Page 94 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

that awaited them off Manila and to offer to buy silk from them directly. The acts during the period of this study. A considerably quantity of the silk imported appears
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of piracy against junks, however, continued in the following years. Until 1633, trade to have been captured from their rivals in Asia, both the Portuguese and Spanish, as
contacts with Chinese pirate merchants that frequented Formosa, provided only a well as from Chinese junks, rather than being acquired through trade. As we have
small quantity of silk. After the Chinese merchant-pirate ‘Nicholas Iquan’ (Zheng seen, the raw silk, woven silk cloths and finished silk products of the captured Santa
Zhilong) defeated the Dutch fleet that year, the VOC came to an agreement with the Catarina sold at auction with great profits in 1604, prompted the VOC to begin
pirate for the purchase of silk in large quantities and thus he became the sole supplier importing Chinese silk. Following this sale, raw silks from China began to be used
of silk and other Chinese goods to the Dutch trading post in Formosa. along other imported silks in the local silk industry. After the burgomaster and city
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The Dutch privateering against Spanish ships carrying silks and other Chinese council of Amsterdam allocated a large sum of money for the purchase of silk, several
goods to New Spain continued in the 1630s. In the 1637 memorial addressed to the mills for the throwing of silk were set up, thus enabling many poor people to earn
King discussed earlier, Grau y Malfalcon makes a remark about this situation. He says their living. The several attempts by the Dutch to gain access to the trade in Chinese
that ‘in the navigation from China to Manila, in which passage the silk is plundered by silk by force in first two decades of the seventeenth century all failed. Even after 1624,
the Dutch; they carry it to their country, and send it to Castilla by the hands of third when they established themselves in Formosa, trade contacts with Chinese private
persons, and sell it at a great profit’. It seems clear that this would have been a very merchants provided only a small quantity of silk. It was only in 1633, that the VOC
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profitable trading activity for the Dutch, who would have taken the captured silk to made an agreement with the Chinese merchant-pirate Zheng Zhilong to become the
the Dutch Republic (after 1609) without having to pay for it and then re-exported it sole supplier of large quantities of silk and other Chinese goods to its trading post
to Spain to be sold at a high price. in Formosa. Undoubtedly, this agreement was what enabled the Dutch to increase
In a report written by Specx’ successor, Leonard Camps, to the Gentlemen considerably their participation in the silk trade to Japan from 1635 onwards.
Seventeen on the potential of the Hirado factory for the VOC trade, he argued that
two thirds of the Chinese goods in demand in Japan consisted of all kinds of raw silks,
and that the remainder was made up of silk cloths. He calculated that if they could
eliminate their Portuguese rivals and monopolize the imports of silk into Japan, a profit
of 854,375 rials could be made. An analysis of the amounts of raw silk imported Trade to England [2.2.2]
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into Japan by Dutch ships between 1621 and 1640 made by Kato clearly shows that
the participation of the Dutch in the silk trade to Japan increased considerably after
1635. That year, the imports surpassed for the first time 100,000 catties (100 catties English textual sources indicate that Chinese trade junks brought a wide variety of silks
equal 1 picul), a quantity that was maintained through 1640. to Bantam on the Island of Java, where the EIC had established their first Asian trading
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The presence of Chinese woven silk cloths in the Dutch Republic in the early 310 H. T. Colenbrander (ed.), Jan Pietersz. Coen. post in 1603. English merchants coveted silks, especially raw silk, for both their inter-
1640s is attested by the silks from Canton presented as gifts by the Gentlemen Bescheiden omtrent zijn bedrijf in Indië, Vol. IV, Asian trade and home markets.
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Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1922, pp. 590–591.
Seventeen to Henrietta Maria of France (1609–1669), Queen consort of King Charles Mentioned in Ernst van Veen, ‘VOC Strategies in In 1607, three years after the last English sumptuary law was repelled, King
the Far East (1605–1640)’, Bulletin of Portuguese/
I of England (r. 1625–1649), and her eldest daughter Princess Maria Henrietta Stuart Japanese Studies, vol. 3, December 2001, p. 97. James I (r. 1603–1625), endorsed a domestic silk industry, which was to compete
(1631–1660), who came to visit the Dutch Republic in March 1642. Ten months 311 bid., pp. 97–98, and 103. with imported silk. The imports of raw silks into England, however, appear to have
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earlier, the wedding of the young Maria Henrietta and William II (1626–1650), the 312 Blair and Robertson, 1905, Vol. XXVII: 1636–1637, continued in the following years. In a letter written by the EIC to Gabriel Towerson,
p. 203; and Slack, 2012, p. 118.
eldest son of the third Stadholder of the States General, Frederick Henry of Orange- 313 Cort verhael van ‘t profijt, dienst ende nutticheijt chief factor in Bantam (1605–1608) in March of that year, a request for specific types
Nassau (1584–1647), had been celebrated in London. In November of that year, in van Japan soo den Chinesen handel bequamen, of silks is made. It reads ‘And further if the China silk are not there presently to be
overgelevert bij Lenardt Camps ende Jacques
1642, the VOC sent deputies to The Hague with several gifts of Chinese silk and Specx 15 september 1622 end 29 januarij 1623, 320 The inventory of Kenilworth Castle, drawn up in 1588 had, that then you advise the Chinese to bring thereof both white soweing silk, twisted
Ms ARA, VOC 1077, ff. 115–119. Mentioned in Kato, after the death of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,
porcelain, and Japanese lacquer, for the Queen and Princess Royal, as well as for 1981, p. 222. listing a large quantity of silk furnishings made of silk of all sorts and sizes as also raw and sleave silk’. John Saris, writing in December
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the third Stadholder’s wife, Amalia van Solms-Braunfels, Princess of Orange (1602– 314 bid., pp. 222–223, Table 1. various silk cloths, such as satin, damask, taffeta and 1608 in Bantam, informs the EIC that they decided to keep some of the cargo of the
I
velvet, probably of European origin, demonstrates
1675). A number of woven silk cloths and silk furnishings are listed as gifts for the 315 The Chinese porcelain and Japanese lacquer that there was a ready market in England for silks Dragon that came from Priaman, which included ‘0004 Bales Lankin Silk’ and ‘0004
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presented as gifts will be discussed in Chapters III imported from the Far East in the late sixteenth
three ladies in the Resolutions of the Gentlemen Seventeen dated November 25, 1642, and IV, respectively. century. Published in George Adlard, Amye Bales Canton Silk’.
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but only a few are described as being from China. The Queen was to receive ‘five 316 Cynthia Viallé, ‘“Fit for Kings and Princes”: A Gift of Robsart and the Earl of Leycester; …And a History In January 1613, Williams Adams wrote from Japan to his friend Augustin
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Japanese Lacquer’, in Nagazumi Yōko (ed.), Large of Kenilworth Castle …., London, 1870, pp. 241–273.
ditto [pieces of] double red Cantonese damask’, and the Princess Royal was to receive and Broad. The Dutch Impact on Early Modern Asia. 321 Linda Levy Peck, Consuming Splendour: Society and Spalding informing him that ‘The ship that comes from Patan brings raw silk […]
Essays in Honor of Leonard Blussé, Toyo Bunko Culture in Seventeenth-Century England, New York,
four pieces of the same ‘double red Cantonese damask’. The gift for the Princess Research Library 13, Tokyo, 2010, p. 190. 2005, p. 1. of all prices, damask, taffetas, velvet, satin with all other China commodities with
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of Orange was much larger, for she was to receive ‘twenty-four pieces of double red 317 VOC 148. Resoluties van de Heren Zevetien, 322 Sir George Birdwood and William Foster (eds.), The brazil to die with, the which […] is not certain because some years good cheap, and
November 25, 1642. Published in Ibid., Appendix, First Letter Book of the East India Company, 1600–
Cantonese damask’. It seems clear that the VOC had imported a considerably pp. 204–209. sometime dear. Now I […] of Chinese goods they make great profit first’. Adams goes
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1619, London, 1893, p. 150. Cited in K. N. Chaudhiri,
large quantity of double red damask from Canton at the time, which had been most 318 The original text in Dutch reads: ‘5 d° dubbelde The English East India Company: The Study of on to stress the possibility of great profits if trading directly with the Chinese, saying
roode Cantonse damasten’ and ‘4 d° dubbele rode an Early Join-stock Company, 1600–1640, The
probably acquired at Formosa. Cantonse damasten’. Ibid., Appendix, pp. 205 and Emergence of International Business 1200–1800, that ‘…can our English merchants get the handling of trade with the Chinese, then
From the documentation discussed above, it seems that the Dutch were only 206; respectively. Vol. IV, London, reprint 1999, p. 203, note 7. shall our country make great profit here, and your worshipful Indian Company of
319 The original text in Dutch reads: ‘24 stucx dobbele 323 Lankin Silk’ refers to silk from Nanking. Danvers and
‘
importing a small quantity of silks into the Northern Netherlands/Dutch Republic roode Cantonse damasten’. Ibid., p. 208. Foster, Vol. I, 1896, p. 21. London shall not have need to send money out of England, for in Japan is gold and
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