Like Enkhuizen, the city of Hoorn was situated on the Zuiderzee, just a little further from the entrance to the sea at Texel where ships sailed on their way in to and out from the inland sea. Also like Enkhuizen, Hoorn was one of the four small chambers of the VOC. The starting capital it put up in 1602 was only half as much as that of Enkhuizen, but nevertheless Hoorn provided one-sixteenth of the total turnover of the Company’s business. This had been agreed in the charter which the States-General had granted the new company in 1602. The Chamber of Hoorn also had seven directors, most of them nominated by the Hoorn municipal council from among prominent local people. A director of such a small chamber would not have had a lot of work to do. The few ships which were on the high seas or were expected in the harbour, the shipyard occupied with some new construction or repair work and the annual auctions were certainly not enough to keep the directors busy every day. The appointment of a commander and his officers appeared on the agenda of the weekly meeting of the directors only two or three times a year.

In each chamber the usual practice was that each director took upon himself certain sections of the business. There were three or four committees: (1) fitting out, for supervision of the building, maintenance and fitting out of the ships and the recruitment of sailors and soldiers, (2) warehouse, for the supervision of the administration of goods, (3) receipts, for the supervision of all monetary matters, and (4) pay office, for the supervision of the bookkeeping and the administration of the shares. Only Amsterdam had a pay office committee. At least two directors sat on each committee. If he was a member of the fitting out committee, a Hoorn director had to be prepared to travel to the Texel Roads one or more times a year to carry out inspections. He travelled there on the admirably furnished Company yacht, occasionally accompanied by the Superintendent of the Shipyard or the master ship’s carpenter. He could be away from home for some days, but the length of his visit was never long – the per diem of f. 6 was paid for only six days.