Page 263 - Nicolaes Witsen & Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age

multilingual dictionary Allgemeines Wörterbuch der Marine, still called Witsen’s book “das vollständigste Werk, wass man von dieser Art hat” (the most compre- hensive work of its kind).31
The book was acquired not only by readers and libr aries in the Netherlands. People like Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), secretary of the British Navy , owned a copy, and, a s we sh all see, the Swedish admiral Count Carl Gustaf Wrangel (1613–76) ordered the book when it came out.32 The book was in a number of royal collections as well: Charles II of England, Louis XIV of France, Christina of Sweden, and Peter the Great of Russia all obtained a copy.33
In the seventeenth and eighteenth c enturies the Dutch held a domin ant po- sition in tr ade and shipping, espec ially along the c oasts of northern Germany, Scandinavia, and the Baltic region. On Dutch merchant vessels there were many sailors in all ranks fr om these countries. The Dutch language was widely under- stood, read, and written b y people inv olved in tr ade and shipping activities in these countries. As the Dutch were also dominant in publishing, most books on maritime affairs used in the region c ame from Dutch presses and were printed in Dutch. In fact, the first textbook on the ar t of navigation in German was not published until the end of the eighteenth c entury.34 Before this time Germ an sailors had to learn navigation from Dutch books. In the wake of this flourishing sea trade, the knowledg e of the Dut ch language spread to other par ts of soci- ety. In the seventeenth c entury theater companies from the Netherlands toured the Baltic countries and even per formed at the Dani sh and Swedish courts.35 Witsen’s book could certainly be read by a much wider audience than his coun- trymen alone, and it was named as a source by almost every author writing on continental shipbuilding before 1800.
Variants in the 1671 Edition
Studying the variants within copies of the same edition is often the key to inter- esting information about the book’s birth. With both editions of Witsen’s book this is the c ase. The first variant in the 16 71 edition i s not spectacular, but it reveals the identity of the printer. On the title pag e of most copies of the first edition, only the names of the publishers appear; but there is a unique copy in which the names of the publishers are not given—only the name of the printer. Through this earlier version of the title page we kno w that the book was printed by Christoffel Conradus in Amsterdam.36
The other variants are of a completely different nature. A considerable num- ber are found in the texts on pages 345–46 and 463–79, which deal with recent maritime events and conflicts. Quite a number of changes concern events of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–67), which had only recently ended. The differ- ences mainly concern the offen sive tone directed at the Engli sh adversaries: some strongly anti-English remarks in the oldest version have been softened in the next version. Many sentences and par agraphs have even been remo ved or altered. For example, on page 345 the description of the Dutch commemorative medal celebrating the raid on the River Medway in 1667 is simply deleted on the reprinted page. A clear example of these changes is found on page 475, which contains the following passage: “But even in defeat did the cruelty of the English enflame. Because the captain of a fire ship, after having been captured, had his head and manhood cut off, even after having been pardoned. Dutchmen do not act in such a way, because their word is their seal, because they are content at seeing their enemy conquered.” In a later version this part has been replaced by
Variations on Witsen
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