John Davis

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tagsperson, english, navigator, precolonial, atjeh, netherlands-east-indies, 16th-century, 17th-century, moucheron, spy, eic
aliasesJohn Davis (English pilot), John Davys, Davis the Navigator, Captain John Davis, Davis

6 min read

John Davis (c. 1550–1605) was an English navigator and pilot — one of the most experienced English pilots of the late sixteenth century, famous for his Arctic voyages in search of the Northwest Passage (1585–1587) — who served as stuurman (pilot) aboard the Houtman brothers’ voyage of 1599 to Atjeh under Cornelis de Houtman on the ships outfitted by Balthasar de Moucheron, and again as pilot aboard James Lancaster’s first English East India Company visit to Atjeh in 1602. Davis’s dual service — Dutch under Houtman, English under Lancaster — marks him as the principal English pilot of the early Dutch-English commercial partnership in the East Indies and the principal instance of the early English intelligence interest in the Dutch East India trade.

The Houtman voyage as spy

Davis shipped aboard the De Moucheron fleet of 1598 in the service of the Earl of Essex, as he later wrote: “when it pleased you to employ mee in this Voyage, for the discovering of these Easterne parts of the world, to the service of her Majestie, and the good of our Countrey”. His role was, in modern terms, that of an intelligence officer: he was to learn the Dutch East India route, the Dutch commercial methods, and the political and commercial situation in the East Indies, and to report back to Essex. The arrangement was acceptable to Moucheron, who needed an experienced pilot and was willing to take the risk of an English observer aboard.

The voyage to the Indies took fifteen months. The Madagascar population fled at the reappearance of the rough Dutchmen — this was the second Dutch landing there, the first having already left a bad reputation under De Houtman’s own first expedition. When the fleet reached Atjeh in June 1599, the good understanding with the Sultan Aloeddin lasted only briefly. With poisoned fruits and drinks, later with a kris-attack, the Atjehnese sought to be rid of the foreigners. Davis survived the 11 September 1599 ambush — the disaster in which Cornelis de Houtman was killed and Frederik de Houtman taken captive — and returned to England. Godee Molsbergen’s account is laconic: “Er waren veel dooden, waaronder Cornelis de Houtman, en veel gevangenen, o.a. Frederik de Houtman” — There were many dead, among them Cornelis de Houtman, and many prisoners, among them Frederik de Houtman.

Davis’s presence on the Houtman voyage may have contributed to the Dutch decision to trust the Sultan’s initial welcome: his experience of Asian courts was greater than Houtman’s, and his reports would later be used by Lancaster to plan the English East India Company’s first voyage.

The escape to Pedir and the homeward voyage

The ships that escaped Atjeh made for Pedir, where they beat off an Atjehnese naval attack; they then touched at the Nicobars and, after much misfortune, reached Middelburg in the summer of 1600. De Moucheron suffered heavy losses from the expedition. Davis “had zijn spionnenmaterinal tot nut der Engelschen” — had his spy-material to the advantage of the English.

English spy-work and the East India Company

As the Dutch had once wrung the secrets of the Indian trade from Portugal, England now sought profit from Dutch experience — also as regarded the knowledge of Malay. The intelligence Davis gathered on the De Moucheron expedition fed directly into the early English voyages of the East India Company. Godee Molsbergen frames Davis as the agent who carried the intelligence of the Atjeh catastrophe — together with a working knowledge of the Indian trade and the Malay world — back to the English East India Company.

The Lancaster voyage (1601-1603)

Davis served as pilot aboard the Lancaster fleet that left Woolwich on 13 February 1601. His earlier experience at Atjeh — and his knowledge of the Achehnese court, the pepper prices, and the Portuguese position in the Strait of Malaka — was the principal English intelligence asset for the first English East India Company voyage. Van der Woude notes that Lancaster’s expectation of pepper prices at Atjeh was based on “advies van zijn stuurman John Davis”, though the prices Lancaster actually found were higher than Davis had led him to expect.

When Spilbergh reached Atjeh in 1602, he found the Lam — a ship from his own fleet that had strayed — already lying there, hired by the English Company under Lancaster, with Davis under Lancaster’s command. Davis thus returned to Atjeh in 1602 as Lancaster’s pilot — one of the very few Europeans to call at the sultanate twice in the early years of the European intrusion. In cooperation with the English, Spilbergh took a richly-laden Portuguese kraak (merchantman); after unloading the goods, the kraak was returned to the Portuguese “met hun vrouwen en kinderen” (with their wives and children) to sail to Malakka.

Death, 1605

Davis died in 1605 on a later voyage, killed in a skirmish with Japanese pirates off the coast of Borneo — a death that, in the English maritime mythology of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, sealed his reputation as one of the great Elizabethan navigators.

Significance

John Davis is the principal English pilot of the early Dutch-English commercial partnership in the East Indies and the principal instance of the early English intelligence interest in the Dutch East India trade. His dual service — Dutch under Houtman in 1598–1599, English under Lancaster in 1601–1603 — frames the brief moment in which the English and Dutch East India interests co-operated rather than competed, and his presence on both voyages made the intelligence transfer from the Dutch to the English East India companies possible. For Atjeh’s history specifically, Davis is the English eyewitness of the first Dutch-Atjeh catastrophe and the agent who carried the intelligence of that catastrophe — together with a working knowledge of the Indian trade and the Malay world — back to the English East India Company. His later return to Atjeh under Lancaster in 1602 made him one of the very few Europeans to call at the sultanate twice in the early years of the European intrusion.

See Also

Sources

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. 109-110, 117).

Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes, by Samuel Purchas, Vol. II (Glasgow, 1905), p. 305.

Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie, by Dr. E. C. Godee Molsbergen, Oud-Hoogleeraar, Landsarchivaris te Batavia (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger Boekhandel en Uitgevers Mij., 1932), chapters XXIII, XXXII–XXXIV (“Sint Thomas. De Madoera-ziekte. Malakka. Het groote kanon in Atjeh”; “Het Kasteel van Verre. De brief op varkensvel in Atjeh”; “Atjehers in het kamp van Maurits”; “Spilbergh’s succes op Ceylon”), pp. 81, 114–125 of the numbered-letter sequence.

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