Page 136 - Dutch Asiatic Shipping Volume 1

Moluccas, where the VOC had its own fortifications. In Bantam on the other hand the local ruler was in charge, and the prince of this trading place was not in the least inclined to give the Dutch a position of power. Endless difficulties and quarrels had persuaded Jacques 1'Hermite, from 1607 president of the factory, as early as 1609 to seek contact with the pangeran of Jakarta. In line with his own brief, Both continued these negotiations, which led to a settlement later extended by Coen. In 1618 on the small island of Onrust off the Jakarta coast a shipyard and a small hospital were built and placed under the protection of a gun battery.16
Finally in 1619 Coen's well known conquest of Jakarta took place, and May 30th became the founding day of the new rendez-vous. Coen hesitated about the naming of the place, which he would have liked to call after his own birth-place 'Nieuw-Hoorn', but by the Heren Zeventien s order of 15th August 1621 it was to be 'Batavia'.1 7
First concern after the conquest was a protected place for government, personnel, workshops and foods. For this purpose a fortification was built, the Kasteel\ to the east of the Tjiliwung, on the coast. South of this, inland, a small but in appearance very Dutch town sprang up, intersected by canals. Opposite the castle, on the river, an equipage or carpenter's yard was laid out and a fortified house for the Generale Ontvang (revenue) was built. A boom could be placed across the river to block access to and from the sea. By 1650 the town had been filled in within the walls and canals and the Company's power was such that building could be extended outside.
With the increase of the VOC's business and trade the available space in the Kasteel soon became insufficient, while at the same time the need to confine all activities inside the protective castle walls disappeared as the town grew and the Company's power increa- sed. Warehouses, prison and workshops were successively moved to other sites in the city and staff were given other accomodation. The Governor-General lived in the Kasteel until 1741, while the Hoge Regering kept on meeting there until 1801.
Whereas the title 'Queen of the East' might be a justifiable name for the city on account of the rich appearance of the residences of its high officials, where health was concerned the opposite was true. In the eighteenth century especially the town enjoyed a deplorable reputation. Stavorinus, who in the account of his travels devotes a separate chapter to the unhealthiness of Batavia, states that more and more people left the old lower town and that houses there were decaying.18 The detrimental effect of the rapid increase of sugar cane cultivation in the Ommelanden (surrounding area) of Batavia, leading to pol- lution and silting up of the drainage system, is thought to have been an important cause of the unhealthy climate.19
It was not surprising that in Batavia for the European population alone the care of the sick became an absolute necessity. Hospitals were set up in- and outside the Kasteel. A senior surgeon resided inside the Kasteel, who kept a medicine store and trained new surgeons. Outside the Kasteel a hospital was built first in bamboo, to be rebuilt in brick in 1640. The sick among the lower ranks, soldiers and sailors were obliged to go to this hospital. To cope with a surplus of patients, even a ship in the roadstead was fitted up as a temporary hospital. In 1743 it became necessary to build a second hospital on land for
16 De Haan, Oud Batavia I, 10-17.
17 De Haan, Oud Batavia I, 38. For the development of the city see also Breuning, Het voormalige
Batavia, and Blussé, 'An insane administration.' 18Stavorinus,VoyagesIII,395-416.
19 Blussé, 'An insane administration', 77-80.