Part 13

On the 21st a great galleon approached the island so close that the ships in the harbour could be counted from her deck, but put about the moment the Dutch flag was distinguished. Verhoeff sent the ships _Arend_, _Griffioen_, and _Valk_ in pursuit, and she was soon overtaken. According to the Dutch account she made hardly any resistance, but in a letter to the king from her captain, Francisco de Sodre Pereira, which is still preserved, he claims to have made a gallant stand for the honour of his flag. The galleon was poorly armed, but he says that he fought till his ammunition was all expended, and even then would not consent to surrender, though the ship was so riddled with cannon balls that she was in danger of going down. He preferred, he said to those around him, to sink with his colours flying. The purser, however, lowered the ensign without orders, and a moment afterwards the Dutch, who had closed in, took possession. The prize proved to be the _Bom Jesus_, from Lisbon, which had got separated from a fleet on the way to Goa, under command of the newly appointed viceroy, the count De Feira. She had a crew of one hundred and eighty men. The officers were detained as prisoners, the others were put ashore on the island Saint George with provisions sufficient to last them two days.

On the 23rd of August the fleet sailed from Mozambique for India. There can be little question that this defeat of the Dutch was more advantageous to them than victory would have been, for if their design had succeeded a very heavy tax upon their resources and their energy would have been entailed thereafter. After this siege Fort São Sebastião was provided with a garrison of one hundred and fifty men, and some small armed vessels were kept on the coast to endeavour to prevent the Dutch from communicating with the inhabitants or obtaining provisions and water, but their ships kept the Portuguese stations in constant alarm.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

On his arrival in India Verhoeff entered into a treaty of alliance with the ruler of Calicut against the Portuguese, in which he secured commercial privileges. In May 1609 he and twenty-nine of his principal officers, when holding a conference with some Bandanese, were murdered on the island of Neira, and all the Dutch at Lonthor shared the same fate. This led immediately to the conquest of Neira, and the erection of the strong fort Nassau in a commanding position on the island. On the 10th of August 1609 a treaty of peace was concluded with the Bandanese government, in which the sovereignty of Neira was ceded to the Dutch, and a monopoly of the spice trade in all the islands dependent on Banda was secured. In June 1609 a treaty was concluded with the ruler of Ternate, by which that island and all its dependencies came under the protection of the Dutch, and a monopoly of the spice trade was secured. In September 1609 a factory was established at Firato in Japan, where the Dutch obtained from the emperor liberty to trade. On the 25th of November 1609 the Portuguese fort on Batjan, one of the Molucca islands, was taken, and became thereafter Fort Barneveld.

V.

THE TRUCE WITH SPAIN AND ENGLISH RIVALRY.

[Sidenote: Conquest and Trade in the East.]

By this time the Dutch had factories or trading stations at Masulipatam, Pulikat, and two smaller places on the eastern coast of Hindostan, they had liberty to trade at Calicut, they had entered into a new treaty with the maharaja of Kandy in Ceylon, they had factories at Bantam and Grésik in Java, and in November 1610 they entered into a treaty with the ruler of Jakatra in the same island, in which they secured the site of the future city of Batavia, they held the protectorate of Ternate, although the Portuguese still had a fort there, Neira was theirs with a monopoly of the spice trade of all the Banda islands, Batjan was theirs also, as was Amboina, they had factories at Patani on the eastern coast of the Malay peninsula, established in 1604, and at Johor at its southern extremity, also at Achin in Sumatra, at Landok in Borneo, on the island of Celebes, and in the empire of Japan. The foundation of the vast realm which they subsequently acquired in the eastern seas was thus established on the ruins of the gigantic dominions of Portugal, though much fighting was still to be done before it should be fully built up.

A great defect appeared to be the want of some local authority to control the conquests and supervise the trade. To meet this want the assembly of seventeen resolved to establish a strong government in the East, though the seat of authority was not fixed upon. On the 21st of November 1609 Pieter Both was appointed first governor-general of Netherlands India, and councillors, consisting of the principal officials, were named to assist him. He left Texel on the 30th of January 1610 with a fleet of eight ships. In a great storm off the Cape his ship got separated from the others, so he put into Table Bay to repair some damages to the mainmast and to refresh his men. In July 1610 Captain Nicholas Downton called at the same port in an English vessel, and found Governor-General Both’s ship lying at anchor and also two homeward bound Dutch ships taking in train oil that had been collected at Robben Island. The governor-general arrived at Bantam on the 19th of December 1610, and in the factory at that place, in a town belonging to an independent though friendly sovereign, an authority, soon to eclipse that of any Indian prince, was first established.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

The great successes of the Dutch in the eastern seas caused the Spaniards to desire peace, and they were prepared to acknowledge the independence of the United Provinces if two conditions only could be obtained: the right of Roman Catholics to worship in public and the prohibition of the Indian trade. The archduke Albert made the first advance by sending two secret agents to the Hague at the close of 1606. The Dutch people were divided in opinion: one party, under the leadership of the prominent statesman Johan van Olden-Barneveld, favoured peace on reasonable terms, the other, under Maurits of Nassau, desired to continue the war until Spain should be thoroughly humiliated. The peace party was in the majority, and as the other European governments were urgent that hostilities should be brought to an end, in April 1607 an armistice was agreed to for eight months from the 4th of May, in order that negotiations might be entered into.

Just at this time an event occurred which greatly promoted the desire of the Spaniards for peace. A fleet of twenty-six small ships of war and four tenders, under Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk, had recently been sent by the states-general to cruise in the Atlantic. Heemskerk came to learn that a Spanish war fleet of ten great galleons and eleven smaller vessels, under command of Don Juan Alvarez d’Avila, was lying at anchor in Gibraltar Bay under the guns of the fortress. Notwithstanding the tremendous disparity of force, he determined to attack the enemy, and on the 25th of April 1607 he stood into the bay and boldly grappled with the monster galleons. It was like a fight between giants and pygmies, but so daring were the Dutch sailors that every galleon was destroyed. Before nightfall nothing of the Spanish fleet but burning fragments could be seen floating in the bay or stranded on the shore. It was one of the most brilliant naval victories ever recorded, and it was won against such odds that it seemed to be due to God alone. Heemskerk fell in the battle, killed by a cannon ball, leaving a deathless name of glory behind him. The Spanish admiral also was killed in the engagement. Unfortunately the victory was tarnished by a ferocious massacre of all the Spaniards that could be laid hold of, for which barbarous act Pieter Willemszoon Verhoeff, captain of the admiral’s ship, was chiefly responsible.

[Sidenote: Conclusion of a Long Truce.]

The Dutch now rejected the two Spanish conditions with disdain, and had it not been for the intervention of the agents of other governments, the negotiations would have been broken off. As it was, they were continued, but such difficulties were experienced in coming to terms that it was necessary to prolong the armistice from time to time, and it was not until the 9th of April 1609 that matters were finally arranged and a treaty was signed at Antwerp. Even then it was not a final peace that was concluded, but only a truce for twelve years, during which time each party was to retain whatever territory it possessed on that day, and could carry on commerce freely with the other.

The republic of the United Netherlands thereafter consisted of the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Friesland, Groningen, Overyssel with Drenthe except the town of Oldenzaal, which was held by the archduke, and about three quarters of ancient Gelderland, which retained that name. In this, however, the town of Groenlo or Grol was held by the archduke. South of the Schelde the republic was in possession of Sluis and Axel, with the forts along the river in Flanders, which with Flushing gave it control of the navigation of the stream and enabled it to stifle Antwerp. South of the Maas it possessed in Brabant all the territory belonging to the marquisate of Bergen op Zoom, the barony of Breda, and the land of Grave with Kuik. This territory in Flanders and Brabant was governed directly by the states-general, being of course detached from the provinces to which it properly belonged. The seven provinces were in one sense seven sovereign states, as they voted separately in the states-general, and no one of them was bound by any act to which it did not individually consent. It was the weakest form of a federal government, being rather a loose alliance than a firm union. That was its great defect, which, however, was not remedied until nearly two centuries more had passed away.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

The provinces that remained under the government of Albert and Isabella covered much more ground than the present kingdom of Belgium.[36] France always coveted them, and never lost an opportunity to gnaw portions of them away. By the treaty of the Pyrenees on the 7th of November 1659 Louis XIV obtained a strip of territory containing Thionville, Montmedi, Damvilliers, Ivoix, and Marville. By the treaty of Aix la Chapelle on the 2nd of May 1668 he obtained Lille, Douai, Courtrai, and Charleroi. On the 17th of March 1677 Valenciennes was taken by the French, and on the 5th of April 1677 Cambrai fell into their hands. By the treaty of Nymegen on the 17th of September 1678 France was recognised as the owner of a slice of Belgian territory containing these cities, and by the treaty of Ratisbon on the 15th of August 1684 she acquired part of Luxemburg.

[Sidenote: Partition of Belgian Territory.]

Thus before the close of the seventeenth century Belgium had lost to France two entire provinces--Artois and Lille with Douai and Orchies--and part of Flanders containing Dunkirk, Gravelines, and Menior, part of Hainaut, containing Valenciennes, Bavay, Maubeuge, Conde, Marienbourg, and Philippeville, part of Namur containing Charlemont, part of Luxemburg containing Thionville and Montmedi, and the city and bishopric of Cambrai, which then ranked as a duchy. The present boundary between France and Belgium was not fixed until 1814.

By the treaty of Utrecht the portion of Gelderland that remained subject to Albert and Isabella in 1609, excepting the town of Venlo, which passed to the republic, and the town and district of Roermonde, which went to Austria, was ceded to Prussia and became the circle of Düsseldorf. Roermonde was added to the kingdom of the Netherlands in 1831. Luxemburg was divided into two portions by the treaty of London in 1839, one of which is now part of the German empire, and the other remains a province of Belgium. By the same treaty Limburg was divided into two sections, one of which remained to Belgium, the other became part of the kingdom of the Netherlands.

By the treaty of Munster on the 30th of January 1648, in which the king of Spain recognised the independence of the United Netherlands, the present province of North Brabant went to the republic,[37] as did also the city and jurisdiction of Maastricht and a small portion of Flanders. A map of Belgium as it is to-day is thus very different from one in 1610, but it contains the province of Liege, which did not then belong to it.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

The trade of the Dutch with India now increased rapidly, but South Africa was hardly affected by it, except through the visits of passing ships and occasionally the residence of parties of Europeans for a short time on its shores.

In May 1611 the Dutch skipper Isaac le Maire, after whom the straits of Le Maire are named, called at Table Bay. When he sailed, he left behind his son Jacob and a party of seamen, who resided in Table Valley for several months. Their object was to kill seals on Robben Island, and to harpoon whales, which were then very abundant in South African waters in the winter season. They also tried to open up a trade for skins of animals with the Hottentots in the neighbourhood, but in this met with no success, as those barbarians needed all the peltry they could obtain for their own use.

In 1616 the assembly of seventeen resolved that its outward bound fleets should always put into Table Bay to refresh the crews, and from that time onward Dutch ships touched there almost every season. A kind of post office was established by marking the dates of arrivals and departures on stones, and burying letters in places indicated. But no attempt was made to explore the country, and no port south of the Zambesi except Table Bay was frequented by Netherlanders, so that down to the middle of the century nothing more concerning it was known than the Portuguese had placed on record.

The Dutch had now to fear the competition of the English in the East much more than that of the Portuguese. Our countrymen were equally enterprising and courageous, and however friendly the two nations might be in Europe, in distant lands they were animated by a spirit of rivalry which on some occasions went so far as to cause them to act unscrupulously towards each other. It will not be necessary to relate here the proceedings of the English in the eastern seas, but some references to their visits to Table Bay in those early times must be made.

[Sidenote: English Visitors to South Africa.]

They too had established an East India Company, whose first fleet, consisting of the _Dragon_, of six hundred tons, the _Hector_, of three hundred tons, the _Ascension_, of two hundred and sixty tons, and the _Susan_, of two hundred and forty tons burden, sailed from Torbay on the 22nd of April 1601. The admiral was James Lancaster, the same who had commanded the _Edward Bonaventure_ ten years earlier. The chief pilot was John Davis, who had only returned from the Indies nine months before. On the 9th of September the fleet came to anchor in Table Bay, by which time the crews of all except the admiral’s ship were so terribly afflicted with scurvy that they were unable to drop their anchors. The admiral had kept his men in a tolerable state of health by supplying them with a small quantity of limejuice daily. After his ship was anchored he was obliged to get out his boats and go to the assistance of the others. Sails were then taken on shore to serve as tents, and the sick were landed as soon as possible. Trade was commenced with the Hottentots and in the course of a few days forty-two oxen and a thousand sheep were obtained for pieces of iron hoop. The fleet remained in Table Bay nearly seven weeks, during which time most of the sick men recovered.

On the 5th of December 1604 the _Tiger_--a ship of two hundred and forty tons--and a pinnace called the _Tiger’s Whelp_ set sail from Cowes for the Indies. The expedition was under command of Sir Edward Michelburne, and next to him in rank was Captain John Davis. It was the last voyage that this famous seaman was destined to make, for he was killed in an encounter with Japanese pirates on the 27th of December 1605. The journal of the voyage contains the following paragraph:--

“The 3rd of April 1605 we sailed by a little island which Captain John Davis took to be one that stands some five or six leagues from Saldanha. Whereupon our general, Sir Edward Michelburne, desirous to see the island, took his skiff, accompanied by no more than the master’s mate, the purser, myself, and four men that did row the boat, and so putting off from the ship we came on land. While we were on shore they in the ship had a storm, which drove them out of sight of the island; and we were two days and two nights before we could recover our ship. Upon the said island is abundance of great conies and seals, whereupon we called it Cony Island.”

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

On the 9th of April they anchored in Table Bay, where they remained until the 3rd of the following month refreshing themselves.

On the 14th of March 1608 the East India Company’s ships _Ascension_ and _Union_ sailed from England, and on the 14th of July put into Table Bay to obtain refreshments and to build a small vessel for which they had brought out the materials ready prepared. The crews constructed a fort to protect themselves, by raising an earthen wall in the form of a square and mounting a cannon on each angle. They found a few Hottentots on the shore, to whom they made known by signs their want of oxen and sheep, which three days afterwards were brought for barter in such numbers that they procured as much meat as they needed. They gave a yard (91·4 centimetres) of iron hoop for an ox, and half that length for a sheep. After bartering them, the Hottentots whistled some away and then brought them for sale again, which was not resented, as the English officers were desirous of remaining on friendly terms with the rude people. For the same reason no notice was taken of the theft of various articles of trifling value.

Boats were sent to Robben Island to capture seals, as oil was needed, and many of these animals were killed and brought to the fort. After cutting off the oily parts the carcases were carried to a distance as useless, but for fifteen days the Hottentots feasted upon the flesh, which they merely heated on embers, though before the expiration of that time it had become so putrid and the odour so offensive that the Europeans were obliged to keep at a great distance from it.

[Sidenote: English Visitors to South Africa.]

Great quantities of steenbras were obtained with a seine at the mouth of Salt River, and three thousand five hundred mullets were caught and taken on board for consumption after leaving. The object of refreshing was thus fully carried out, as was also that of putting together the little vessel, which was even made larger than the original design, and which when launched was named the _Good Hope_.

Mr. John Jourdain, an official of the East India Company, who was a passenger in the _Ascension_, and from whose journal this account is taken, with some others ascended Table Mountain. From its summit they saw the same sheet of water on the flats which Antonio de Saldanha a hundred and five years before had mistaken for the mouth of a great river, and which Mr. Jourdain now mistook for an inland harbour with an opening to the sea by which ships might enter it. He, however, unlike his Portuguese predecessor, had an opportunity afterwards of visiting the big pond and ascertaining that his conjecture was incorrect.

Mr. Jourdain was of opinion that a settlement of great utility might be formed in Table Valley. In words almost identical with those of Jansen and Proot forty years later he spoke of its capabilities for producing grain and fruit, of the hides, sealskins, and oil that could be obtained to reduce the expense, of the possibility of opening up a trade in ivory, as he had seen many footprints of elephants, and of bringing the Hottentots first to “civility,” and then to a knowledge of God.

After a stay of little more than two months, on the 19th of September the _Ascension_ and _Union_ sailed again, with the _Good Hope_ in their company.

From this date onward the fleets of the English East India Company made Table Bay a port of call and refreshment, and usually procured in barter from the Hottentots as many cattle as they needed. In 1614 the board of directors sent a ship with as many spare men as she could carry, a quantity of provisions, and some naval stores to Table Bay to wait for the homeward bound fleet, and, while delayed, to carry on a whale and seal fishery as a means of partly meeting the expense. The plan was found to answer fairly well, and it was continued for several years. The relieving vessels left England between October and February, in order to be at the Cape in May, when the homeward bound fleets usually arrived from India. If men were much needed, the victualler--which was commonly an old vessel--was then abandoned, otherwise an ordinary crew was left in her to capture whales, or she proceeded to some port in the East, according to circumstances.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

The advantage of a place of refreshment in South Africa was obvious, and as early as 1613 enterprising individuals in the service of the East India Company drew the attention of the directors to the advisability of forming a settlement in Table Valley. Still earlier it was rumoured that the king of Spain and Portugal had such a design in contemplation, with the object of cutting off thereby the intercourse of all other nations with the Indian seas, so that the strategical value of the Cape was already recognised. The directors discussed the matter on several occasions, but their views in those days were very limited, and the scheme seemed too large for them to attempt alone.

In their fleets were officers of a much more enterprising spirit, as they were without responsibility in regard to the cost of any new undertaking. In 1620 some of these proclaimed King James I sovereign of the territory extending from Table Bay to the dominions of the nearest Christian prince. The records of this event are interesting, as they not only give the particulars of the proclamation and the reasons that led to it, but show that there must often have been a good deal of bustle in Table Valley in those days.

[Sidenote: English Visitors to South Africa.]

On the 24th of June 1620 four ships bound to Surat under command of Andrew Shillinge, put into Table Bay, and were joined when entering by two others bound to Bantam, under command of Humphrey Fitzherbert. The Dutch had at this time the greater part of the commerce of the East in their hands, and nine large ships under their flag were found at anchor. The English vessel _Lion_ was also there. Commodore Fitzherbert made the acquaintance of some of the Dutch officers, and was informed by them that they had inspected the country around, as their Company intended to form a settlement in Table Valley the following year. Thereupon he consulted with Commodore Shillinge, who agreed with him that it was advisable to try to frustrate the project of the Hollanders. On the 25th the Dutch fleet sailed for Bantam, and the _Lion_ left at the same time, but the _Schiedam_, from Delft, arrived and cast anchor.