Page 205 - Loss of the VOC Retourschip Batavia, Western Australia, 1629

TRADE SILVERWARE
During the excavation of the Balavia, a remarlcable
collection of unusual silver objects was recovered. 11Iere seems little doubt that Ibis material was part of the specu- lative tmde thatPelsaert had advocated in hisRemonstran- lie orReportwhichhepresented to theHeren XVII in 1627 (Moreland, 1925). Pelsaert, while upper-merchant or fac- tor at Agra, had written theRemonslranlie with the inten- tion of advising the Company on India and the trade pros- pects there. He advocated the developmentofa number of new typesoftmde;ofparticularrelevancehereis hisnote that
Many of the greal men express suprise that we do not have
gold and silver (coined and uncoined), which we import in
large quantities , manufactured by us into articles 1hat ere in common use..... It would be well therefore. for the fll3t trial. to manufacture such goods as the following to the value of 8000to lOOOO",a1s-of·eigh~andtothesamelUIlountingold: Feet for kaJe{s, or bedsteads, hollow, and as light as possible, but anisticaJJy wrought. Aftabas,orewersusedbyMoslemsforwashingtheirhands. Betelooxes
Fan handles
Handles for fly-switches.
Dishes and cups wilh covers.
If necessary. the style or fashion of lhese items should be explained.
It is believed that after his return to the Netherlands in
June 1628, Pelsaert was given permission by the Heren XVII to pursue these ideas and he was allowed to commis- sion items that would be taken to the Indies in the Balavia for this tmde.
When Pelsaert returned from Batavia to the wreck site in the Sare/am to rescue the survivors, he was able to recovermuchofthebullionandgoodsfrom theshipusing the divers from GujaraI. Pelsaert records:
They&bedup!heBox[ClUSe] withtheTinseLaswellas 4 siIvac MoorUh fruj.-dishes, with. ditto hand-bssin [/am. pel.srlooleij, weighing alItogethcr, by guessing _ _ Silver Morl<s.
After Pelsaert's return to Batavia, van Diemen, the Governor General, recorded in December 1629 that
te:nchestsofcssh, Bm01mgstthem!hechcstNo.33wi!hnine s o c k s o f d u c a t s . Item, t h e c a s h w i t h t h e j e w e l s t o t h e v a l u e o f f. 58000 and some wrought silvctWork. three barreIB of cochineal and other baggage...
were recovered from the site and returned in the Sar- dam to Batavia.
A letter dated April 1629 written by theHeren xvrr in Amsterdam to the GovemorGeneral, J.P Coon, contained the following information (Coen was dead by the time the letler arrived in Batavia):
Herewith goes a case numbered as No. 4, in which src four p o s t s f o r a b e d . achamberpo~ a e w e r , a n d a b i g d i s h , a 1 l m a d e from pure gold. which was made to order and on the advice o f the merchant Francisco Pelsaert, to be sent to Suratte and from there to the land of the Great Magor to be sold 10 that pcnon OT to the mighty men of the same realm.
Thus it would seem that the silverware found on the wreck site was part of a consignment which Pelsaert was to use to explore the new trade possibilities. Obviously, much of the silverware was recovered, but what remain on the site is of great interesL
It is difficult to determine if the Batavia silverware is the work of one silversmith since only one maker's mark, together with the year mark, survives on the plate (BAT 3432). It bears the town mark of Amsterdam, the date letter 'S' representing the year 1628, and the maker's mark of Abraham van der Plaetsen (Citroen, 1975:14). Another object, the so-called candelabra (BA T3643), has the same date mark, unfortunately the other marks are obscure. Most of the silverware is executed in a similar fashion, with finely crafted engravings, only the candelabra is dif- ferent, having applied cast mouldings. Several of the objects have markings showing where the silver had been assayed (Fig. 52). This process involved taking a small scrapingofsilverwhichwas testedforpurity.Ifthispassed assay, the object would then be stamped.
195