Page 211 - Dutch Asiatic Shipping Volume 1

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KA 4390 /VOC 4936: This book, covering the period 1688 to around 1796, contains
the most extensive survey and is therefore more than an uitloopbook.
It gives the following
information, again copied from the resolutions of the Heren Zeventien, the date of which
is included: names of the ships to be equipped, with their chambers, names of masters,
year and place of construction, and the number of crew on departure of each ship. Next,
date and place of departure are given, again obviously added afterwards. The particulars
about the outward voyage are noted: number of deaths up to the Cape of Good Hope,
times of arrival and departure from the Cape, place and date of arrival in Asia, sometimes
with a brief mention of ports of call en route. Finally in this book date and place of return
home are also given, with mention of the name of the master on the return voyage.
As the particulars of the return voyage could only be ascertained from communications
from Asia or the Cape, it is not impossible that this book was kept by the Haags Besogne.
Another pointer to this is the fact that in this book the ship's eventual fate is given,
sometimes years after its arrival in Asia. This information came before the Haags Besogne
via the Navale
B
Machten.
KA 4390 /VOC 4935: This uitloopboek
gives partly the same information as the previous
11
source, for the period from November 8th 1673 to February 23rd 1796. But no data are
given for the outward bound voyage, up to December 1696 there are no particulars about
the building of the ship, nor up to 1698 about the lasts, while the master's name is not
given until 1780.
ΚA 4390+/VOC 4934: This is a 'Register der schepen van de Oost.Ind
e
compiled at the end of the eighteenth century. It provides an alphabetical list, subdivided
chronologically, of V O C ships sailing for Asia between 1603 and 1796. Added to the ship's
name are chamber and year of departure and sometimes its fate. It is written in one hand
only. Though the assumption seems obvious that this register is based on the afore men­
tioned uitloopboeken,
it contains rather a lot of mistakes or slip-ups which do not occur
AB
in K A 4390, 4390 or 4390 , and not all ships have been incorporated either.
KA 12050, 12051 and 12052/VOC 4938, 4939 and 4940: These three books are not an
uitloopboek either, and were not compiled by the equipage of the Amsterdam chamber.
The books contain the following information on the voyages of ships from Europe to Asia
and vice versa, for the years 1741-1752,1752-1759 and 1759-1769: name of ship and master,
number of guns, place or chamber of origin, place and date of departure, ports of call
and other details of the passage to the Cape of Good Hope, date of arrival and departure
from the Cape and date of signing on of crew there, which took place a few days before
departure. Finally the ship's destination is given. Outward and return voyage are not
listed seperately, the order of ships in the list being determined by date of arrival at the
Cape. Although these books in the new inventory in the V O C archives have been classified
with the documents of the Amsterdam departement van de equipage, it can be taken as
certain that they were not compiled there. The lists were undoubtedly compiled at the
Cape.
Ships passing the Cape without calling are therefore missing this source. Nothing
12
is recorded about the route after the Cape, only the destination has been written in: for
outward bound ships Batavia or Ceylon, for returning ships simply 'patria'. Not only V O C
ships are included in these lists, the same information is given for English, French, Danish
and Swedish ships as well.
11 Seep. 204.
12 The high number in the old inventory could be another indication that this document did not
originally belong to the papers of the departement van de equipage.
Compagnie',