Robert Gravé (also Grave) was a French Vice-Admiral of the De Beaulieu expedition to the East Indies of 1620–1621. Sick, shipwrecked and stripped of his command by the time he reached Atjeh, he died there in the night of 9 November 1621 — “causée de facherie” (caused by vexation) — and was buried in Atjeh. His grave is one of the few certain French burials in the sultanate in the early seventeenth century.
The De Beaulieu expedition, 1620–1621
The French Saint-Malo expedition, led by Augustin de Beaulieu, consisted of several ships including the Montmorency (De Beaulieu’s flagship), the l’Hermitage, the l’Espérance (under Vice-Admiral Gravé), and the Leiden. The expedition’s purpose was to break into the pepper trade that the VOC was consolidating in the Indies.
The loss of the l’Espérance
Driven past Cape Guardafui, De Beaulieu landed with the Montmorency and l’Hermitage at Tikoe on Sumatra’s Westkust — “een centrum van peperhandel, afhankelijk van den Sultan van Atjeh.” From there he came to Atjeh in early 1621 to negotiate for the pepper trade. Gravé, in the l’Espérance, did not arrive.
The truth — recorded by the Dutch — was that before Tikoe the l’Espérance had lain twelve days waiting for a sloop sent ashore with fifteen sick sailors to fetch help. The sloop never reappeared; ten of the sailors died; the five survivors took a Dutch yacht to Atjeh to seek their Admiral. On the great ship were 74 souls; Gravé and three others were still on their feet, but the ship was unmanageable for want of hands. The Dutch ship Leiden found the French “gants machteloos” — entirely powerless — with only two casks of water remaining aboard.
The Dutch rescue and the French claim
Some of the sick were taken aboard the Leiden; the l’Espérance was given a crew of 50 Dutchmen. At the island Nassau it was hoped the sick would recover, but many found their grave there. When the Leiden and the l’Espérance reached Jakatra, 95 persons had died and 29 survived. The French printed account claims the ship was taken by force and brought to Java — “Tijdgenooten wisten beter” — contemporaries knew better. The Dutch ambassador in Paris was in fact thanked by French nobles interested in the Dieppe expedition for the help given to the l’Espérance, and they waived complaints about the lifting of Dutch sailors from French ships.
Gravé’s last voyage to Atjeh
In November 1621, while the Montmorency lay in a bay to be cleaned of the shell-layer that was impeding her sailing, an English ship appeared aboard which was the gravely ill Gravé. He, together with one De Parc of the l’Espérance’s crew, told the story of the ship — a tale full of inaccuracies that later appeared in print in De Beaulieu’s travel-adventures.
Gravé then went in the bark l’Hermitage to Atjeh, where De Beaulieu had already departed. By English ship he set out, happened to meet his chief, and told him, deathly ill, of his troubles in the presence of witnesses.
Death and burial at Atjeh
In the night of 9 November 1621, two hours before daybreak, Gravé died of a violent fever “causée de facherie” — caused by vexation — arising “uit ergernis” (from chagrin/offence). He was buried in Atjeh.
Aftermath
When Coen was in Holland in 1623 he wrote that the English and French questions together had cost the Company some sixteen tonnes of gold. The French shipowners eventually received their claimed damages — 550,000 livres — paid out by the VOC. Le Tellier’s grave is in Bantam; Gravé’s grave is in Atjeh.
Significance
For Atjeh’s history, Gravé is the most senior French casualty of the early modern French intrusion into the Atjeh pepper trade — a Vice-Admiral who never recovered his command, who reached Atjeh only to die there, and whose grave in the sultanate became a small piece of the French diplomatic case against the VOC. His death “from vexation” in Atjeh on 9 November 1621 closes the principal French narrative of the De Beaulieu expedition.
See Also
- Augustin de Beaulieu
- Augustin de Beaulieu’s Atjeh mission (1620-1621)
- Jan Pieterszoon Coen
- Tikoe
- 1621
- Acheh
Source
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), chapter LIV (“Augustin de Beaulieu en Robert Grave”), pp. 194–197 of the numbered-letter sequence.