The Golden Book of the Dutch Navigators

by Hendrik Willem Van Loon

First of all there was the Trouwe, which had remained faithful to De Weert after the other three vessels had disappeared. The wind had blown the Trouwe out of the strait into the Pacific Ocean. For many weeks her captain had lost all track of his whereabouts. Through sheer luck he had at last reached a coast which he supposed to be the continent of South America and after a search of a few days he had found some natives who were friendly. The natives told the Hollanders that this was not the American continent, but an island called Chiloe, situated a few miles off the Chilean coast. The Dutch ships had been made welcome. They were invited to stay in the harbor as long as they wished. Meanwhile the natives told their captain about a plan of their own which undoubtedly would please him. It seemed that the inhabitants of Chiloe had good reason to hate the Spaniards, who were mighty on the near-by continent and who recently had built a strong fort on the island, from which they exercised their tyrannical rule over all the natives and made them pay very heavy tribute. Perhaps, so the natives argued, the Hollanders could be induced to give their assistance in a campaign against the Spaniard. De Cordes, who commanded the Trouwe, was a Catholic, but he was quite ready to offer his services in so good a cause and was delighted to start a little private war of his own upon the Spaniards. He made ready to sail for that part of the coast where, according to his informants, the Spaniard had fortified himself. Meanwhile the natives were to proceed on shore toward the same Spanish fortress. An attack was to follow simultaneously from the land and the sea. On the way to the fortress all Spanish houses and plantations, storerooms and churches, were burned down and at last the fortress itself was reached. The commander of the fortress, however, had heard of the approach of this handful of Hollanders, and he sent them an insulting message telling them that he needed a new stable boy, anyway, and would bestow this high office upon the Dutch captain as soon as he could have the necessary arrangements made. But when the Dutch captain actually appeared upon the scene with a well-armed vessel and a band of native auxiliaries and informed the Spaniard that the new stable boy had come to take possession of his domain, the commander changed his mind and offered the Hollanders whatever they wished if they would only leave him alone. De Cordes, however, attacked the fort at once. He took it, and the garrison was locked up in the church as prisoners. Then the Chilean natives in their rage attacked the church and killed several of the Spaniards. This was not what De Cordes wanted to be done. He did not mind if a Hollander killed a Spaniard, but it did not look well for one white man to allow a native to kill another while he himself stood by. Therefore he returned their arms to the Spaniards and together they then drove the natives away. When the natives, however, told the Dutch sailors that the fort contained hidden treasures of which the Spaniards had made no mention, the former allies attacked each other for the second time, and the Spanish prisoners were sent on board the Dutch ship. The story which we possess of this episode of the voyage is not very clear. It was written many years later by one of the few sailors who came back to Holland. His account of these adventures was so badly printed and the spelling of the original pamphlet was so extraordinary that a second scribe was later hired to turn the booklet into more or less readable Dutch. The present translation has been made from this second version. Everything is a bit mixed, and it is not easy to find out what really happened. A common and ignorant sailor of the year 1600 was not very different from the same sort of fellow who at present is fighting in the European war. They both remember events in chunks, so to speak. They have very vivid impressions of a few occurrences, but they have forgotten other things of more importance because at the time these did not strike their unobservant brain as being of any special interest. But we have no other account of the adventures of the Trouwe. We must use this information such as it is.

The booty found in this small settlement had not been of great value. The expedition felt inclined to move toward a richer port. They did not have food enough for their prisoners, and fourteen of the nineteen Spaniards who were locked up in the hold were thrown overboard. This sounds very cruel, but it was the custom of the time that these two nations rarely gave each other quarter. Whosoever was made a prisoner was killed. The Spaniards started this practice in the middle of the sixteenth century because the Hollanders as heretics deserved no better fate. The Hollanders reciprocated. On this distant island of the Pacific both parties obeyed the unwritten law. The Hollanders drowned their prisoners. When Spanish reinforcements reached Chiloe and retook the fort, they killed the Dutch garrison, for such was the custom of the time.

The Trouwe after this famous exploit was in a difficult position, all alone in the heart of the Pacific, with enemies on every side and a bad conscience. The idea of attacking some other Spanish harbor in Chile and Peru was given up as too dangerous. Near the harbor of Truxillo a Spanish ship loaded with grain and wine was captured, and provided with new supplies, De Cordes decided to risk the trip across the Pacific. On the third of January, 1601, he reached Ternate in the Indies, where Van Noort had been the year before, and where they found a Dutch settlement commanded by that same Van der Does whose account of Houtman's first trip to India we have given in the fourth chapter of this little book. Van der Does warned De Cordes not to visit the next island of Tidore. There were only twenty-four Hollanders left on board the Trouwe. It was too dangerous to visit an unfriendly Portuguese colony with a damaged ship and so small a crew. But De Cordes, who seems to have been a reckless sort of person, went to Tidore all the same. Much to his surprise he was very cordially received by the commander of the Portuguese garrison and the governor of the town. They both assured him that he might trade in their colony as much as he wished. If, however, he would let them know what he wished to buy, they would give orders that provisions and a cargo of spice should be got ready for their distinguished visitors. They invited him to come on shore the next morning. They wanted to make him a present of an ox for the benefit of his hungry crew and entertain him personally, and, then after a few more days further arrangements for the purpose of a mutually profitable trade might be made. The next morning the Dutch captain and six men went ashore to get their ox. The ship itself was left in the care of the first mate. Soon a Portuguese boat rowed out to the Trouwe and asked the mate to come on shore, too, and have breakfast with his Portuguese colleagues. The mate was suspicious and refused the invitation. He suggested that the Portuguese officer come on board the Trouwe and breakfast with him. But the officer said that he was too heavy a man to climb on board so high a ship, and he did not care to take this exercise so early in the morning. So the mate left the ship, together with the ship's carpenter, to see what a Portuguese kitchen served for breakfast. The moment the two men landed a loud outcry was heard from the Trouwe. The mate at once jumped into the sea and looked for his comrade. The carpenter was dead and his head, hacked from his body, was used as a football by the Portuguese. The mate swam out to the ship, but when he reached it he found that the Portuguese had jumped on board the moment he had left for his breakfast party. He swam back to the shore, was made a prisoner, and was locked up in the fortress. With six other men he escaped the general murder which had taken place as soon as he landed. De Cordes himself had been killed with a dagger. The six men who had accompanied him on shore had heard the noise of the attack upon the Trouwe and had rowed away from shore in a boat, trying to get back to their vessel. But the Trouwe was already in the hands of the Portuguese, and since the Hollanders had no arms, they surrendered after the Portuguese had given their oath not to hurt them and to spare their lives. They were taken on board a Portuguese ship. As soon as they were on deck they had been placed in a row, and a soldier had been ordered to take his sword and hack their heads off. He had killed four men when the other two managed to jump overboard. One of these was drowned. The other was fished out of the water and was sent to the fortress with the mate and five sailors who had put up such a desperate fight on board the Trouwe that the Portuguese had promised to treat them with clemency if only they would surrender.

The six men were afterward taken to Goa. Gradually one after the other they had managed to escape and find their way back to Holland. Two of them returned to Rotterdam in the autumn of 1603. Another one we find mentioned in later years as commander of an Indian trader. As for the Trouwe, Van Neck on his second voyage to India found the vessel being used by the Portuguese as a man-of-war.

Of the other ships, the Blyde Boodschap also had a very sad career and met with extraordinary adventures. This small vessel was commanded by a certain Dirck Gerritsz, a native of Enkhuizen, a fellow-citizen of Linschoten. As a matter of fact the two men had heard of each other many years before. While Linschoten was in Goa he was told of a Hollander who was a native of his own city and who had traveled not only in the Indies, but who also had visited Japan and China. We know very little of the man. Some information of his travels in Asia have been printed in a general hand-book on navigation of that time, though he did not follow Linschoten's example and print a full account of his adventures. When the city of Rotterdam sent this expedition to the Strait of Magellan, Dirck Gerritsz had been engaged as first mate of the Blyde Boodschap. When her captain died he had succeeded him. The ship of Gerritsz had suffered from the same storm which had driven the Trouwe out of her course. An attempt had been made to reach the island of Santa Maria, but the maps on board proved to be faulty, and the little island could not be found. With only provisions enough for another week Gerritsz had finally reached the harbor of Valparaiso. Of his original crew of fifty-six men, twenty-three were left, and of these only nine were strong enough to sail the ship. Therefore he had been forced to surrender himself and his vessel to the Spaniards. The Dutch sailors were forced to take service in the Spanish navy. From that moment on we lose sight of all of them. A few reached home after many years of strange adventure. Others died in the Spanish service. Of the fate of the ship we know nothing. As for Dirck Gerritsz, rumor has it that he found his way back to Enkhuizen.

There were two other ships, the Hoop and the Liefde. Of these the Liefde had reached Santa Maria, and after leaving the island had landed at Punta Lapavia, where an attempt had been made to find fresh water. Unfortunately, the captain and twenty-three of his men had been murdered by natives who mistook them for Spaniards and had carried their heads in triumph to the Spanish town of Concepcion, where they were shown to the garrison as a promise of what was in store for them should the settlement ever fall into the hands of the enraged native population. The rest of the sailors had saved their ship by fleeing to Santa Maria, where they met the Hoop. The Hoop had suffered a similar calamity. Her captain and twenty-seven of his men had been murdered on another island. Of the officers of both ships hardly a single one was still alive.

New officers were elected from among the men, and the ships continued their northward course apparently without a definite idea of what they intended to do. They could not go back through the strait, and they were obliged to cross the Pacific. They decided to avoid all Spanish and Portuguese settlements and to make for Japan, where they might be able to sell their cargo, and where a peaceful couple of ships might find it possible to do some honest trading without being attacked by wild natives or lying Spaniards. On the twenty-seventh of November the island of Santa Maria was left, and soon the ships passed the equator. They kept near the land, and lost eight more of their men when these had gone to the shore to get fresh water and were attacked by natives. On the twenty-third of February, during a gale, the ships were separated from each other. The Liefde was obliged to make the voyage to Japan alone. On the twenty-fourth of March of the year 1600 the first Japanese island was reached.

The people of Japan were very kind-hearted and very obliging. The sick Hollanders were allowed to come on shore, and the others could trade as much as they liked. But Japan for many years had been a field of successful activities for Portuguese Jesuits. These Jesuits smiled pleasantly upon the Dutch visitors, but to the Japanese they hinted that the Hollanders were pirates and could not be trusted. Holland was not a country at all, and these men were all robbers and thieves. They advised the Japanese authorities to let these dangerous people starve or send them away from their island, which would mean the same thing. But the news of the arrival of some strange ships had reached the ears of the Emperor of Japan. He sent for some of the crew to come to his court. An Englishman among the sailors by the name of William Adams was chosen for this dangerous mission. He not only represented to his imperial Majesty the sad state of affairs among the shipwrecked Hollanders, but he made himself so useful at the imperial court that he was asked to remain behind and serve the Japanese state. He had a wife and children at home in England, but he liked this new country so well that he decided to stay. He lived happily for twenty years, married a Japanese woman, and when he died in 1620 divided his fortune equally among his Japanese and his English families.

Without the assistance of Adams, who seems to have been the leader of the remaining sailors on the Liefde, it was impossible to accomplish anything with the big ship. Of the twenty-four men who had reached Japan only eighteen were left. The ship, therefore, was deserted, and all the men went on shore. Except for two, the others all disappeared from view. They probably settled down in Japan. But in the year 1605, in the month of December, two Hollanders came to the Dutch settlement of Patani, on the Indian peninsula. They had made the voyage from Japan to India on a Japanese ship, and they brought to the Dutch company trading in that region an official invitation from the Emperor of Japan asking them to come and enter into honorable commerce with the Japanese islands. This invitation was accepted. In the year 1608 one of the two Dutch messengers returned to Japan with letters announcing the arrival of a Dutch fleet for the next summer. He continued to live in Japan until his death in 1634. The other sailor found a chance to go back to Holland on a Dutch ship, but near home he was killed in a quarrel with some Portuguese. The net result of this unfortunate voyage of the Liefde was the establishment of a very useful trade relation with Japan—a relation which became more important after the Portuguese had been expelled, and which lasted for over two centuries.