Willem Adriaan Van Der Stel, and Other Historical Sketches

by George McCall Theal

Historical Sketches.

Before recounting in brief the rise of the Northern Netherlands to a proud position among European states, and the commencement of the Dutch conquests in the eastern seas, a glance may be given to the earliest acts of other nations, and especially to those of our own countrymen, in those distant regions.

The French were the first to follow the Portuguese round the Cape of Good Hope to India. As early as 1507 a corsair of that nation, named Mondragon, made his appearance in the Mozambique channel[14] with two armed vessels, and plundered a ship commanded by Job Queimado. He also captured and robbed another Indiaman nearer home. On the 18th of January 1509 a fleet commanded by Duarte Pacheco Pereira fell in with him off Cape Finisterre, and after a warm engagement sank one of his ships and captured the other. Mondragon was taken a prisoner to Lisbon, where he found means of making his peace with the king, and he was then permitted to return to France.

Twenty years later three ships, fitted out by a merchant named Jean Ango, sailed from Dieppe for India. The accounts of this expedition are so conflicting that it is impossible to relate the occurrences attending it with absolute accuracy. It is certain, however, that one of the ships never reached her destination. Another was wrecked on the coast of Sumatra, where her crew were all murdered. The third reached Diu in July 1527. She had a crew of forty Frenchmen, but was commanded by a Portuguese named Estevão Dias, nicknamed Brigas, who had fled from his native country on account of misdeeds committed there, and had taken service with the strangers. The ruler of Diu regarded this ship with great hostility, and as he was unable to seize her openly, he practised deceit to get her crew within his power. Professing friendship, he gave Dias permission to trade in his territory, but took advantage of the first opportunity to arrest him and his crew. They were handed over as captives to the paramount Mohamedan ruler, and were obliged to embrace his creed to preserve their lives. They were then taken into his service and remained in India.

Early Voyages of the French.

Early in 1529 two ships commanded by Jean and Raoul Parmentier, fitted out partly by Jean Ango, partly by merchants of Rouen, sailed from Dieppe. In October of the same year they reached Sumatra, but on account of great loss of life from sickness, on the 22nd of January 1530 they turned homeward. As they avoided the Portuguese settlements, nothing was known at Goa of their proceedings except what was told by a sailor who was left behind at Madagascar and was afterwards found there. This expedition was almost as unsuccessful as the preceding one. On their return passage the ships were greatly damaged in violent storms, and they reached Europe with difficulty.

From that time until 1601 there is no trace of a French vessel having passed the Cape of Good Hope. In May of this year the Corbin and Croissant, two ships fitted out by some merchants of Laval and Vitré, sailed from St. Malo. They reached the Maldives safely, but there the Corbin was lost in July 1602, and her commander was unable to return to France until ten years had gone by. The Croissant was lost on the Spanish coast on her homeward passage.

On the 1st of June 1604 a French East India Company was established on paper, but it did not get further. In 1615 it was reorganised, and in 1617 the first successful expedition to India under the French flag sailed from a port in Normandy. From that date onward ships of this nation were frequently seen in the eastern seas. But the French made no attempt to form a settlement in South Africa, and their only connection with this country was that towards the middle of the seventeenth century a vessel was sent occasionally from Rochelle to collect a cargo of sealskins and oil at the islands in and near the present Saldanha Bay.

Historical Sketches.

The English were the next to appear in Indian waters. A few individuals of this nation may have served in Portuguese ships, and among the missionaries, especially of the Company of Jesus, who went out to convert the heathen, it is not unlikely that there were several. One at least, Thomas Stephens by name, was rector of the Jesuit college at Salsette. A letter written by him from Goa in 1579, and printed in the second volume of Hakluyt’s work, is the earliest account extant of an English voyager to that part of the world.[15] It contains no information of importance.