Page 110 - Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters

placed director-general (responsible for the trade and the shipping) tried to organise the logis- tics of the intra-Asian trade and the retourvaart to Europe while travelling back and forth be- tween Bantam and the Spice Islands. The focus on the region of west Java intensified when, in the s, a new direct route be- tween the Cape of Good Hope and Java was explored. Instead of following the African coast to the north, the ships sailed south and then east between o and o S latitude, using the prevail- ing westerly winds, the roaring forties and the current. After approximately  Dutch sea miles ,they turned north towards the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java. This new route was successful: the trip was shorter and the conditions improved for both ship and crew. In  this route, ‘Brouwer’s Route’ became the prescribed route for all VOC ships. Initially, there were problems with knowing when to turn north and off the ‘roaring forties freeway’. Although the th century sailors were able to determine the latitude of the ship, the longitude was based on dead reckoning by the skipper and mates. The accidental grounding and the wrecking of the Batavia off the coast of Australia in  was partly due to a miscalculation of longitude. Another problem with the route was if a ship arrived in the monsoonal season on the wrong side of Sunda Strait, it was forced to sail with the winds for some months before it was able to reach its destination. With fine-tuning of the routing and growing cartographical knowledge of the west coast of Australia, Brouwer’s Route became the best route. Prior to , the VOC’s preference was for Jayakarta to be the administrative centre and a place for storage and transhipment, this was mainly due to the dispute with Bantam over taxes. The bay of Jayakarta with the ‘thousand islands’ was ideally suited for both shipbuilding and repair. The combined attack of the English (triggered by the VOC themselves, as a result of their aggressive monopoly policy in the Spice Islands) and the Javanese on the initial VOC post in Jayakarta turned out to be a blessing in disguise. After the VOC regrouped at the Spice Islands they were able to recapture Jayakarta and establish a sound independent base. This independence ultimately led to the establishment of VOC headquarters at this location. Whilst the VOC were no longer required to pay taxes and duties on their trade, they did, however have to deal with hostile neighbours. Nevertheless, as long as they were able to control the situation by ‘dividing and ruling’ and as long as they were able to keep ahead in military strength, they could develop their logistical centre without interference from the local rulers. In , Jayakarta was renamed Batavia by the VOC forces led by Jan Pieterszoon Coen. After , Batavia became the administrative and logistical headquarters of the VOC. From that time, all major decisions relating to administration and logistics were made there. The Sunda Strait became the central hub for the link to Europe and Batavia and was, in effect, the ‘traffic-control-centre’ for intra-Asian shipping. The departing ships regularly received detailed instructions about their voyage and goals. Batavia VOC officials often diverged from these instructions when the specific vessels were not available. It seems that the VOC was able to control shipping and trade to a large extent. If unforeseen circumstances occurred, it appears the system was flexible enough to adjust to the situation as demonstrated in the reconstruction of a planned and implemented season of intra-Asian shipping (see Case Study -). Case Study -: Orders and Obeyance , Taiwan  The orders and the obeyance of orders sent from VOC headquarters in Batavia demonstrate the flex- ibility of the VOC. An interesting case study is the implementation of instructions for the ships on the north-eastern route sent in  to Taiwan. These instructions for the Taiwan VOC post were sent with the homeward-bounder Nieuw Enckhuy- sen on -- (NA .., VOC , fol. ). Once in Taiwan, a ballast-cargo of sugar was loaded and the ship returned directly to Batavia. In Batavia, an additional cargo of pepper was loaded. The ship had arrived late and could not join, as planned, the return fleet which had departed on th December . It left with  other ‘late’ ships on st January . The Nieuw Enckhuysen arrived in the Netherlands in August . The instructions that the Nieuw Enckhuysen brought to Taiwan included a number of assignments for a  Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters