Hendrick Doncker's very rare chart of the Pacific, depicts almost nothing, but the extremities of California; Japan; New Zealand, as "Staten Land"; and the western coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria in Australia as "Ant. van Diemens Lant". It is based on Jacob Colom's chart of the Pacific Ocean, 'Zuyd-Zee' (1652), but without the inset of Corea and Japan.

Interestingly, Doncker has oriented his chart with west to the top, offering us Doncker's preferred perspective, seen in his maps that show a more complete post-Tasman Australian coastline, entering the map from an easterly direction, i.e. from the Dutch strongholds in Asia, and so placing the glimpses of Australia and New Zealand on their side. A very Dutch view of the possibilities of a thorough exploration of the Pacific.

To the north of the Australian and New Guinea coastlines there appears a small group of islands, the "Ladrones" of Micronesia, which were of great interest to Spain. Although the Spanish authorities in Manila and Madrid had "no serious thoughts of expansion to the mainland [Asia], the various archipelagoes of Micronesia were beginning to attract their attention. Micronesia was ideally situated as a way-station for the Mexico-Philippine voyage, and there was no serious contest for them from other Western powers. These islands, however, promised little in material gain, their only obvious commodity being heathen souls in need of redemption. Spanish encounters with the islands of the Marianas, Carolines, and Marshalls began with the first trans-Pacific Spanish voyages. Later, the English circumnavigations of Drake and Cavendish skimmed the islands, and by the early seventeenth century Dutch vessels approaching the Moluccas by way of the Pacific used Guam as a stopover to replenish supplies. They continued to provision galleons operating between Manila and Acapulco, but played only a minor part in Europe's evolving image of Southeast Asia…

"In 1662, a Jesuit named Diego Luis de Sanvitores, stopping at Guam on his way to Manila, decided that the salvation of the islanders' souls was his destiny. The "Ladrones" themselves, apart from the value of their location for vessels crossing the north Pacific, must have seemed like a disappointing prize compared to the "rich" lands which had brought the Spanish to the Indies in the first place, and the authorities of Manila reacted coolly to Sanvitores's proposal to establish missionary stations there. But within the same year, Spain lost its grip on the Moluccas and the southern Philippines, making expansion to Micronesia a more attractive option. When Sanvitores beseeched the help of Madrid and Rome, his pleas were relayed to King Philip IV and Mariana of Austria. In 1667, permission and funds for a mission in the Ladrones was approved by the Spanish court. Philip died three months later, leaving Mariana as the queen-regent, and Sanvitores proposed renaming the archipelago after her, an appellation which has survived to this day – the Marianas.

Thus began Spain's turn from the fabled points to the west and south of her Philippine empire to the "poor" islands to her east – islands which nonetheless can conjure up the poetry of Paradise as easily as the mainland and Indonesian kingdoms that Spain had failed to attain" (Suarez).

The mapmaker
An innovator among the first generation of Dutch mapmakers to publish the previously proprietary information of the VOC cartographers, Hendrick Doncker (c1626-1699) worked hard to produce up-to-date charts for a wide audience, which were prized for their accuracy and precision, reducing the lag between discovery and disclosure (Martin Woods).

For many years, from 1655, he collaborated with Pieter Goos (1616–1675) and Theunis (or Anthonie) Jacobsz Lootsman (c1606 – 1650), on their guide for navigators, 'De Zeespiegel', issuing examples of the atlas with his own imprint. From 1664 he published his own version of the atlas with an entirely new set of charts. However, his greatest work was his 'Zee-Atlas' of 1659. Surprisingly, the first edition is known in only one example, at the National Library in Australia. His introduction to the work illuminates the power of its success:

"Lovers of praiseworthy Sea-Navigation. Just as I have manufactured, and sold, graduated arcs, angle arcs, and Davis quadrants, and have on occasion satisfied a demand for sea-charts, this has motivated and moved me to create a Sea Atlas, or Water-World, in which is shown and noted all the Sea-Coasts of the known countries of the world. But after the sea-charts are used on board of ships and differences are observed regarding present-day conditions by skippers and navigators, I request that if someone has made observations that should be incorporated, or found mistakes that should be corrected in the next issue of the sea-chart, these to be handed to me or made known to me, in order to enable me to, should that be necessary, in service to all mariners".

Doncker's 'Zee-Atlas' was preceded by that of Arnold Colom, but surpassed it and another rival publication by Johannes Janssonius, in its scope and practicality to navigators. As a result, and as Koeman notes: "Doncker's charts were the most up-to-date in the second half of the seventeenth century. Although there is some similarity to those charts published by Van Loon, Goos, Lootsman, and Doncker, the latter's charts are original. More frequently than … [his] contemporaries, Hendrick Doncker corrected and improved his charts. He often replaced obsolete charts by new ones … This consciousness of the high demands of correctness is reflected by the development of Doncker's sea atlas".

The 'Zee-Atlas 'was immensely popular, and remained in print for fifty years. Doncker's son, also Hendrick, took over the business after his father's death, and was still publishing editions of his father's atlas in the early 1700s. Eventually his stock was sold to Johannes van Keulen.