ABSTRACT
In June 1659, nineteen-year-old assistant surgeon Wouter Schouten left the United Provinces aboard the ship Nieuwpoort on the long journey to Indonesia and India. There he saw a great variety of different beliefs, ranging from the world religions to small crocodile-worship sects. The attitude that Schouten displays in his travel account is, in some ways, liberal for its times. Toleration in the United Provinces was in general more accommodating than most European countries, though the level of specificity varied. The Dutch Republic has sometimes been treated in historical writing in the twentieth century as a paradise of religious toleration. It is commonly held that trade and profit were prioritised above dogma and the control of religious dissent. Milton, during his involvement with the English Commonwealth, and Marvell through his travels and later diplomatic duties, were able to witness different approaches to toleration in Europe.
