Page 185 - Dutch Asiatic Shipping Volume 1

voyagers survived the outward passage and subsequently worked in Asia for a shorter or longer period. A small number of them were able sooner or later to return to Europe (cf. table 33): 30% after 1640, rising to about 40% after 1660 to fall again in the second half of the eighteenth century to about 30%. A t a rough estimate - for exact mortality figures of the sick after arrival at the Cape or in Asia are not known - 80% to 85% of those embarking in the Republic survived the hardships of the outward voyage, while some 90% of those returning reached the home country alive. The percentage of loss for the homeward voyage was always much more favourable than that for the outward voyage. All this proves that at any rate the outward voyage cost many human lives and that subsequently a number of those who survived the voyage died sooner or later in Asia - at another rough estimate, more than half the survivors of the outward voyage. Assuming that in Asia the average life expectancy, for Europeans perhaps even more so, was shorter than in Europe at the time, it is moreover probable that many Company servants in Batavia and elsewhere in Asia came to a premature end due to effects no longer connected with the outward voyage.
Thanks to the steady import from Europe of VOC personnel the business in Asia could be kept going for two centuries. In a word, always enough men survived after the outward voyage. The average complement of personnel in the Asiatic business as expressed in figures remained impressive throughout. In personnel ashore for instance the business there employed in the eighteenth century an annual average of 17,292 Europeans (and 1,672 natives) and in maritime personnel 2,751 Europeans (and 634 natives).5 0 How these 20,000 Europeans of an average year fared in Asia is a different story not to be told here. By far the majority of VOC servants, at least those of European descent, were regularly imported by VOC ships from the Republic to complement and replace VOC personnel in Asia, and a part of these, given time and inclination, were conveyed equally regularly back to Europe. The losses on the outward voyage were heavy, those suffered among voyagers on and due to the return voyage less so - which was one point at issue in the description and analysis of the transporting of VOC personnel.
50. Lequin, Het personeel II, 415.