Jan Huyghen van Linschoten (1563鈥?611) was a Dutch Protestant merchant; traveller and historian who is credited with copying top-secret Portuguese nautical maps while working as secretary for the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa in the 1580s. He published several books in Holland which enabled the maritime passage to the elusive East Indies to be opened to the English and the Dutch. This enabled the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company to break the 16th century monopoly enjoyed by the Portuguese on trade with the East Indies and the Spice Islands.