Joris Spilbergh’s Atjeh visit of September 1602 — the fourth Dutch commercial visit to the kingdom of Atjeh, conducted by Joris van Spilbergen (also spelled Spilbergen) with the two surviving ships of the fleet outfitted by Balthasar de Moucheron that had left Middelburg on 5 May 1601, arriving at Atjeh in early September 1602 after a visit to Ceylon — is the visit that brought Spilbergh into the Anglo-Dutch joint operation that culminated in the capture of the Portuguese carrack of 3 October 1602 off the Strait of Malaka. The visit is treated by Johan van der Woude in his Van der Woude (1948) as the closing episode of the first Dutch-Achehnese diplomatic sequence.
The fleet of Balthasar de Moucheron
Spilbergh’s fleet of three ships — accompanied by the yacht ‘t Lam under Cornelis Spex — had been outfitted by Balthasar de Moucheron, the Zeeland merchant who had earlier dispatched the Houtman brothers’ voyage of 1599 and who would later be one of the bewindhebbers of the VOC’s Zeeland chamber. The fleet left Middelburg on 5 May 1601. Near the Comoros the yacht ‘t Lam became separated from the others and was so badly damaged that Spilbergh’s pilot Spex did not dare to continue the voyage through Indian waters; he put in at Atjeh, where he arrived in early September 1602 and placed himself and his yacht under the command of the English admiral James Lancaster already on the roadstead.
Spilbergh’s arrival and the joint operation
A few days after ‘t Lam, Spilbergh himself arrived with the other two ships, having called at Ceylon on the way. When he heard of Lancaster’s plan to ambush the annual Portuguese carrack from the Koromandel coast, he offered to join the operation with one of his ships for an eighth of the prize. The offer was accepted and on 21 September 1602 the English and Dutch ships sailed from Atjeh in company, spread themselves across the Strait of Malaka, and on 3 October 1602 sighted and captured the carrack. The cargo — 950 bales of calicoes and pintados, with rice and other goods — was transshipped in five or six days; Spilbergh received 120 bales and his share of the chests for his eighth. The 600 Portuguese crew were allowed to depart unhindered for Malaka in the empty carrack.
Significance
Joris Spilbergh’s Atjeh visit is, in Van der Woude’s narrative, the principal instance of the early Anglo-Dutch naval co-operation at Atjeh. The joint capture of the Portuguese carrack on 3 October 1602 — Spilbergh’s eighth share, the amicable division of the prize, the courteous release of the Portuguese crew — is the high-water mark of the brief moment in which the English and the Dutch companies co-operated against the Portuguese in the East Indies. Within a few years the situation at Atjeh, and at Banda and Ambon, would change: by 1609 William Keeling would be writing from Banda that the Bandanese “do much marvel that in so long a time there have come no English shipping there”, and the Anglo-Dutch rivalry would harden into the conflicts of the 1610s and the Ambonese murder of 1623. Spilbergh’s visit thus belongs to the last moment of untroubled Anglo-Dutch partnership in the East Indies, made possible by the sultan of Atjeh’s willingness to host both nations at his court and to facilitate their joint attack on the Portuguese. The visit also marks the close of the Moucheron firm’s direct involvement in the East Indies trade: with the founding of the VOC in March 1602, the separate Zeeland companies were wound up and their assets and personnel absorbed into the united company.
See Also
- Joris Spilbergh
- Balthasar de Moucheron
- Cornelis Spex
- James Lancaster’s Atjeh visit (1602)
- Capture of the Portuguese carrack off Atjeh (October 1602)
- Sultan of Atjeh (1589-1604)
- Moucheron’s firm
- Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie
- Ceylon
- Koromandel kust
- Malaka
- Acheh
- 1602
Source
Coen, Koopman van Heeren Zeventien. Geschiedenis van den Hollandshen Handel in Indië (1598-1614), by Johan van der Woude (Amsterdam: C.V. Uitgeverij v/h C. De Boer Jr., 1948), Hoofdstuk V “Voorgangers, Hollanders en mededingers tot 1614. Atjeh. Djohor. Malaka.” (pp. 118-119).