That year he could personally welcome both Joris van Spilbergen (30 March) and Schouten & Le Maire (12 September) upon their respective arrivals at Ternate from the Dutch Republic via the Strait of Magellan and Cape Horn.

Already after a year, on 31 October 1617, Reael resigned following a dispute with the VOC's leadership (the Lords XVII) on the treatment of both the English competitors in the Moluccas and of the native people.

It would take however until 21 March 1619, when the decidedly less pacifistic Jan Pieterszoon Coen would replace him as Governor-General, before which time Reael had fought the Spanish in 1617 in the Bay of Manila, the English at Bantam and in the Mollucas, and the Mataram Sultanate at Japara on Java.

Reael left the East Indies in January 1620 for Holland where for several years he focused on poetry, partially because his sympathies for the remonstrants (Arminius had been his brother in law after all) prevented him from holding public office.

From 1625 to 1627, he served as vice admiral of Holland and West-Friesland with the Amsterdam Admiralty, and he commanded a fleet of ships fighting the Spanish at the Barbary Coast alongside the English (the "second expedition to Spain" from 12 November 1626 to 10 July 1627).