Gerard le Roy

Properties2
tagsperson, dutch, merchant, voyager, pre-voc, precolonial, aceh, netherlands-indies, 17th-century, middelburgsche-compagnie, trade
aliasesGerard Leroy, G. Leroy, Le Roy, Gerard Le Roy, Gerard le Roy (Zeeland merchant), Le Roy (Middelburgsche Compagnie), Gerrit le Roy

7 min read

Gerard le Roy was a Dutch Zeeland merchant of the Middelburgsche Compagnie who, in August 1601, arrived at Aceh as commander — together with his fellow merchant Laurens Bicker — of the four ships dispatched in January 1601 by the company founded by Adriaen Hendriksz ten Haeff and others, under the admiralship of Hans Huybrecht Tonneman. His timely arrival at the Acehnese court secured the release of Frederik de Houtman and the surviving Dutch prisoners from Acehnese captivity, produced the first formal Dutch-Acehnese commercial settlement (the factory of 28 August 1601), the first direct shipment of Acehnese pepper to the Republic, and the first Acehnese embassy to the Staten-Generaal. He is, in Stapel’s and Van der Woude’s narratives, the principal Dutch commercial figure of the Zeeland mission of 1601.

The 1601 Voyage

The fleet of four ships was substantially sized for a pre-VOC venture. Stapel records: “In August ‘01 Gerard Leroy (sent out in January ‘01 by the ‘Middelburgsche Compagnie,’ founded by Adriaen Hendriksz ten Haeff and others, with 4 ships) put in here” — Dutch original: in Aug. ‘01 Gerard Leroy (door de ‘Middelburgsche Compagnie,’ opgericht door Adriaen Hendriksz ten Haeff c.a., in Jan. ‘01 met 4 schepen uitgezonden) hier aanliep. The founding by Ten Haeff signals the rising Middelburg interest in the East India trade that would soon be folded into the unified VOC. Van der Woude adds that the two chief merchants of the fleet, Le Roy and Bicker, arrived off Aceh on 23 August 1601 with gifts and a letter from Prince Maurits — a diplomatic rapprochement that the Houtman ambush of 1599 and the Van Caerden affair of 1600-1601 had foreclosed.

The Release of the Houtman Party

The release came swiftly and through no Dutch intercession. Stapel records: “Meanwhile the Atjehers and Portuguese had fallen into enmity, so that when in August ‘01 Gerard Leroy … here put in, Frederik de H[outman] and his men were set at liberty, even before a corresponding letter from Prince Maurits to the prince had been presented” — Dutch original: Intusschen geraakten de Atjehers en Portugeezen in vijandschap, zoodat toen in Aug. ‘01 Gerard Leroy … hier aanliep, Frederik de H. en de zijnen in vrijheid werden gesteld, nog vóór een desbetreffend schrijven van Prins Maurits aan den vorst was overhandigd.

The decisive factor was the Aceh-Portuguese breach, not the Dutch embassy. The sultan, no longer aligned with the Portuguese, no longer needed the Dutch prisoners as Portuguese-pleasing hostages. The release preceded the formal delivery of Prince Maurits’s letter — a detail that suggests the sultan was already inclined to release the Dutch before the formal diplomatic cover arrived.

The Van Caerden Indemnity

The chief remaining grievance between the Dutch and the sultan was Van Caerden’s seizure of pepper from Arab junks at anchor on 12 January 1601 — a seizure that the Arab claimants had demanded compensation for and that the sultan had used to justify the rearrest of Frederik de Houtman in chains. Le Roy and Bicker, in Van der Woude’s account, “waren zoo verstandig, den sultan de verzekering te geven dat Paulus van Caerden zijn bevoegdheid te buiten was gegaan toen hij de peper uit de Arabische jonken lichtte, en dat de gedupeerde kooplieden zonder twijfel schadeloos zouden worden gesteld” — were so wise as to give the sultan the assurance that Paulus van Caerden had exceeded his authority when he lifted the pepper from the Arab junks, and that the wronged merchants would without doubt be compensated. The sultan accepted the assurance; Houtman was released; the commercial relationship was restored.

The indemnity was paid. Bicker, who would handle the Arab claimants’ interests, reached an agreement with the Nieuwe Compagnie in 1602 for the payment of ƒ 51,048 in damages — a sum that, according to Francisc Pyrard, was still unpaid in 1608 and, per Tiele, still pending in 1617. The long-running compensation claim was the principal commercial-legal consequence of the Van Caerden affair and the principal instance of the early Dutch companies’ willingness to indemnify third-party losses caused by their commanders’ unilateral actions.

The First Factory and the First Pepper Cargo

Le Roy’s visit also produced the first formal Dutch-Acehnese commercial settlement. Stapel records: “On 28 [August 1601] they were permitted to establish a factory (factorij) here, and Atjehsche envoys, provided with gifts and letters to the Prince, were sent along with two of the ships, which with a full cargo of pepper departed directly from here to Holland” — Dutch original: 28 werd hen toegestaan hier een factorij te stichten en werden Atjehsche gezanten, voorzien van geschenken en brieven aan den Prins, met 2 der schepen, die met een volle lading peper rechtstreeks van hier naar Holland vertrokken, medegegeven. Van der Woude adds that the sultan granted the Zeelanders a factory called “Zeelant”, and permitted two of the commiezen (factors) to travel with his letters of favour to the king of Cambay to open trade with Gujarat.

Three elements of this settlement deserve notice. First, the Dutch factory at Aceh — the first formal Dutch commercial establishment on Sumatran soil — is Le Roy’s achievement. The Cornelis–Frederik–Van Caerden sequence had failed to obtain one; Le Roy obtained it in weeks. Second, the Atjehsche envoys sent with the two returning ships to the Republic constitute the first Acehnese embassy to the Netherlands — a diplomatic counterpart to the Dutch presence at Aceh. The gifts and letters to Prince Maurits are the visible tokens of the embassy. Third, the full pepper cargo shipped directly from Aceh to Holland is the commercial seed of the great Dutch pepper trade of the Westkust. The Compagnie would, after its 1602 founding, build its Aceh and Westkust policy on the foundation Le Roy had laid.

Significance

Le Roy’s visit is the pivot of the opening Dutch-Acehnese phase. Where Cornelis de Houtman had died, where Van Caerden had failed, Le Roy succeeded — and he did so because the Aceh-Portuguese breach had reset the court’s politics in his favour. The 28 August 1601 factory is the first Dutch commercial establishment on Sumatran soil, the first Acehnese embassy to the Republic is the first diplomatic exchange between the two powers, and the pepper cargo is the first direct commercial fruit of the relationship.

The episode also marks the moment at which the Acehnese court, freed from the Portuguese alignment, becomes a potential Dutch partner. The 1602 founding of the VOC would build on this opening; the 1641 Schouten treaty would systematise it. The indemnity Le Roy and Bicker undertook to pay — for Van Caerden’s seizure of the Arab junks — was the principal commercial-legal consequence of the Van Caerden affair and the principal instance of the early Dutch companies’ willingness to indemnify third-party losses caused by their commanders’ unilateral actions. The diplomatic skill with which the indemnity was offered enabled the Zeeland mission to obtain what the Houtman visit and the Van Caerden visit had failed to obtain: the unconditional release of the Dutch captives, a working factory, and a reciprocal embassy to the Staten-Generaal. The mission’s success also confirmed the bewindhebbers’ (directors’) view that Aceh pepper was worth pursuing despite the political risks, and that competition among the European nations — Zeelanders, English, French — drove up prices and made the case for a unified company more urgent.

See Also

Source

De Koloniën, by Dr. F. W. Stapel, in Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), kaart 19, blz. 27–28 (tekst bij blad 1: De eerste reizen der Nederlanders).

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. 115-116).

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