Page 31 - Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters

gion via the north-east passages, the Dutch overcame their reluctance to follow the same route as the Portuguese around the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese were not just competitors and were predominantly a military enemy since the Netherlands were entangled in a war of independence with Spain. This revolt had made the Dutch the enemy of the Portuguese since Portugal and Spain were united in one royal family. The main concern for Dutch traders and skippers was to establish direct contact with the area that produced the coveted spices and to circumvent the existing trade network in and around the Indonesian Archipelago controlled mainly by Portugal and to a lesser degree by Spain. From the late th century, when the Por- tuguese opened the direct sea route to Asia around Africa, most spices for the European market were distributed from Lisbon. In the course of the th century Lisbon’s primacy in that respect was usurped by Antwerp. In the same period, the Netherlands developed into the main carrier for Europe and maintained an extensive shipping network. The Dutch were famous for their flexible and cheap shipping arrangements (De Vries & Van der Woude ). This situation changed again when Antwerp was occupied by Spanish troops resulting in the blockade of the entrance to the river Schelde by the Dutch in . Although initially it seemed that Hamburg would take over Antwerp’s position as the principal supplier of Asian products in north-wes- tern Europe, it was Amsterdam that eventually became the most important trade centre. In the s, the conditions to commence trade and shipping directly from the Netherlands to Asia were most favourable. Despite the war, trade with Portugal continued. The Portuguese however, were unable to maintain their level of imports from Asia, which caused the price of pepper to rise exponentially in Europe. This commercially promising situation and other cir- cumstances in Amsterdam created the incentive to set up the costly and risky enterprise for direct trade with Asia. The Protestant merchants who had fled Antwerp, brought not only their capital but above all, their trading contacts abroad and their knowledge of modern trading methods and organisational forms. In the th century, Amsterdam became a centre of exper- tise and information from which direct trade with Asia could successfully be developed (Lesger , pp. -). The well-developed shipping and shipbuilding sector in the Netherlands could provide suitable ships for such an endeavour. Nautical science had progressed in the course of the th century and the most able geographers and navigation experts were avail- able in the Netherlands. An important source of information for the shipping route and the new trade was the information provided by Jan Huygen van Linschoten. His books Reysges- chrift and Itinerario contain his collected knowledge and experience from his years of service with the Portuguese. The cartographer and clergyman Petrus Plancius also played an impor- tant role in the research and development of the sea routes to Asia. Java was not yet the primary goal for Dutch shipping in the early s when the first steps to find a sea road to Asia were taken. The first initiatives were aimed at finding a direct route to China (the Far East – Areas -) through a northeast passage around Asia. These attempts were stranded in the polar ice; the passage proving to be impossible for a th century ship. The ambition to get a grip on the China trade still remained consistent, although at that time it was overshadowed by the push to develop shipping to other destinations. During this period, attempts were also made to reach these eastern regions of Asia through the Straits of Magellan over the Pacific Ocean. Two expeditions were organised in ; one by the Magelhaense Com- pany, led by Mahu and Cordes, and another, undertaken by Olivier van Noort, which was the first Dutch voyage around the world. Although respectively Japan (Area ) and the Moluccas (Area ) were reached by these two expeditions, these routes to Asia were not developed further after the route around the southern tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope) turned out to be the most feasible sea route to Asia despite the potential for confrontation with the Portu- guese. In , the first fleet of four ships sailed to Asia around the Cape of Good Hope. Nine Amsterdam merchants, united as the Compagnie van Verre (Far Distant Lands Company), raised , guilders from various investors to fit out four ships and provide the required trading capital. Setting up an enterprise in a company was a common way at the time to share the investment and associated risk. On the return of the ships, the whole enterprise was to be liqui- dated and the anticipated profits would be divided proportionally between the shareholders. The first expedition was however, not the great commercial success the investors had hoped The Dutch expansion in Asia up to  