was active in establishing Dutch power in Southeast Asia during the beginning of the 17th century . His fleet was officially on a trading mission, but its true intent was to try to destroy Portuguese power in the area. The ships had 1400 men on board,...

, a compatriot, on August 19, 1606, but van Santvoort returned directly to Japan, and continued being active in trade between Japan and Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

.

Van Santvoort together with another crewmember, Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn

Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn

Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn , or simply Jan Joosten, was a native of Delft and one of the first Dutchmen in Japan, arriving as one of William Adams's shipmates on the De Liefde, which was disabled on the coast of Kyūshū in 1600.-Early life in Japan:The De Liefde departed Rotterdam in 1598, on a...

, reportedly later made a fortune in trade between Japan and Southeast Asia. Both of them were reported by Dutch traders in Ayutthaya

Ayutthaya kingdom

Ayutthaya was a Siamese kingdom that existed from 1350 to 1767. Ayutthaya was friendly towards foreign traders, including the Chinese, Vietnamese , Indians, Japanese and Persians, and later the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and French, permitting them to set up villages outside the walls of the...

, onboard richly cargoed junks

Junk (ship)

A junk is an ancient Chinese sailing vessel design still in use today. Junks were developed during the Han Dynasty and were used as sea-going vessels as early as the 2nd century AD. They evolved in the later dynasties, and were used throughout Asia for extensive ocean voyages...

, in early 1613.