Cornelis Matelieff (c. 1569-1632) — properly Cornelis Cornelisz. Matelieff de Jonge, a Bewindhebber of the VOC from the Rotterdam chamber and admiraal of the fleet of nine ships (later joined by two more) that left Texel on 12 May 1605 and conducted the first major Dutch siege of Malaka in 1606 — is the principal Dutch military figure of the early Atjeh-Djohor-Malaka period and the author of the Discours van den Oost-Indischen Staet of 12 November 1608, the strategic memorandum that became the foundational text of the Coen school of Indies administration. He is the principal Dutch strategist of the early VOC period.
Background and the 1605 fleet
Matelieff was a Bewindhebber of the VOC from its founding — a member of the Rotterdam chamber and, by family tradition, connected to the maritime commercial elite of the Maas city. He left Texel on 12 May 1605 with nine ships, having received secret instructions to attack Malaka — instructions that, as Van der Woude notes, “verloren is gegaan”. At Mauritius he conferred with Admiraal Steven van der Haghen about the state of the Indies; both agreed that Malaka should be the first target. The fleet’s destination was kept secret from the crews until the Nicobaren, where Matelieff finally announced the plan and overcame the men’s reluctance with the promise of prize money.
The Malaka campaign (1606)
The full account of Matelieff’s Malaka campaign is given in the entry on the campaign itself. In summary: he appeared before Malaka on 30 April 1606; concluded the first accord with the sultan of Djohor on 17 May 1606, granting the Dutch freedom from tolls and a monopoly of the trade; failed to take the city by assault; blockaded the garrison into near-surrender; was forced to engage a Portuguese relief fleet twice the size of his own under the Viceroy of India on 18 August 1606, losing two ships but killing the Viceroy; retired to Djohor to repair his fleet; concluded the second accord with the sultan on 23 September 1606, granting the Dutch the right to build a fort on Djohor territory; returned to Malaka on 20 October 1606 and destroyed the remaining Portuguese fleet on 22 October 1606, taking four galleons and burning three.
The strategic lesson Matelieff drew from the campaign was double. First, the VOC could not be run from Amsterdam alone: “soo dunckt mijn dat wy de saecke van Oost-Indien niet en sullen konnen staende houden, met de selve alleen te laten regeren door de Heeren Bewinthebberen, want sie niet datse authoriteyt ghenoech hier in Indien sullen krijgen, om de saecke ten goeden eynde te brengen”. The Staten-Generaal must take the lead. Second, the dual purpose of the Company — trade and war — was incompatible in a single commander: “als men een soldaat en een koopman in een persoon vereenigd wil hebben, is het al verloren arbeid”.
The Discours (1608)
Matelieff’s Discours van den Oost-Indischen Staet of 12 November 1608 — preserved in the Begin ende Voortgangh, Dl. II, 13e hfdst — was written after his return to Bantam from the Malaka campaign and addressed to the Heeren Zeventien. Its argument shaped VOC strategy for the next decade. The central recommendation was that the Company establish a permanent fleet in the Strait of Malaka, build the fort at Djohor that the second accord had authorised, and use Djohor as a base from which to blockade Malaka into surrender. The recommendation was never executed: the sultan of Djohor distrusted the Dutch and ultimately refused the fort; the Verhoeff expedition of 1608 could not relieve the sultan; and the sultan’s separate peace with the Portuguese in 1610 ended the Dutch-Djohor alliance.
The Discours also addressed the wider strategic question of the Company’s relationship to the Dutch state. Matelieff’s argument that the Staten-Generaal must take the lead would become, in the Coen era, the foundation of the argument that “Indië onafhankelijk van Holland” must be — that the Asian trade must generate its own capital, run its own books, and feed its own reserve fund, free from the quarterly pressures of Amsterdam shareholders.
The later years
Matelieff returned to the Netherlands after the campaign and resumed his place as a Bewindhebber of the Rotterdam chamber. His advice was sought on subsequent Indies expeditions; he advised on the outfitting of the Verhoeff fleet of 1607 and on the strategy of the Banda expeditions of 1609 and after. He died in 1632.
Significance
Cornelis Matelieff is, in Van der Woude’s narrative, the principal Dutch military figure of the early Atjeh-Djohor-Malaka period and the principal Dutch strategist of the early VOC period. The Malaka campaign of 1606 showed both what the VOC could achieve (the destruction of the Portuguese fleet) and what it could not (the conquest of a fortified city without a sustained blockade and a land force). The Discours of 1608 became the foundational text of the Coen school of Indies administration, with its argument that the VOC needed state support, a permanent fleet in the Strait of Malaka, and a fort at Djohor to make the Portuguese position at Malaka untenable. Matelieff’s strategic vision — never fully executed in his own time — defined the framework within which Coen and his successors would operate for the next quarter-century, and his argument that the Indies administration must be free from Amsterdam’s quarterly pressures anticipated the Coen programme of “Indië onafhankelijk van Holland” by a full decade.
See Also
- Matelieff’s Malaka campaign (1606)
- Steven van der Haghen
- Pieter Willemsz. Verhoeff
- Verhoeff’s Malaka expedition (1608)
- Sultan of Atjeh (1589-1604)
- Djohor
- Batoesawer
- Malaka
- Mauritius
- Nicobaren
- Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie
- Heeren Zeventien
- Staten-Generaal
- Jan Pieterszoon Coen
- Discours of 1 January 1614
- 1606
- 1608
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. 127-131, 137-140).
Discours van den Oost-Indischen Staet, by Cornelis Matelieff, 12 November 1608, in Begin ende Voortgangh, Dl. II, 13e hfdst.