Introduction
Much ink has been spilled discussing how Siam (Thailand) successfully resisted French and British advances during the territorial grab of the late nineteenth century. Studies have focused on the comprehensive reform programmes launched by King Mongkut and King Chulalongkorn to modernize Siam, which were aimed at reducing or eliminating the whittling away of their territorial space and political agency by the European imperial powers. Such a display of agency by the Siamese monarchs, however, has instructive antecedents in an era when a far less confident and arrogant Europe was beginning to forge more regular contacts with the rulers of mainland and insular Southeast Asia.Footnote 1
We will examine how, in the first two decades of the seventeenth century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) responded to Siam as a potential mediator that had the potential to help the Dutch gain access to China trade, and also as a potential military ally against the Portuguese in Southeast Asia. We will show how the Siamese proactively engaged the VOC in order to further the ends of both the Dutch and Siamese. This is an interesting contrast to the situation in later centuries when Southeast Asian rulers were faced with a more confident, aggressive, and technologically superior West.
Based on both published and unpublished materials found in Dutch archives, we will explore the evolving attitudes of the VOC's central board of directors towards the Siamese as a commercial, diplomatic, and strategic force. In pursuing these goals, special attention will be given to the petitions and letters of one of its members and early fleet commanders: Admiral Cornelis Matelief de Jonge, who would play a significant role in shaping the VOC's geo-strategic and commercial strategies in the first two decades of the seventeenth century. In so doing, we will take into consideration some writings of the legal scholar Hugo Grotius who, at the time, held important positions in government and who also worked as an adviser to the VOC.
In studying Siamese-Dutch relations in the early seventeenth century, two separate but related developments stand out: King Ekathotsarot's embassy to the Dutch Republic in 1608–1610 as well as an earlier Siamese scheme, initially suggested in May–June 1604, to assist the Dutch in gaining direct access to trade in China. This proposal became of particular interest to the VOC after Admiral Wybrand van Warwijck and some Chinese businessmen from the Southeast Asian diaspora hatched an ill-fated plot to open the Middle Kingdom to direct Dutch trade.
The starting point is Siam's diplomatic mission to the Dutch Republic in 1608. While this event is not an unfamiliar chapter in history, scant attention has been paid to its larger context, which includes the evolving priorities of the VOC directors in their dealings with Siam and especially China.Footnote 2 To understand the significance of the mission, it is necessary to have an overview of Siam's situation at the time. After years of warfare against the Burmese, Siam sought to revive trade as a result of which the kingdom inaugurated commercial and political relations with the Dutch at the beginning of the seventeenth century. This led to a Siamese offer in 1604 to let the Dutch join a tributary mission to China. Four years later, King Ekathotsarot sent a diplomatic mission to the Dutch Republic. These two developments, both initiated by the Siamese, set the stage for Dutch responses.
The VOC directors (including Matelief) and Dutch government leaders (including Grotius) developed strategies for engaging with these Siamese initiatives and maintaining the goodwill of the Siamese monarch. To this end, Grotius (probably at the behest of the VOC directors) penned a letter to the king of Siam in which he responded favourably to the plan of joining a future tributary mission to China and also suggested joining with Siam in a war against the Portuguese. Matelief, however, argued that Siamese mediation was not necessary to gain access to China, but strongly endorsed the proposal to join with Siam in a military campaign against the Portuguese.
This idea of a strategic alliance, however, was overtaken by the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609–1621) which suspended hostilities between the Dutch and the dynastically united empires of Spain and Portugal. (Although designed to be observed worldwide and to take effect outside Europe in April 1610, the truce broke down in the Asian theatre in around 1613.Footnote 3) News about the negotiations to suspend hostilities between 1608 and 1609 began to shape the way in which the Dutch conducted diplomacy and trade across Asia, specifically affecting their relations with Siam. The discussions in Europe began to shift towards strengthening trade with Siamese ports and away from the previous plan of using Siam as a springboard to China and securing it as a strategic ally against Portugal.
Matelief in Asia
As Matelief played an important role in articulating these discussions and in shaping the VOC's early commercial vision for Asia at large, it is only right to provide a few important preliminaries concerning the person of Matelief, the nature of his surviving writings, and his voyage to Asia. These set the tone and context of Siam's first and only mission to the Dutch Republic before 1800.
Cornelis Matelief de Jonge—sometimes Cornelis Cornelisz Matelief(f) or Cornelis Matelief(f) Junior—was born in around 1570, trained as a draftsman, and became the fleet commander (admiral) of the VOC's second voyage to Asia (1605–1608).Footnote 4 He served on the Rotterdam board of the VOC as well as on its central board of directors, the Gentlemen Seventeen, both before and after his voyage to Asia.
The admiral's fleet was instructed to launch a full-scale attack on Portuguese Melaka with the active assistance of its ally, Johor. The joint military campaign, however, did not succeed for a host of reasons, such as insufficient quantities of powder and ammunition, the unwillingness of Malay allies to engage the Portuguese in combat, and the arrival from Goa of what was, at the time, the largest Portuguese armada assembled in the East Indies.Footnote 5
After engaging the Portuguese at sea and chasing the remaining vessels from their armada up to Pulau Butom (present-day Mu Koh Adang-Rawi, Thailand), Matelief divided his fleet. Three ships headed via Aceh to India to procure textiles while the remaining ships called at Banten, Jayakerta, Ambon, and Ternate. The admiral signed a treaty with Ternate's adolescent ruler and founded a Dutch fort at Malayo (sometimes Malayur or Malayura).
From Ternate, the voyage continued to the Fujian coast via Panay (in the Philippines). Matelief had been instructed by the Gentlemen Seventeen to open up trade with China and this leg of the journey was intended to serve precisely this purpose. After a futile attempt to engage in commerce on Nan'ao Dao, the Dutch ships were escorted to the Pearl River estuary where they dropped anchor off Lantau Island (now part of Hong Kong SAR). However, the Portuguese, led by André Pessoa, were determined to drive the Dutch out of local waters, so Matelief found his presence off Lantau unwelcome. Seeing that the immediate prospects of opening up direct trade with China were dim, Matelief set sail down the coast of present-day Vietnam and the eastern Malayan Peninsula, returning to Banten at the Sunda Strait in December 1607.Footnote 6
Matelief set sail on his homebound journey with the emissaries of King Ekathotsarot aboard his flagship and arrived in Zeeland on 2 September 1608.Footnote 7 Bringing the members of the embassy to the Netherlands was a controversial affair as the Company had expressed reservations about the high cost of hosting the ambassadors in the Netherlands for an extended period. Such fears were not unfounded: two earlier embassies from the kingdoms of Aceh and Johor had arrived in the Dutch Republic in 1601 and 1604 respectively and had proven to be costly affairs to both the Company and the state. Ekathotsarot and the Ayutthaya court were aware of these earlier embassies from Southeast Asia and Dutch refusal to grant passage to the Siamese ambassadors would have been taken as a snub, not least because the other two Southeast Asian rulers who had successfully sent emissaries to the Dutch Republic did not rank as high up the hierarchy of rulers as the king of Siam.Footnote 8
The role of Grotius in promoting Matelief's reform agenda
To push his agenda for an overhaul of the VOC's business practices, Matelief penned several epistolary memorials on his return from Asia. To gain access and the attention of the Land's Advocate Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, one of the Dutch Republic's senior statesman and de facto leader of its foreign policy, Matelief relied on the services of an intermediary: the young lawyer and Oldenbarnevelt's right-hand man Hugo de Groot (Grotius).Footnote 9 Today, Grotius is best remembered as one of the pioneers in the making of modern international law.
With the notable exception of the travelogue recounting the admiral's voyage to Asia,Footnote 10 most of the surviving materials have been retrieved from the working papers of Grotius and Oldenbarnevelt.Footnote 11 Though he was sometimes a recipient, and often just an intermediary, Grotius took an interest in Matelief's proposals and did what many would do today if placed in a similar position: he had his secretary make copies. Grotius then passed the originals to Oldenbarnevelt and kept the copies for his own reference. In relying on Grotius to pass information to the political leaders, Matelief may have also by-passed the VOC directors. The surviving documentation reveals that he found the short-term, profit-oriented horizon of elderly directors an impediment to long-term strategic planning by the Company. The admiral was intent on transforming the VOC's way of conducting business to better balance the Company's twin mission of generating income and waging war against the Iberian powers in Asia, as anchored in the Company's charter of 1602 granted by the Dutch States-General. Matelief's proposed changes to the VOC served as a blueprint for the Company's future development. The most significant changes raised and discussed by the admiral in his memorials and implemented by the directors during the second decade of the seventeenth century include the appointment of a governor-general, the founding of a centrally located company base in Asia, the establishment of an intra-Asian commercial fleet, as well as establishing a monopoly in the trade in nutmeg, mace, and cloves.Footnote 12
The period now under review spans the first two decades of the seventeenth century when the VOC had not yet established a permanent base in Asia. The following discussion will cover two aspects: first, Ekathotsarot's embassy to the Dutch Republic and, second, schemes hatched to use Siam as a springboard to China and co-opt its ruler into becoming a strategic ally against the Iberian powers.
Matelief and the Siamese embassy to the Dutch Republic
The Siamese diplomatic mission to the Dutch Republic (1608–1611) needs to be placed against the backdrop of Siam's reassertion of political independence from Taungoo-dynasty Burma and attempts launched in subsequent decades to boost trade, which had been disrupted by war in the second half of the sixteenth century. These overland (or portage routes) had been established by a territorially expanding Ayutthaya in the late fifteenth century. They became more significant after the Portuguese took Melaka in 1511 and attempted to control maritime traffic through the Straits.Footnote 13 Ekathotsarot, Naresuan's (r. 1590–1605) successor, promoted commerce and diplomatically engaged the Europeans. In 1606, he sent an embassy to the Portuguese viceroy in Goa and two years later, dispatched his emissaries to the Dutch Republic. At Goa, the Siamese complained about Portuguese activities in the Irrawaddy Delta, and the Portuguese grumbled about Siam's commercial relations with the Dutch.Footnote 14 The Siamese embassy to the Netherlands, by contrast, marks an iconic event in Dutch history and has been discussed in several histories touching on the Dutch Republic and the VOC.Footnote 15 Specifically, the 1608 embassy was the subject of two learned articles published in the journal T'oung Pao in the early 1930s by Paul Pelliot and J. L. L. Duyvendak and, more recently, of Dirk van der Cruysse's 2002 study Siam and the West. Footnote 16 The focus of both Pelliot and van der Cruysse is an early modern French-language pamphlet entitled in the original ‘Ambassade du Roi de Siam envoyée à l'Excellence du Prince Maurice, arrivée à La Haye le 10 septembre 1608’ (Embassy of the King of Siam sent to His Excellency Prince Maurice, that arrived in The Hague on 10 September, 1608).Footnote 17 This pamphlet, which was edited by Joost van Schouten, a VOC official known otherwise for his detailed reports on Siam (1638) and Melaka (1641),Footnote 18 describes Matelief's reception in The Hague and his meeting with the stadtholder, Prince Maurice. On this occasion, Matelief addressed the geo-strategic affairs of the Iberian powers in the East Indies as well as the VOC's growing number of allies among Southeast Asia's rulers, one of them the king of Siam.
Matelief and the Siamese ambassador ‘Conchi’
No account touching on the early seventeenth-century Siamese embassy to the Dutch Republic would be complete without saying something about a delicate issue that arose during the outbound journey to Europe. The leading delegate allegedly helped himself to some of the jewels that the embassy was bringing as gifts for the stadtholder. Before turning to this alleged theft, some words about the identity of this principal emissary are warranted.
Until now, no study has addressed or discussed the garbled name or title of this emissary, known from Matelief's travelogue as ‘Conchi’.Footnote 19 The name appears to represent a corruption or variant of one or possibly two titles of officialdom from the Ayutthaya period. The first half, which appears to be the title khun, is a title or honorific of the fifth rank; the second half might possibly represent a corruption of Si (Sri) or possibly also Chai (Jaya). This is admittedly speculative, but the garbled name points towards a person of fairly high rank and status.
It seems that ‘Conchi’ did help himself to the jewels, for Matelief openly threatened to lop his ears off if he did not surrender them at once. The emissary obliged by returning the stolen items through one of his colleagues—at least that is what Matelief's travelogue claims. A list of all the gifts destined for recipients in the Dutch Republic was recorded on 14 October 1608 and survives today in the National Archives of the Netherlands in The Hague.Footnote 20
The incident over the missing jewels cast a shadow over the Siamese embassy and its members as a whole. In view of this, the admiral began to keep his distance from the emissaries. All along, however, he had preferred to discuss matters concerning Siam and its market potential for the VOC with Cornelis Specx, a factor who had originally travelled to Asia during the voyage of Admiral Wybrand van Warwijck. He had been stationed for just over three years in the Siamese capital Ayutthaya and also at Patani. Details of Specx's commission will be discussed below. He travelled home aboard Matelief's flagship in the company of five Siamese emissaries and at least two other VOC servants who had served in Siam.Footnote 21 Specx, however, never made it home as he died at sea on or around 11 June 1608.Footnote 22 In the fragmentary information provided by Matelief in his memorials, in which he addressed Siam's supposed willingness to assist in opening China to regular VOC trade, there are echoes of Matelief's conversations with him that must have taken place during the homebound voyage before Specx's passing.
Reception of the Siamese embassy in the Dutch Republic and the fate of its members
The formal reception for the Siamese emissaries followed on 11 September 1608. The French-language pamphlet is keen to provide details of the gifts brought on behalf of their king. The Siamese monarch, it was explained, would have despatched an embassy much earlier, but the ambassador selected for the mission had refused to embark on a voyage to Europe. He was executed for his insubordination.
The members of the Siamese embassy remained in the Dutch Republic between September 1608 and January 1610. From resolutions passed by the Gentlemen Seventeen, it transpires that the emissaries were permitted to visit the coastal towns of Hoorn and Enkhuysen, and were accompanied at all times by one Evert Dirckszoon who acted as a chaperone and translator. He had spent a total of six years in Siam and reportedly spoke the local language fluently.Footnote 23
The emissaries were away for far longer than their monarch had anticipated. The VOC picked up the costs for housing and entertaining them. In view of the high expenses incurred, it is no surprise that this was the last embassy from South, East, and Southeast Asia that would visit the Dutch Republic for about the next two centuries. In future all Asian missions would be received by the VOC governor-general in Batavia.
Ekathotsarot was concerned about the fate of his emissaries to the Netherlands and he lodged several enquiries with the Dutch factors to give him updates.Footnote 24 The ambassadors eventually embarked on their homebound voyage after almost one-and-a-half years in Europe.Footnote 25 In January 1610, they set sail with the ships placed under the supreme command of Pieter Both, the first VOC governor-general.Footnote 26 In the set of instructions finalized just before the departure of his fleet, Both was told to court the Siamese monarch and enter into an alliance with him, if possible.
The surviving members of the embassy arrived in Ayutthaya in 1611.Footnote 27 One explanation for its long absence could be the stolen jewels: Ambassador ‘Conchi’ is said to have feared the wrath of his royal master and was afraid to return home. If the story of the stolen jewels reached Ekathotsarot, ‘Conchi’ was likely to have been punished on his return from Europe. How severe might this punishment have been? The Palace Law of Ayutthaya (believed to date from around the second half of the fifteenth century and revised in 1805) does not specifically provide for the predicament in which ‘Conchi’ found himself, but theft of, or damage to, presents destined for the Siamese monarch were usually punished by mutilation of fingers.Footnote 28 Unfortunately, the sources at hand are silent on the fate of this ambassador following his return to Ayutthaya.
Siamese overtures: springboard to China?
The discussion now turns to examine an earlier chapter in Dutch-Siamese relations, specifically the role played by the Siamese in extending an offer to the Dutch in 1604 to use Siam as a springboard to China. Although the Dutch had little direct experience with Siam at this point, it is clear that they had a fair idea of its magnitude, power, economy, and military prowess. Dutch officials in Europe had been informed that Siam was capable of fielding an army of around 300,000 men together with 2,000 war elephants.Footnote 29 They had also come to know that the Siamese monarch was the (tributary) overlord of several neighbouring rulers. He is said to have maintained excellent relations with China that were cemented by regular Siamese tributary missions to the court of the Ming emperor.
The VOC and the Dutch political leadership in Europe mulled over ways to leverage the presence of the Siamese ambassadors and maximize benefits for the Company. A testimony to this effect is the resolution of the Gentlemen Seventeen dated 5 September 1609. The minutes attest to a lively discussion among the directors about boosting trade directly with Siam and tapping into the Siamese monarch's goodwill and using his country as a springboard into China. It speaks of fostering trade ‘with China through the favour of the King of Siam’ and sending a return embassy that would ‘give a description of this land to the King, with the object that a way may be prepared for trade with Siam’.Footnote 30 The goal of the directors, in other words, was to gain direct access to the Ming imperial court by joining a future Siamese tributary mission to China. Based on a September 1609 resolution, cited by E. W. Hutchinson, the VOC directors reckoned that ‘trade with Siam was only valuable in so far as it furthered the China trade’.Footnote 31
Using the Siamese as proxies was not a new idea. The prospect of joining a Siamese mission to China had been held out to Admiral Wybrand van Warwijck while he was waiting for cargo at Patani during the months of May and June 1604.Footnote 32 Here he met a Siamese emissary who was returning from the court of ‘Borneo’ (the historic precursor to present-day Brunei). This emissary suggested to Warwijck the possibility of gaining initial access to China by joining a future Siamese tributary mission to the Ming court.Footnote 33 The admiral immediately seized on this proposal, but with hindsight, it was unlikely to have ever materialized. Still, excited by the prospect, Warwijck penned a letter to the king of Siam, which is dated 8 June 1604. It is doubtful whether it ever reached the monarch personally, but it evidently did reach the Ayutthaya court. This text is reprinted in the main body of Warwijck's travelogue and reads in translation from the Dutch original:
We, Wybrand Warwijck, admiral and captain general over a fleet of 15 ships, who arrived from Holland and Zeeland and sailed to the city of Banten on the island of Java, and personally sojourned there for seven months, wish Your Most Illustrious and High-born King and Lord of the lands of Krung Phranakhon Sri Ayutthaya luck, prosperity and ever greater fortune. We, Your Majesty's servant, have divided our ships to sail to different places in the East Indies in order to better conduct our trade. So personally we have arrived here at Patani with two ships at the behest of our King of Holland and Zeeland in order to promote our trade and travel to China. But we have found by experience that this is not possible without the assistance of others. We were thus fortunate to encounter here [at Patani] Your Majesty's Ambassador named Okphra Rachapakhdee Sree Sasawatdee,Footnote 34 arriving from Borneo.Footnote 35 From him we have learnt that Your Majesty has a custom of annually sending ambassadors to the great king of China. Therefore, I would have decided to visit Your Majesty personally with my ship which is being held up by the monsoon. For this reason I am sending in the company of Your Majesty's Ambassador my junior colleagueFootnote 36 Cornelis Specx, Your Majesty's servant, with the plea and request that whenever Your Majesty's ambassadors are sent to the great king of China that they may bring him along and that he may join the entourage, to make known the name of the Dutch there, and also to ascertain whether the Dutch ships arriving in China would be able to trade freely there.Footnote 37 If Your Majesty can arrange for this, then we shall seek to link the lands of Holland and Zeeland with Your Majesty's lands that they remain united. Further, for as long as the Portuguese are the sworn and mortal enemies of the Dutch and who will use all intrigue to prevent this from happening, we beseech and beg that Your Majesty may be entrusted with the Hollanders and Zeelanders who are in Your Lands as well as in China, and [that they] also be protected and safeguarded…
We ask of Your Majesty that he may accept the little gift from his servant, and that he may protect the Hollanders and Zeelanders who come to Your Majesty's lands from the violence and troubles of the Portuguese as well as of Your subjects. This written on 8 June 1604.Footnote 38
The admiral despatched Cornelis Specx, Lambert Jacobsz Heijn, and two other members of his crew with the letter to the royal court at Ayutthaya. They departed Patani on 9 June 1604 and travelled in the company of the Siamese emissary who was returning to Ayutthaya.Footnote 39 There they waited to join the next tributary mission to China, which was supposedly preparing for departure. Despite the optimism expressed by Specx in his first letters to Warwijck written just a few weeks later in September 1604, and in further correspondence again in January 1606, the mission did not take place due to the death of King Naresuan in 1605.Footnote 40 Although the immediate prospects of joining a Siamese tributary mission were dim for now, Specx remained optimistic that the opportunity would eventually present itself. The average gap between the Siamese tributary missions during the sixteenth century was between five and six years, as reported by Suebsaeng Promboon.Footnote 41 Ekathotsarot, Naresuan's brother and successor, suggested new opportunities to the Dutch, but their initial enthusiasm waned with each passing month. The VOC directors concluded that they had waited for too long and that they had sunk more than enough funds into a fantastic venture that so far had yielded no tangible results beyond maintaining goodwill.
When Specx was recalled from Ayutthaya, he was accompanied by a total of 15 Siamese emissaries bearing gifts for Prince Maurice.Footnote 42 Duyvendak wondered aloud whether these emissaries accompanying Specx to Patani in January 1606 were the same who had set sail with him from Patani on 19 December 1607.Footnote 43 A downsized Siamese delegation sailed from Banten to the Netherlands in January 1608.
Two important facts emerge from this story: first, the idea of using Siam as a springboard had originally been suggested by the Siamese envoy in 1604. The Siamese had taken the initiative here in contrast to encounters in later centuries when the Europeans are generally seen to be taking the lead. When Southeast Asian elites sought to safeguard their commercial and political interests, such behaviour was often perceived by the Europeans as reluctance or even outright obstruction. In this instance, however, the situation with the Ayutthaya court requires further unpacking.
Why did the Siamese suggest that the Dutch join a future tributary mission to China? To answer this question, it is helpful to delve more broadly into Siamese history and explore Ayutthaya's role as an emporium and as a royal political centre. As Chris Baker has expounded, Ayutthaya was initially oriented towards maritime trade which was dominated by an outward-looking, cosmopolitan elite.Footnote 44 It later extended its commercial and political prowess into the hinterland and came to control some overland trading routes.Footnote 45 Of special interest to this article and in connection with Matelief's memorials is the overland route linking Ayutthaya to Tenasserim and the nearby port of Mergui in the Bay of Bengal. This overland route grew in significance during the early sixteenth century, especially against the backdrop of Portuguese control of the maritime arteries in and around Melaka after 1511.Footnote 46
Ayutthaya's interest in the overland routes located to its west was bound to cause friction with the Burmese. Their conflicts in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries have been documented and need not be detailed in the present context.Footnote 47 After losing Tenasserim to the Burmese, Ayutthaya retook the city in 1593 and, after years of warfare, sought to rebuild, boost economic recovery, strengthen the capital's role as a (re-)distribution centre, and reassert control over some key overland or portage routes. To improve external trade and commerce, the Siamese courted the powers of Europe: first, the Iberian powers Spain and Portugal in the 1590s, and then the Dutch and also the English in the early 1600s. But the court also played them off against each other so that none of these European actors would become too powerful in Siam.Footnote 48
That was not all: the Siamese also sought to co-opt the European powers to help counterbalance the strategic threat posed by Burma. They invited the Europeans to construct fortifications in Siamese ports in the Bay of Bengal. In the wake of the Burmese military threat, and especially after a fresh siege of Tenasserim by Burmese troops (as reported by the Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya), the Siamese offered the Portuguese the opportunity to build a fortification at Martaban, and the Dutch at Mergui-Tenasserim.Footnote 49 The latter offer was mentioned by Lambert Jacobsz Heijn in a letter addressed to Victor Sprinkel, head of the Patani factory, dated 20 September 1610.Footnote 50 These latest Siamese initiatives coincided with Siam's reopening of direct trading links with the Indian subcontinent across the Bay of Bengal. Most trade, however, would have been with the communities of Asia—especially with China—though trade would have been much reduced compared to earlier times. Trade with Japan between the ascent of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1603) and the implementation of Japan's closure (sakoku policy, 1639) flourished.Footnote 51 The crown was, of course, an immediate beneficiary of Siam's revival of foreign trade. Several important export products such as tin, lead, saltpetre, or sappan wood were governed by royal monopoly, and supplies (especially of high-demand export products) could only be sold to foreigners from the king's warehouses.Footnote 52 It is against the backdrop of these developments in geopolitics and trade that one should place the Siamese offer to the Dutch to mediate in obtaining access to China as well as Warwijck's epistolary response of 8 June 1604. The Siamese had an eye on expanding their foreign trade and doing the Dutch a favour was part of a plan to strike a balance between the Portuguese and Burmese.
The second fact established by this episode is this: the scheme to join a Siamese tributary mission evolved between June 1604 and the return of the Siamese ambassadors to Ayutthaya in 1611. In exploring the reasons why the VOC decided not to proceed with this initial plan, it is helpful to examine the papers of Matelief and Grotius.
Grotius pens letters to the kings of Siam and Johor
It is within this context of budding VOC-Siam relations that one should consider an undated draft letter written by Grotius in his own hand and addressed to the king of Siam. He probably drafted it along with other letters destined for the sultans of Tidore, Ternate, Borneo (Brunei), Johor, and Siau, at the behest of the VOC directors.Footnote 53 His working papers touch on developments in the East Indies during the first and second decades of the seventeenth century. They also include Matelief's private correspondence with Grotius, as well as secretarial copies of the admiral's memorials. On the reverse side of the letter to the king of Siam is another undated draft letter. This is also in Grotius's hand and is addressed to the king of Johor. Taken together, they contain information that allows for their approximate dating, and this helps to contextualize their objectives and intentions. Turning first to the letter to the king of Siam, the translated text from the Dutch original reads as follows:
Siam.
Most illustrious King,
The very great benefactions, which Your Majesty has conferred on our people, oblige us to write this letter to Your Majesty to express our heartfelt gratitude, wishing that we had the opportunity to express it not just in words but also in deeds. We were especially very pleased when we heard that Your Majesty had offered to let our envoys go to the empire of China together with his own, which we deem an extraordinary honour and favour. No little disservice was done to us by some of ours, who let such a wonderful occasionFootnote 54 slip. But we hope that it can be amended now, if it please Your Majesty to continue the favour he has begun to show us, which by this letter we request for the sake of friendship. We also have the firm intention—to order—[sentence incomplete] and another fleet to be sent to the East Indies, both for the sake of trade and for the harm of our enemies. To which purpose we hope that Your Majesty, both for the sake of the friendship that has started between us and because surely he equally has more than a little interest in the expulsion of the Portuguese, will generously show us his favour: which we shall not neglect to return on all possible occasions …Footnote 55
The letter to the king of Johor found on the verso is written in the same hand and ink colour. It is thus plausible to conclude that they were written at around the same time. The opening lines in the letter to the king of Johor reads in English translation from the original Dutch:
To the King of Johor
Most illustrious King,
We hope that, when this letter is handed to Your Majesty, it may serve to congratulate Your Majesty on the conquest of the city of Melaka, with which we had charged our admiral [Matelief], and of which we now expect news of a successful outcome. We do not doubt that Your Majesty will greatly rejoice in such damage to the enemies he has in common with us, his loyal friends and allies, because in this way the affairs of Your Majesty and his lands have been brought into a state of great calm and security …
Undoubtedly it is not unknown to Your Majesty (etc. as in the letter to Ternate)Footnote 56 has been vexed [text incomplete].
By which commendable intention, together with the good effort of our people and most of all the blessing of God Almighty, such things were brought about as are known to all the world and especially to Your Majesty: of whom we are convinced that he will never want to forget the faithful assistance rendered him, just as we etc.
And thus …Footnote 57 will show etc. For since we … every day etc.—regarding our friendship and alliance and the good fruits it has borne, not to allow etc.Footnote 58
Attention is now drawn to the wording of this second letter and its reference to the ‘conquest of Melaka’. There can be no doubt that this refers to the seaborne assault on the Portuguese colony by Matelief in 1606. But evidently when Grotius penned his letter to the king of Johor, they had not yet received news in the Dutch Republic about the fate of the campaign. An initial dating would thus broadly place the writing of this manuscript between Matelief's departure for Asia in May 1605 and his return in early September 1608. From the letter to the king of Siam, however, it further transpires that the directors had evidently been informed about the offer extended by the king of Siam to join a tributary mission. Admiral van Warwijck's ships began to arrive at Goeree (located to the southwest of Rotterdam) around the middle of October 1606. Based on these bits of information, the genesis of Grotius's two letters to the kings of Siam and Johor would most likely fall into the window between Warwijck's return in mid-October 1606 and Matelief's homecoming almost two years later.
Some key points arise from Grotius's letter to the king of Siam: here we read about the Dutch joining a future Siamese tributary mission to China, and that Grotius blamed the VOC for letting such a unique opportunity pass. The letter aimed to revive this opportunity, offering that it should be done ‘for the sake of friendship’ (op alle vrundschap). This forms one of the two core messages advanced by Grotius in his letter to the king of Siam.
The next section represents the second core message which speaks negatively about the Portuguese. At first, Grotius employed the term ‘expulsion’ (verdryvinghe), but subsequently deleted it and replaced it with ‘damaging our [mutual] enemies’ (afbreuck van onse vyanden). This change in wording is revealing. Expressed here there is no expectation that the king of Siam would undertake the ‘expulsion’ of the Iberian powers on his own, but rather through a joint military campaign with the Dutch.
In sum, Grotius's letter to the king of Siam is of particular interest in the context of the present discussion in two respects: first, it builds on the proposal to use Siam as a springboard to China and, second, it raises the prospect of joining with the Siamese in attacking, damaging, and, preferably, expelling the Portuguese from Siam.
Chinese trade and Chinese collaborators from the diaspora: the Pescadores incident
Matelief had received instructions from the Gentlemen Seventeen to strike up free trade for the VOC in China, something that was central to their concerns.Footnote 59 He had a letter of credentials (credenti brief) written on behalf of the stadtholder, Prince Maurice, that was destined for the ‘Great King of China’ (groeten koninck van China) and which requested admission to trade freely ‘in the Chinese empire’ (in den rijke van China).Footnote 60 Separately also, the admiral received a letter addressed to the king of Siam. This sought his protection and royal favour, and the monarch's intercession in helping the Dutch gain access to China ‘since we understand that this king of Siam is very well known to the king of China and enjoys great respect’.Footnote 61 It is doubtful that these two letters ever found their way to their intended recipients.
By the time he reached the coast of China, however, Matelief had learned two important things about Chinese trade. The first lesson concerned the dynamics of its overseas trade. Although merchants from the Fujian coast sailed abroad with their wares, the Fujian ports were not permitted to admit foreign ships to trade. By contrast, the merchants of Canton (Guangzhou) relied on foreign merchants visiting their trade fairs.
The second insight concerns the reluctance of the Chinese authorities to open trade to the VOC. Matelief blamed his failure to accomplish anything on the machinations of the Portuguese. More importantly, however, he left China's shores utterly convinced that if he could only have spent more time there, the mandarins would have opened trade to the Dutch. It was, in his view, simply a matter of time and timing—consequently, he believed that there was no need to rely on Siam's services as a mediator. This second insight influenced both the way in which Matelief thought about Chinese trade and the need for Siamese intercession, and how the VOC would try to access China after Matelief's return to the Netherlands in 1608.
It appears, however, that Matelief was too optimistic in believing that the Chinese would have yielded sooner, had there just been more time and less interference by the Portuguese. The Ming Shilu, or ‘Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty’, show that the Portuguese did not need to spread malicious rumours about the Dutch, whom they widely labelled as ‘pirates’ around Asia. The Chinese authorities were already irritated by their direct contact with the Dutch, as the following episode illustrates.Footnote 62
Ming officials had formed their own impressions of the Dutch during an episode involving Admiral Wybrand van Warwijck. After being caught in a typhoon off the coast of China in August 1604, he retreated to the Pescadores Islands, present-day Penghu, located in the Taiwan Strait.Footnote 63 In a reconstruction of early Dutch contacts with Asia in the early seventeenth century, Pieter Anton Tiele, who relied on selected Dutch-language documentation, had little to say about the Pescadores incident. He simply pinned the blame for Warwijck's failure to open China to Dutch trade on Portuguese scheming and intrigue. W. P. Groeneveldt, by contrast, was familiar with the episode from Chinese reports of the period.Footnote 64
The key to unlocking the events leading up to the Pescadores incident is to focus less on the Portuguese and more on the VOC's early Asian collaborators. A careful reading of the sources at hand reveals just how strongly the Dutch relied on local Asian informants and collaborators. One individual stands out in particular, a Chinese merchant known from Warwijck's travelogue as ‘Empau Chinees’ (Empau the Chinese) and also as Empo, Yippong, or Inpo in some other sources and studies.Footnote 65 Warwijck's travelogue records that ‘Empau Chinees’ (hereafter Yippong) had worked in the service of the Zeeland Company (one of the predecessor companies that was merged into the VOC in 1602). He had been hired by Jacques Roussel, the Dutch factor at Patani, and was placed in charge of opening China to Dutch trade.Footnote 66 In this task, Yippong, a man deemed ‘trustworthy and clever in trade’, was assisted by four additional men whose names are not provided: a pilot (this may be the same individual later described as ‘inexperienced’), a scribe, and two additional ‘Chinese’ whose functions were not specified.Footnote 67 Another person who would assume a role in subsequent events was a goldsmith named ‘Lampoan’. According to Warwijck's journal, Lampoan was an overseas Chinese who normally lived in Kedah.Footnote 68 In view of the formidable task at hand, these Chinese advisers and mediators expressed concern that their Dutch employers simply did not appreciate how much money and how many gifts would have to be handed over to Chinese officials in order to obtain their objective.
Yippong had spent a year in the Dutch Republic between 1600 and 1602, just as the VOC was being formed. Even after his return to Asia, Yippong rendered good service to the company, advising Warwijck on how to enter the Chinese market and securing food supplies for Dutch troops during Matelief's 1606 siege of Portuguese Melaka.Footnote 69 Yippong is thought to have been the brains behind an attempt to obtain permission from the Chinese emperor through the mediation of one of the imperial eunuchs. He may also have advised Warwijck on the location of the Pescadores, where the latter made a distress call after a heavy storm, and on the developments that would unfold between August and December 1604.Footnote 70
A chapter on the Hongmao fan (Red Hair Barbarians) in the Chinese work of Zhang Xie entitled Dongxiyang Kao (On the Countries in the Eastern and Western Oceans, 1617) explains that the Dutch had come under the spell of two ‘cunning businessmen’ in Patani named Pan Xiu and Guo Zhen. They had suggested to Warwijck that he ‘occupy and fortify’ the Pescadores, and simultaneously use the intermediary services of the imperial eunuch Gao Cai (simply called capado, or eunuch, in Warwijck's journal) to ‘write a special letter to the emperor’.Footnote 71 The emperor, so it was claimed, ‘would definitely grant him permission. No coastal guard would be able to disobey the Emperor's edict.’ The letters were written, but discovered by the minister responsible for coastal defence, after which the supposed plot began to unravel.Footnote 72
As the weeks passed and the haggling with the authorities on land continued, Warwijck entered into active commerce with the locals and assumed, as the Chinese source of 1617 intimates, a ‘wait-and-see-attitude’. Efforts to persuade Warwijck and his men to leave proved futile, but the mood eventually tipped. The Chinese authorities came to see the Dutch presence on the Pescadores as a hostile act of ‘piracy’. Warwijck was subsequently chased from the Pescadores by heavily armed junks of the Ming fleet in December 1604.Footnote 73
After the Pescadores incident
These developments now merit closer discussion based on additional information provided in Matelief's travelogue as well as in his letters and memorials. After the misadventure in the Pescadores and failure to gain direct access to China, the question emerges as to whether the VOC would have been better off relying on Siam as a springboard and intermediary.
This leads us back to the admiral's exchange of views with Cornelis Specx during their homebound voyage. The materials at hand show that the two men explored a range of issues touching on Siam, particularly King Ekathotsarot's disposition towards the Dutch: ‘Cornelis Specx, who used to live there [in Ayutthaya] and who died on the [flagship] Oranje on the way, told me much about the king's favourable inclination toward us and spoke highly of his favour.’Footnote 74 This position is also echoed in the memorial dated 12 November 1608, a document completed just weeks after Matelief returned to the Dutch Republic.Footnote 75 The following passage reveals that the admiral was not only familiar with the possibility of joining a future Siamese tributary mission to China, but also that he had seriously weighed up the scheme's merits and viability:
There has been an initiative to make friends in China through the king of Siam's mediation, but as no envoys were sent to China from Siam that year, this has remained undone. I do not think it is necessary either, for I have no doubts about Chinese trade, based on the impressions I got in China. If the Chinese were unwilling, we would have ways to seize such ships from the Chinese between China and the Philippines, as it would be worth quite some money every year.Footnote 76
Matelief's position is clear: the scheme had not yet been carried through—and was also not necessary. He preferred direct access to China, without mediation.
It should be adjoined here that when Matelief jotted down his thoughts in his memorial of 12 November 1608, the Twelve Years Truce had not yet been negotiated with the Spanish and, implicitly, with their dynastic ally Portugal. According to the agreement's legal instrument—the Treaty of Antwerp, signed on 9 April 1609—the Dutch were permitted to call on and trade at all ports that were not under the control of the Spanish and Portuguese.
There was, of course, still the possibility that the Chinese would continue to refuse the Dutch permission to trade. Matelief's proposed response in such a scenario was nothing short of ruthless aggression: attacking and plundering Chinese vessels on their way to the Spanish Philippines, something that was not permissible according to the provisions of the Treaty of Antwerp. In the admiral's mind (as it was with many of his European contemporaries), trade and violence were twin forces that could not be cleanly separated.
Using the Siamese as allies against the Iberian powers
In the light of these deliberations, should one conclude that Siam and its king did not play a role at all in the admiral's vision for expanding Dutch trade in China and across Asia at large? The answer is negative. True, Matelief did not think Siamese mediation was necessary to gain access to the Chinese market. But he did have a high regard for Siam's military prowess, and this is how he thought it could best serve long-term Dutch interests in Southeast Asia.
Grotius's letter to the king of Siam moves again into the spotlight. In it, he proposed a joint military campaign to attack and damage the Portuguese or even to expel them from the region altogether. Matelief had learned an important lesson from his failed siege of Melaka: without the help and active cooperation of local rulers and their military strength, it would be impossible to inflict a fatal blow on the Iberian powers in Southeast Asia. The admiral's travelogue also touches on this very issue. It is evident that Matelief justified his failure to pluck Melaka from the Portuguese as the result of a confluence of factors: insufficient time, insufficient powder and ammunition, and the last-minute arrival of the Portuguese viceroy's armada from Goa. In his writings, the admiral also made it unequivocally clear that he had been let down by his Malay allies. For this reason, he was now toying with the idea of co-opting the Siamese as a key strategic ally in a future attack:
In order to ruin Melaka, we could also use the king of Siam, who would bring a lot of men ashore before Melaka, and who, moreover, is quite favourably inclined towards us and likes to hear that we prosper. But all this is just hearsay— Cornelis Specx, who was stationed there [in Ayutthaya] for a while, has told me so, and the present ambassadors’ reports concur—so that I cannot state anything for certain in the matter. We could gather a large army of Indians, but it would consist of so many men that it becomes impracticable. [With reference to] the people of Aceh, Kedah and Jayakerta, I see no means to bring them all together to besiege Melaka. It would be better to drive the city into a corner by robbery, which in the end would consume it; unless the king of Siam came to our help with such forces as is said of him.Footnote 77
As has been stated earlier, Siam's military forces were considerable. In Matelief's view, Siam was to play a role not so much as a commercial, but as a long-term strategic ally in the ongoing conflict with the Iberian powers. This geo-strategic vision, too, would come to naught on account of developments taking place in Europe.
Already in the early stages of negotiating the Twelve Years Truce (after February 1608), the Dutch were keen to have all their Asian treaty partners and allies covered by what could be generously dubbed ‘collective security arrangements’. Ideally these would be anchored either in the text of the truce agreement or, alternatively, in formal explanatory articles, such as the ones ratified by the Dutch States-General both before and after the Treaty of Antwerp, the main legal instrument governing the Twelve Years Truce. This was important not just for the VOC, but also for the States-General in whose name the Dutch Company was forging alliances and signing treaties. In their resolution of 18 March 1609—in other words, just about a month before the Twelve Years Truce was ratified—the Dutch States-General singled out Siam as their key ally in Asia. It is also noteworthy that the king of Siam is mentioned first among several rulers in subcontinental India and Southeast Asia:
18 March 1609: It shall be stipulated during these negotiations for a truce [with the king of Spain and Portugal] that the said [East Indian] kings, princes and peoples be included, such as the king of Siam—who currently has his ambassador here—the kings of Calicut, Banten, Johor, Aceh, Pahang, Kedah, Makassar, Banda, Ternate and others, with whom an alliance has been concluded.Footnote 78
This paragraph stands out in several ways: Siam is not mentioned as a potential springboard to China. This arguably marked the end of the idea of using Siam as the gateway to China. Moving forward, the Dutch decided to approach trade with China by pushing for direct access, by attracting Chinese trade to VOC-held ports, and by continuing to pick up Chinese goods around Southeast Asia. Given also that hostilities between the Dutch and the Iberian powers were about to be suspended by the truce, a fresh attack on Melaka with the active support of Siam was off the table—for now at least. Irrespective of the limitations on open warfare imposed by the Twelve Years Truce in Asia (to take effect one year after its proclamation in Europe or April 1610), the question arises as to how realistic a prospect it would have been to co-opt the Siamese in a military campaign against the Portuguese. Judging by Matelief's writings, it is insufficiently clear how well he was informed of the depth and nature of Siam's relations with the Portuguese. Given also that the admiral lacked first-hand experience in Siam, it is to be assumed that much of what he knew had been acquired in the course of discussing matters with Specx and perhaps others.
By the time the Dutch arrived in Southeast Asia during the 1590s, the Portuguese had, of course, established relations with the local rulers for about nine decades—overtures to Siam had been made soon after the fall of Melaka to the Portuguese in 1511. Although in a state of flux, their mutual relationship can be said to have been broadly cordial, if occasionally strained. Some of the highlights of this early relationship have been captured in the articles published in the Festschrift Five Hundred Years of Thai-Portuguese Relations.Footnote 79 With specific reference to the period under review, Luso-Siamese relations have been laid out in an article by Kennon Breazeale entitled ‘Whirligig of Diplomacy: A Tale of Thai-Portuguese Relations, 1613–9’.Footnote 80 Two points are worth bearing in mind here: first, Luso-Siamese relations were better than Matelief and the VOC directors surmised, and it is doubtful whether the king of Siam could have been persuaded by the Dutch to launch a military offensive against the Portuguese—with or without the Twelve Years Truce. Second, while it is true that the Portuguese were displeased with Siam's newfound cordial relations with the Dutch, the Siamese were far more concerned about developments in lower Burma, particularly with what the Portuguese might be getting up to there.
Ayutthaya kept an eye on several flashpoints, among them Syriam in the time of Filipe de Brito (1603–1613). The Siamese were keen on creating and maintaining a buffer against Burma, and for this reason they sought to entice the European powers to construct fortresses at these ports and expand their colonial trade there by granting trading privileges. By 1616, however, the window of opportunity had passed for the Portuguese, and the Dutch rejected two such offers in 1610 and again in 1616. The Company was clearly loathe to get itself entangled in local disputes, even if Dutch-Siamese cooperation did strengthen over the course of the next few decades.Footnote 81
There is an additional consideration worth mulling over here: for years the Dutch had struggled to turn a profit at their Siamese factory. By 11 September 1610, the financial haemorrhaging had reached a point where the Gentlemen Seventeen wrote to the governor-general and urged him to think about suspending the Ayutthaya factory altogether.Footnote 82 Over the next two decades, several of the early factories founded by the VOC or its predecessor companies (voorcompagnieën) would be closed as part of an operational reorganization in Asia. Among the factories that were discontinued over the next few years were those at Gresik, Johor (at Batu Sawar), and Patani.
A lot of groundwork had been laid and there was much at stake at the Ayutthaya factory. To maintain the goodwill that had been forged with the king and the Siamese court, the VOC needed a clear and viable strategy. This soon included an expansion of trade with Japan from Ayutthaya which, by 1616, had reached about 3,000 pikul of sappan wood (about 180 metric tons) and 14,000 deer hides.Footnote 83 There was also potential for expanding trade from Siam across the Bay of Bengal. In his memorials, Matelief exhorted the directors to establish business at Mergui-Tenasserim. He advised:
After setting up our rendezvous, we should also sail to Ambon, Banda, the Malukus, Borneo, China, Japan, the whole island of Sumatra, Johor, Patani, Kedah, Tenasserim, Bengal, Siam, the Coromandel Coast, Arakan, and also Cambay, together with their dependencies.Footnote 84
Four of the ports listed here were, broadly speaking, ‘Siamese’: they either fell under the direct suzerainty and control of the king of Siam, such as Ayutthaya and Tenasserim, or they were belonged to one of Siam's tributary rulers, such as the pepper port Kedah and also Patani.Footnote 85 Increased trade with the Dutch at Ayutthaya would have benefited the crown directly as foreigners could only obtain Siam's key export goods from the king's own warehouses. Matelief evidently knew more about the latter two—he had gained first-hand experience in Kedah—and he was also aware that Tenasserim acted as an important redistribution centre for Indian textiles along the entire Malay Coast (a geographic expression covering the western coast of the Isthmus of Kra and the Malayan Peninsula from around Tenasserim and south to Singapore).Footnote 86 The admiral had singled out the exchange in cloth pieces from Bengal and the Coromandel as one of the six main branches of trade across Asia in his epistolary memorial of June 1607.Footnote 87
What does this all add up to? The Siamese had engaged the Dutch in various ways: they had suggested in 1604 that the Dutch join a future tributary mission to China, despatched an embassy to the Netherlands in 1608, and made moves to have the VOC expand its trade and construct a fort at Mergui-Tenasserim in 1610 and 1616. During all of this, the Siamese were also negotiating with the Portuguese, as Kennon Breazeale has laid out in a detailed study.Footnote 88
On the Dutch side, there was an evident willingness on the part of the VOC directors and the Dutch government to leverage King Ekathotsarot's goodwill. While Matelief—in contrast to his fellow directors—did not think it necessary to rely on Siamese mediation to gain access to China, he did toy with the idea of joining forces with them in a future military campaign against the Portuguese. In the reform programme staked out in his memorials of 1608–1610, he urged the VOC directors to expand trade generally with ports under Siam's suzerainty.
Some conclusions
This article has highlighted three aspects of Siamese agency in early seventeenth-century relations with the VOC: first, the role played by King Ekathotsarot in dispatching, and Admiral Matelief in carrying, the Siamese embassy to the Dutch Republic in 1608.
Second, it discussed the potential role of Siam as a mediator, a scheme first raised in 1604. The letter by Hugo Grotius addressed to King Ekathotsarot of Siam, written most likely between mid-October 1606 and early November 1608, aimed to reinforce the Siamese offer to join a future tributary mission to China and to co-opt the king into a strategic alliance against the Portuguese. Echoing the key points of this letter, Matelief doubted in his memorials whether Siamese mediation was necessary, but he was certainly in favour of forming an alliance with Siam.
Third, in view of the rapidly changing geo-political landscape arising from the Twelve Years Truce in Europe, and briefly also in Asia, a new strategy was needed to sustain the goodwill of the Siamese monarch. Matelief responded with a proposal to expand trade with Siamese ports around the Gulf of Thailand and the Bay of Bengal. This dovetailed with initiatives emanating from the Ayutthaya court to expand Dutch trade at Mergui-Tenasserim and have them construct a fort there.
In all of this, two conclusions become evident: first, in its early years the VOC relied heavily on the goodwill of local Asian rulers as well as on the willingness of Asian officials and businessmen to work together with them, share knowledge, and intercede on the Company's behalf. The most obvious case in this article is the VOC's reliance on Chinese from the diaspora, like Yippong, but it applies equally to the Company's willingness to rely on the goodwill of the Siamese monarch and the Ayutthaya court.
Second, Asian rulers like the king of Siam did more than just give assurances of goodwill. They seized the initiative and engaged with the Europeans. The Dutch, it seems, were not entirely sure how to handle these friendly overtures. Yet, despite some doubts, they were determined not to let a potentially great opportunity pass. In the words of Grotius in his letter to the king of Siam, this was ‘an extraordinary honour and favour’ that should under no circumstances be missed ‘for the sake of friendship that has started between us’. With the benefit of hindsight, we can say that Grotius was right: relations between Siam and the VOC flourished, something that Jeremias van Vliet, the Dutch factor turned historian of Siam, would confirm just a few decades later in the second half of the 1630s.
Appendix 1: Letter by Admiral Wybrand van Warwijck to the King of Siam, dated 8 June 1604
‘Oost-Indische Reyse onder den Admirael Wybrandt van Waerwijck’, in Commelin, Begin ende Voortgang, Vol. 2, pp. 73–74.
Wy Wybrant Waerwijck, Admirael ende Capiteyn Generael, over een Vloote van 15 Schepen, comende uyt Hollandt ende Zeelandt, naer het Eylandt van Iava tot de Stede van Bantam, daer persoonelijcke seven maenden vertoeft hebben, wenschen U.E.E. Doorluchtige Hoogheboorne Coningh ende Heere vande Landen van Crongh, Prenechoon, ende Sry y Iudia, geluck, voorspoet ende vermeerderinge. Wy U.E. Majesteyts Dienaer, onse Schepen op verscheyde plaetsen in Indien verdeelt hebbende om te beter onsen handel te dryven; Soo sijn persoonelijcke uyt het bevel onses Coninckx van Hollandt ende Zeelandt met twee Schepen alhier tot Patane ghecomen, om onsen handel ende reyse op China te bevorderen; doch by ervarentheyt bevinde dat sulcx sonder anderen behulp niet wel mogelijck en is; So ist dat het ons het geluck gedient heeft, U.E. Majesteyts Ambassadeur genaemt Opra Rad'zia Packdy Sry Swasdy, van Borneo, comende alhier aen te treffen; uyt welcke vernomen hebbe dat U.E. Majesteyt een gebruyck heeft jaerlijcx Ambassadeurs aen den grooten Coning van China te senden; deshalven voorghenomen hadden U.E. Majesteyt met mijn Schepen persoonelijcke te comen besoecken, welcke wegens de Mouson belet wert, derhalven sende nevens U.E. Majesteyts Ambassadeur, mijne jonger Broeder Cornelis Specx, U.E. Majesteyts Dienaer, met bede ende versoeck, dat soo wanneer U.E. Majesteyts Ambassadeurs tot den grooten Coningh van China ghesonden werden, dat dese mijne jonger Broeder mede mochte reysen, ende onder sijne gevolch aengheteeckent werden, op dat sijn ende der Hollanderen Naeme aldaer bekent mochten werden, oock ofte de Hollandtsche Schepen aldaer in China comende, vryen handel souden connen becomen; Soo sulckx door U.E. Majesteyt conde te wege ghebracht werden, versoecke dat de Landen van Hollant ende Zeelant, met U.E. Majesteyts Landen als in een gesloten, ende verbonden sullen blijven: Wyders dewyle de Portugesen gheswooren ende doodt vyanden der Hollanderen zijn, die alle listen om sulckx te beletten aen sullen wenden, so versoecke ende bidde dat U.E. Majesteyt de voornoemde Hollanderen ende Zeelanderen, soo in U.E. Landen als in China voor gherecommandeert, ende in beschuttinge ende bescherminge believet te houden …
Bidde U.E. Majesteyt, gelieve dese kleyne gave van synen dienaer in danck aen te nemen, ende de Hollanderen ende Zeelanderen in U.E. Majesteyts Landen comende, om hare handelinge te dryven, voor alle ghewelt ende overlast der Portugesen als uwe onderdanen te beschermen, ende in uwe beschuttinghe te nemen. Ghedaen inden Iaere 1604 den 8 Iunius.
Appendix 2: Original Dutch text of a letter in the hand of Hugo Grotius to the King of Siam
Collectie Hugo de Groot, Supplement, The Hague, National Archives [1.10.35, no. 40], fol. 364 verso. My thanks to Dr Corinna Vermeulen and Professor Henk Nellen for their substantial contributions in deciphering and translating this letter and also the one featured in Appendix 3.
Note: The two letters transcribed in Appendices 2 and 3 may have been modelled on earlier letters sent to other rulers in Southeast Asia. Examples of such letters are preserved in the working papers of Grotius and are addressed to the ‘emperor’ of Borneo (Brunei), or the ‘kings’ of Tidore, Ternate, and Siau. Comments found in the letters to Siam and Johor indicate that they follow certain phrases, sentences, or sections that had been previously laid out in letters to the sultans of Ternate (Appendix 3, line 14) and Tidore (Appendix 2, line 20). These are to be read as instructions to the secretary or copyist writing out the neat copies.
Siam.
Doorluchtichsten Cooningh
De seer[deleted?] groote weldaeden dije onse luijden van uwe Mt hebben ghenooten
hebben ons gheobligeert desen bryef aen u. Mt te schrijven om
5 haer daer voren seer haertelyck te bedancken wenschend de ghele-
gentheyt te[corr. from de] hebben om het selve nyet alleen met woorden maer
oock met wercken te bethoonen. Insonderheyt is ons seer aenghe-
naem gheweest te verstaen dat u. Mt gepresenteert heeft
onse ghesanten te doen gaen met de haeren nae het
10 Ryck van China: t'welck wy houden voor een sonder-
linghe eere ende gunste : ende is ons [se deleted] gheen cleynen
ondyenst gheschyet door eenighe vande onsen dye soo
schoonen [ghelegenheyt deleted] occasie[added later] hebben versuymt. Dan wy verhoopen
dat het[inserted] selve teghenswoordigh sal connen ghebetert werden
15 indyen het u. Mt ghelyeve haer begonnen faveur aen ons
te continueren, t’ welck wy midsdesen op alle vrund-
schap versoecken. End alsoo wy menen dat het u. Mt
nyet onaenghenaem en sal syn van[inserted] de gelegentheit van onse
saecken [te verstaen deleted] wel onderrecht te werden [wel … werden added in the
margin], soo sal de selve ghelyeven te verstaen
20 hoe dat de luyden van onse landen (etc. ut Tidor)
alsdan van de werken tot noch toe in Oostindien hebben
betuycht. Daerenboven tot volvoeringhe van het selve
werck etc. Syn oock van vaste meninghe
— te bestellen — ende een andere vloote om ghesonden
25 te worden nae Oostindien, soo ter oorsaecke vande Traffycke
als [om deleted] tot [eyndelijcke deleted] [wtdryvinghe deleted] afbreuck[added later]
van onse vyanden
waer toe wy hoopen dat u. Mt soo om de vrundschap
tusschen ons begonnen als oock overmidts dat haer ver-
seeckerlyk meede nyet weynigh aen de wtdryvinghe vande
30 Portugesen is ghelegen, ons haer gunst mildelyck sal
bethoonen[corr. from thoonen]: t'welck wy nyet en sullen naelaeten by alle
moghelycke occasien door ghelycke etc.
Appendix 3: Original Dutch text of a letter in the hand of Hugo Grotius to the King of Johor
Collectie Hugo de Groot, Supplement, The Hague, National Archives [1.10.35, no. 40], fol. 364 recto.
Aen den Cooningh van Johor
Doorluchtichsten Cooningh
Wy verhoopen [dat deleted] soo wanneer desen bryef uwe Mt sal
werden behandight dat de selve sal connen dyenen om uwe
5 Maiesteyt gheluck te wenschen over de veroveringhe vande stadt
van Malacca, waer van wy aen onsen Admirael last
hadden gegeven ende [nu ter tydt deleted] nu de tydinghe van een [nu … een added in the margin]
een[sic] goede wtcomste [verhoopen deleted]
verwachten; [sign referring to later addition deleted] nyet twyffelend off u. Mt sal over
alsulcken afbreuck vande ghemeene vyanden met ons
10 haere [goe deleted] ghetrouwe vrienden ende bondghenooten ten hoochsten zyn
verblydt [sign referring to later addition, see below], [insonderheyt deleted] alsoo de
[gherustheyt deleted] saecken van
uwe Mt ende haere landen daer deur in eene groote gherustheyt
ende verseeckerheyt syn ghestelt. Buyten twyffel u. Mt en is
nyet onbekent (etc. als in Ternate) gheplaecht is[? etc. also possible]
15 [Wt deleted] Deur[added in the margin] welck loffelyck voornemen [door deleted]
midsgaders[added later] den goeden yver van onse luyden
ende voor al den seghen van Godt Almachtigh sulcke saecken zyn
[ghevolght deleted] syn[sic] wtghericht [syn wtghericht added in the margin] [als u. Mt
alderbest syn bekent deleted] als alle de werlt
is bekent ende [onsen? deleted] voor al uwe Mt: van[inserted later] de welcke wy ons
verseeckeren dat sy de ghetrouwe assistentie dye aen haer is
20 ghedaen noyt en sal willen vergeten Ghelyck wy [er deleted] ons etc.
Ende alsoo etc. sal bethoonen Dan alsoo wy daghelycx etc.
ten aensyen van onse vrundschap ende verbondt, ende de goede
vruchten dye daer wt syn ghevolght nyet toe te laeten
etc.
To be inserted at the sign (line 11; different ink, like the signs in lines 8 and 11):
25 Doch inghevallen de onseeckerheyt dye in de exploicten vande zee ghemeenelyck
is vermenght sulcx voor dees tydt soude moghen belet hebben
soo bidden wy uwe M. te willen ghelooven dat wy gheene ghele-
gentheit en sullen versuymen om [t’ selve eyndelyck te effectueren
ten eynde dat de saecken van uwe Mt ende haere landen daer deur
30 in eene vaste gherustheit ende verseeckerheyt worden ghestelt deleted]
u. Mt [in deleted] alle moghelycke hulp ende bystant te doen
