Page 36 - Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters

over the role of the foreign traders (Coolhaas , pp. -). The VOC, convinced that he was the right person to implement the VOC strategy in Asia; they appointed him Governor-General in , a step that would prove to be a turning point for the organisation in Asia to a hard- line approach. Coen’s opinion had been clear for some time: ‘Trade without war, and war with- out trade cannot be maintained’. He had therefore already been requesting the means and the money from the Netherlands for some time to pursue his philosophy. Coen’s view was that if the Governor-General did not have the means to fight, then he would not have the capital to trade. If there was enough budget available in Asia, it would be possible ‘\[...\]with the fruit of the same \[trade capital\] to maintain all the forts, trade posts, ships \[...\] soldiers and garrisons that the gentleman have in Indië’ (Colenbrander , p ). Coen was a dynamic manager but had a talent for making himself very unpopular. At the end of  hostilities broke out between the English East India Company and the VOC after four English ships were captured in  and  near the Spice Islands. The English sent a fleet in retaliation to Bantam and Jayakarta (then still a small trading post). In the confrontation that followed, Coen defeated the English and took advantage of the situation to take Jayakarta and transform Batavia into the rendezvous for which the VOC had long been searching. Although the relationship with the rulers of Bantam had not been very warm up to that time, from then onwards, when the VOC became sovereign in the region, Coen ran into direct con- flict with the neighbours of the Dutch settlement. Consequently, the VOC periodically blocked  the port of Bantam until  . On land, Coen had also to defend the position of his newly established VOC headquarters against the state of Mataram, who controlled the main areas of Java and Madura. The raids on Batavia in - especially threatened the position of the headquarters of the VOC in Asia. It took until  before the VOC could develop friendly relations with the sultanate of Mataram. Coen could not benefit from his victory over the English fleet in . The VOC directors had decided that instead of fighting the influence of the English, the English East India Company and the VOC had to join forces in the development of the trade in Asia at the expense of the Iberians. Costs and profits were to be shared on a proportional basis. This set-up was not very sound, since the VOC was much stronger than the English East India Company. It was very difficult for the English to meet their obligation to provide ships for military actions in the early s to the Philippines and to the Arabian Sea. The VOC was also not very keen to stick to the treaty, and the promised spices were only provided in dribbles. In  this cooperative ar- rangement came to an end. The practical organisation: ‘round-trading-tours through Asia’ and the start of the shipping network before  In the period before the establishment of the central emporium, Batavia, in , Bantam served as the logistical centre for the VOC. The main role of the VOC organisation in Bantam was to direct the trade and shipping in Asia and to organise the return cargo for the Euro- pean market. It was not always easy to combine all the aspects of trade and shipping and to fulfil all the ambitions of the organisation. The VOC directors in the Netherlands were very demanding: they were aiming for self-contained Asian trade and shipping and on top of this it had to be profitable enough to cover the costs of the return cargo for the European market . Initially, the VOC’s trading activities were aimed at obtaining pepper and spices for the Euro- pean market, but gradually they came to understand that in order to make the Asian trade profitable, they had to become involved in the Asian trade system itself. This forced them to trade in products that were not originally meant for the European market. In the first twenty years many ships had to sail around the region to trade and collect cargo in various places before the return cargo was finally assembled and the ship could sail back to Europe. During the first years of the VOC, the directors had recognised the importance of the intra-Asiatic trade. In this period in Asia, the VOC had learnt the importance of textiles as ‘currency’ in intra-Asian trade. The set-up of this intra-Asian trade also required adaptations to the logistical organisation. In the s, when the VOC was engaged in setting up a permanent organisation  Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters