[Illustration: The Cocos Islands]
THE GOLDEN BOOK
OF THE
DUTCH NAVIGATORS
BY
HENDRIK WILLEM van LOON
ILLUSTRATED WITH SEVENTY
REPRODUCTIONS OF OLD PRINTS
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1916
Copyright, 1916, by
THE CENTURY CO.
* * * * *
_Published, October, 1916_
FOR HANSJE AND WILLEM
This is a story of magnificent failures. The men who equipped the
expeditions of which I shall tell you the story died in the poorhouse.
The men who took part in these voyages sacrificed their lives as
cheerfully as they lighted a new pipe or opened a fresh bottle. Some
of them were drowned, and some of them died of thirst. A few were
frozen to death, and many were killed by the heat of the scorching sun.
The bad supplies furnished by lying contractors buried many of them
beneath the green cocoanut-trees of distant lands. Others were speared
by cannibals and provided a feast for the hungry tribes of the Pacific
Islands.
But what of it? It was all in the day's work. These excellent fellows
took whatever came, be it good or bad, or indifferent, with perfect
grace, and kept on smiling. They kept their powder dry, did whatever
their hands found to do, and left the rest to the care of that
mysterious Providence who probably knew more about the ultimate good of
things than they did.
I want you to know about these men because they were your ancestors.
If you have inherited any of their good qualities, make the best of
them; they will prove to be worth while. If you have got your share of
their bad ones, fight these as hard as you can; for they will lead you
a merry chase before you get through.
Whatever you do, remember one lesson: "Keep on smiling."
HENDRIK WILLEM van LOON.
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
February 29, 1916.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
The history of America is the story of the conquest of the West. The
history of Holland is the story of the conquest of the sea. The western
frontier influenced American life, shaped American thought, and gave
America the habits of self-reliance and independence of action which
differentiate the people of the great republic from those of other
countries.
The wide ocean, the wind-swept highroad of commerce, turned a small
mud-bank along the North Sea into a mighty commonwealth and created
a civilization of such individual character that it has managed to
maintain its personal traits against the aggressions of both time and
man.
When we discuss the events of American history we place our scene
upon a stage which has an immense background of wide prairie and high
mountain. In this vast and dim territory there is always room for
another man of force and energy, and society is a rudimentary bond
between free and sovereign human beings, unrestricted by any previous
tradition or ordinance. Hence we study the accounts of a peculiar race
which has grown up under conditions of complete independence and which
relies upon its own endeavors to accomplish those things which it has
set out to do.
The virtues of the system are as evident as its faults. We know that
this development is almost unique in the annals of the human race.
We know that it will disappear as soon as the West shall have been
entirely conquered. We also know that the habits of mind which have
been created during the age of the pioneer will survive the rapidly
changing physical conditions by many centuries. For this reason those
of us who write American history long after the disappearance of the
typical West must still pay due reverence to the influence of the old
primitive days when man was his own master and trusted no one but God
and his own strong arm.
The history of the Dutch people during the last five centuries shows
a very close analogy. The American who did not like his fate at home
went "west." The Hollander who decided that he would be happier
outside of the town limits of his native city went "to sea," as the
expression was. He always had a chance to ship as a cabin-boy, just as
his American successor could pull up stakes at a moment's notice to
try his luck in the next county. Neither of the two knew exactly what
they might find at the end of their voyage of adventure. Good luck, bad
luck, middling luck, it made no difference. It meant a change, and most
frequently it meant a change for the better. Best of all, even if one
had no desire to migrate, but, on the other hand, was quite contented
to stay at home and be buried in the family vault of his ancestral
estate, he knew at all times _that he was free to leave just as soon as
the spirit moved him_.
Remember this when you read Dutch history. It is an item of grave
importance. It was always in the mind of the mighty potentate who
happened to be the ruler and tax-gatherer of the country. He might
not be willing to acknowledge it, he might even deny it in vehement
documents of state, but in the end he was obliged to regulate his
conduct toward his subjects with due respect for and reference to their
wonderful chance of escape. The Middle Ages had a saying that "city
air makes free." In the Low Countries we find a wonderful combination
of city air and the salt breezes of the ocean. It created a veritable
atmosphere of liberty, and not only the liberty of political activity,
but freedom of thought and independence in all the thousand and one
different little things which go to make up the complicated machinery
of human civilization. Wherever a man went in the country there was
the high sky of the coastal region, and there were the canals which
would carry his small vessel to the main roads of trade and ultimate
prosperity. The sea reached up to his very front door. It supported him
in his struggle for a living, and it was his best ally in his fight for
independence. Half of his family and friends lived on and by and of
the sea. The nautical terms of the forecastle became the language of
his land. His house reminded the foreign visitor of a ship's cabin.
And finally his state became a large naval commonwealth, with a number
of ship-owners as a board of directors and a foreign policy dictated by
the need of the oversea commerce. We do not care to go into the details
of this interesting question. It is our purpose to draw attention to
this one great and important fact upon which the entire economic,
social, intellectual, and artistic structure of Dutch society was
based. For this purpose we have reprinted in a short and concise form
the work of our earliest pioneers of the ocean. They broke through the
narrow bonds of their restricted medieval world. In plain American
terms, "They were the first to cross the Alleghanies."
They ushered in the great period of conquest of West and East and South
and North. They built their empire wherever the water of the ocean
would carry them. They laid the foundations for a greatness which
centuries of subsequent neglect have not been able to destroy, and
which the present generation may triumphantly win back if it is worthy
to continue its existence as an independent nation.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I JAN HUYGEN VAN LINSCHOTEN 3
II THE NORTHEAST PASSAGE 43
III THE TRAGEDY OF SPITZBERGEN 87
IV THE FIRST VOYAGE TO INDIA--FAILURE 97
V THE SECOND VOYAGE TO INDIA--SUCCESS 135
VI VAN NOORT CIRCUMNAVIGATES THE WORLD 159
VII THE ATTACK UPON THE WEST COAST OF AMERICA 207
VIII THE BAD LUCK OF CAPTAIN BONTEKOE 249
IX SCHOUTEN AND LE MAIRE DISCOVER A NEW STRAIT 279
X TASMAN EXPLORES AUSTRALIA 303
XI ROGGEVEEN, THE LAST OF THE GREAT VOYAGERS 325
THE GOLDEN BOOK OF THE DUTCH NAVIGATORS
CHAPTER I
JAN HUYGEN VAN LINSCHOTEN
It was the year of our Lord 1579, and the eleventh of the glorious
revolution of Holland against Spain. Brielle had been taken by a
handful of hungry sea-beggars. Haarlem and Naarden had been murdered
out by a horde of infuriated Spanish regulars. Alkmaar--little
Alkmaar, hidden behind lakes, canals, open fields with low willows and
marshes--had been besieged, had turned the welcome waters of the Zuyder
Zee upon the enemy, and had driven the enemy away. Alva, the man of
iron who was to destroy this people of butter between his steel gloves,
had left the stage of his unsavory operations in disgrace. The butter
had dribbled away between his fingers. Another Spanish governor had
appeared. Another failure. Then a third one. Him the climate and the
brilliant days of his youth had killed.
But in the heart of Holland, William, of the House of Nassau, heir to
the rich princes of Orange, destined to be known as the Silent, the
Cunning One--this same William, broken in health, broken in money, but
high of courage, marshaled his forces and, with the despair of a last
chance, made ready to clear his adopted country of the hated foreign
domination.
Everywhere in the little terrestrial triangle of this newest of
republics there was the activity of men who had just escaped
destruction by the narrowest of margins. They had faith in their
own destiny. Any one who can go through an open rebellion against
the mightiest of monarchs and come out successfully deserves the
commendation of the Almighty. The Hollanders had succeeded. Their
harbors, the lungs of the country, were free once more, and could
breathe the fresh air of the open sea and of commercial prosperity.
On the land the Spaniard still held his own, but on the water the
Hollander was master of the situation. The ocean, which had made his
country what it was, which had built the marshes upon which he lived,
which provided the highway across which he brought home his riches, was
open to his enterprise.
He must go out in search of further adventure. Thus far he had been
the common carrier of Europe. His ships had brought the grain from the
rich Baltic provinces to the hungry waste of Spain. His fishermen had
supplied the fasting table of Catholic humanity with the delicacy of
pickled herring. From Venice and later on from Lisbon he had carried
the products of the Orient to the farthest corners of the Scandinavian
peninsula. It was time for him to expand.
The rôle of middleman is a good rôle for modest and humble folk who
make a decent living by taking a few pennies here and collecting a few
pennies there, but the chosen people of God must follow their destiny
upon the broad highway of international commerce wherever they can.
Therefore the Hollander must go to India.
It was easily said. But how was one to get there?
* * * * *
Jan Huygen van Linschoten was born in the year 1563 in the town of
Haarlem. As a small boy he was taken to Enkhuizen. At the present time
Enkhuizen is hardly more than a country village. Three hundred years
ago it was a big town with high walls, deep moats, strong towers, and
a local board of aldermen who knew how to make the people keep the
laws and fear God. It had several churches where the doctrines of the
great master Johannes Calvinus were taught with precision and without
omitting a single piece of brimstone or extinguishing a single flame of
an ever-gaping hell. It had orphan asylums and hospitals. It had a fine
jail, and a school with a horny-handed tyrant who taught the A B C's
and the principles of immediate obedience with due reference to that
delightful text about the spoiled child and the twigs of a birch-tree.
[Illustration]
Outside of the city, when once you had passed the gallows with its
rattling chains and aggressive ravens, there were miles and miles
of green pasture. But upon one side there was the blue water of the
quiet Zuyder Zee. Here small vessels could approach the welcome
harbor, lined on both sides with gabled storehouses. It is true that
when the tide was very low the harbor looked like a big muddy trough.
But these flat-bottomed contraptions rested upon the mud with ease
and comfort, and the next tide would again lift them up, ready for
farther peregrinations. Over the entire scene there hung the air of
prosperity. A restless energy was in the air. On all sides there
was evidence of the gospel of enterprise. It was this enterprise
that collected the money to build the ships. It was this enterprise,
combined with nautical cunning, that pushed these vessels to the ends
of the European continent in quest of freight and trade. It was this
enterprise that turned the accumulating riches into fine mansions and
good pictures, and gave a first-class education to all boys and girls.
It walked proudly along the broad streets where the best families
lived. It stalked cheerfully through the narrow alleys when the sailor
came back to his wife and children. It followed the merchant into his
counting-room, and it played with the little boys who frequented the
quays and grew up in a blissful atmosphere of tallow, tar, gin, spices,
dried fish, and fantastic tales of foreign adventure.
And it played the very mischief with our young hero. For when Jan
Huygen was sixteen years old, and had learned his three R's--reading,
'riting, and 'rithmetic--he shipped as a cabin-boy to Spain, and said
farewell to his native country, to return after many years as the
missing link in the chain of commercial explorations--the one and only
man who knew the road to India.
* * * * *
Here the industrious reader interrupts me. How could this boy go to
Spain when his country was at war with its master, King Philip? Indeed,
this statement needs an explanation.
Spain in the sixteenth century was a magnificent example of the failure
of imperial expansion minus a knowledge of elementary economics. Here
we had a country which owned the better part of the world. It was rich
beyond words and it derived its opulence from every quarter of the
globe. For centuries a steady stream of bullion flowed into Spanish
coffers. Alas! it flowed out of them just as rapidly; for Spain, with
all its foreign glory, was miserably poor at home. Her people had never
been taught to work. The soil did not provide food enough for the
population of the large peninsula. Every biscuit, so to speak, every
loaf of bread, had to be imported from abroad. Unfortunately, the grain
business was in the hands of these same Dutch Calvinists whose nasal
theology greatly offended his Majesty King Philip. Therefore during the
first years of the rebellion the harbors of the Spanish kingdom had
been closed against these unregenerate singers of Psalms. Whereupon
Spain went hungry, and was threatened with starvation.
Economic necessity conquered religious prejudice. The ports of King
Philip's domain once more were opened to the grain-ships of the
Hollanders and remained open until the end of the war. The Dutch trader
never bothered about the outward form of things provided he got his
profits. He knew how to take a hint. Therefore, when he came to a
Spanish port, he hoisted the Danish flag or sailed under the colors of
Hamburg and Bremen. There still was the difficulty of the language,
but the Spaniard was made to understand that this guttural combination
of sounds represented diverse Scandinavian tongues. The tactful
custom-officers of his Most Catholic Majesty let it go at that, and
cheerfully welcomed these heretics without whom they could not have fed
their own people.
When Jan Huygen left his own country he had no definite plans beyond
a career of adventure; for then, as he wrote many years later, "When
you come home, you have something to tell your children when you get
old." In 1579 he left Enkhuizen, and in the winter of the next year he
arrived in Spain. First of all he did some clerical work in the town
of Seville, where he learned the Spanish language. Next he went to
Lisbon, where he became familiar with Portuguese. He seems to have been
a likable boy who did cheerfully whatever he found to do, but watched
with a careful eye the chance to meet with his next adventure. After
three years of a roving existence, with rare good luck, he met Vincente
da Fonseca, a Dominican who had just been appointed Archbishop of Goa
in the Indies. Jan Huygen obtained a position as general literary
factotum to the new dignitary and also acted as purser for the captain
of the ship.
At the age of twenty he was an integral member of a bona-fide
expedition to the mysterious Indies. Through his account of this trip,
printed in 1595, the Dutch traders at last learned to know the route to
the Indies. The expedition left Lisbon on Good Friday of the year 1583
with forty ships. During the first few weeks nothing happened. Nothing
ever happened during the first weeks on any of those expeditions.
The trouble invariably began after the first rough weather. In this
instance everything went well until the end of April, when the coast
of Guinea had been reached. Then the fleet entered a region of squalls
and severe rainstorms. The rain collected on the decks and ran down the
hatchways. A dozen times or so a day the fleet had to come to a stop
while all hands bailed out the water which filled the holds. When it
did not rain the sun beat down mercilessly, and soon the atmosphere of
the soaked wood became unpleasant. To make things worse the drinking
water was no longer fresh, and smelled so badly that one could not
drink it without closing the unfortunate nose that came near the cup.
On the whole the printed work of Jan Huygen does not show him as
an admirer of the Portuguese or their system of navigation. In all
his writing he gives us the impression of a very sober-minded young
Hollander with a lot of common sense. Portugal had then been a colonial
power for many years and showed unmistakable signs of deterioration.
The people had been too prosperous. They were no longer willing to
defend their own interests against other and younger nations. They
still exercised their Indian monopoly because it had been theirs for
so long a time that no one remembered anything to the contrary. But
the end of things had come. Upon every page of Jan Huygen's book we
find the same evidence of bad organization, little jealousies, spite,
disobedience, cowardice, and lack of concerted action.
When only a few weeks from home this fleet of forty ships encountered
a single small French vessel. Part of the Portuguese crew of the fleet
was sick. The others made ready to flee at once. After a few hours it
was seen that the Frenchman had no evil intentions, and continued his
way without a closer inspection of his enemies. Then peace returned to
the fleet of Fonseca.
A few days later the ship reached the equator. The customary initiation
of the new sailors, followed by the usual festivities and a first-class
drunken row, took place. The captain was run down and trampled upon by
his men, tables and chairs were upset, and the crew fought one another
with knives. This quarrel might have ended in a general murder but
for the interference of the archbishop, who threw himself among the
crazy sailors, and with a threat of excommunication drove them back to
work. Half a dozen were locked up, others were whipped, and the ships
continued their voyage in this happy-go-lucky fashion. Then it appeared
that nobody knew exactly where they were. Observations finally showed
that the fleet was still fifty miles west of the Cape of Good Hope. As
a matter of fact, they had passed the cape several days before, but did
not discover their error until a week later. Then they sailed northward
until they reached Mozambique, where they spent two weeks in order
to give the crew a rest and to repair the damages of the equatorial
fight. On the twentieth of August they continued their voyage until
the serpents which they saw in the water showed them that they were
approaching the coast of India. From that time on luck was with the
expedition. The ships reached the coast near the town of destination.
After a remarkably short passage of only five months and thirteen days
the fleet landed safely in Goa.
Jan Huygen was very proud of the record of his ship. Only thirty people
had died on the voyage. It is true that all the people on board had
been under a doctor's care, and every one of the sailors and passengers
had been bled a few times; but thirty men buried during so long a
voyage was a mere trifle. In the sixteenth century, if fifty per cent.
of the men returned from an Indian voyage, the trip was considered
successful.
The next five years Jan Huygen spent in Goa with his ecclesiastical
master. He was intrusted with a great deal of confidential work, and
became thoroughly familiar with all the affairs of the colony. In Goa
he heard wonderful tales about the great Chinese Empire, many weeks to
the north. He began to collect maps for an expedition to that distant
land, but lack of funds made him put it off, and he never went far
beyond the confines of the small Portuguese settlement.
Unfortunately, at the end of five years the archbishop died, and Jan
Huygen was without a job. As he had had news that his father had died,
he now decided to go back to Enkhuizen to see what he could do for his
mother. Accordingly, in January of the year 1589, he sailed for home
on board the good ship _Santa Maria_. It was the same old story of bad
management: The ships of the return fleet were all loaded too heavily.
The handling of the cargo was left entirely to ship-brokers, and these
worthies had developed a noble system of graft. Merchandise was loaded
according to a regular tariff of bribes. If you were willing to pay
enough, your goods went neatly into the hold. If you did not give a
certain percentage to the brokers, your bags and bales were stowed
away somewhere on a corner of a wharf exposed to the rain and the sea.
Very likely, too, the first storm would wash your valuable possessions
overboard.
When the _Santa Maria_ left, her decks were stacked high with
disorderly masses of colonial products. The sailors on duty had to make
a path through this accumulated stuff, and the captain lacked the
authority to put his own ship in order. A few days out a cabin-boy fell
overboard. The sea was quiet, and it would have been possible to save
the child, but when the crew ran for a boat, it was found to be filled
with heavy boxes. By the time the boat was at last lowered the boy had
drowned.
The _Santa Maria_ sailed direct for the Cape. There it fell in with
another vessel called the _San Thome_, and it now became a matter of
pride which ship could round the cape first. Severe western winds made
the _Santa Maria_ wait several days. The _San Thome_, however, ventured
forth to brave the gale. When finally the storm had abated and the
_Santa Maria_ had reached the Atlantic Ocean, the bodies and pieces of
wreckage which floated upon the water told what had happened to the
other vessel. This, however, was only the beginning of trouble. On the
fifth of March the _Santa Maria_ was almost lost. Her rudder broke, and
it could not be repaired. A storm, accompanied by a tropical display of
thunder and lightning, broke loose. For more than forty-eight hours
the ship was at the mercy of the waves. The crew spent the time on deck
absorbed in prayer. When little electric flames began to appear upon
the masts and yards (the so-called St. Elmo's fire, a spooky phenomenon
to all sailors of all times), they felt sure that the end of the world
had come. The captain commanded all his men to pray the "Salvo corpo
Sancto," and this was done with great demonstrations of fervor. The
celestial fireworks, however, did not abate. On the contrary the crew
witnessed the appearance of a five-pointed crown, which showed itself
upon the mainmast, and was hailed with cries of the "crown of the Holy
Virgin." After this final electric display the storm went on its way.
In his sober fashion Jan Huygen had looked on. He did not take much
stock in this sudden piety, and called it "a lot of useless noise."
Then he watched the men repairing the rudder. It was discovered that
there was no anvil on board the ship, and a gun was used as an anvil.
A pair of bellows was improvised out of some old skins. With this
contrivance some sort of steering-gear was finally rigged up, and
the voyage was continued. After that, except for occasional and very
sudden squalls, when all the sails had to be lowered to save them
from being blown to pieces, the _Santa Maria_ was past her greatest
danger, though the heavy seas caused by a prolonged storm proved to be
another obstacle. No further progress was possible until the ship had
been lightened. For this purpose the large boat and all its valuable
contents were simply thrown overboard.
[Illustration]
The recital of Jan Huygen's trip is a long epic of bungling. The
captain did not know his job; the officers were incompetent; the men
were unruly and ready to mutiny at the slightest provocation; and
everybody blamed everybody else for everything that went wrong. The
captain, in the last instance, accused the good Lord, Who "would not
allow His own faithful people to pass the Cape of Good Hope with
their strong and mighty ships," while making the voyage an easy one
for "the blasphemous English heretics with their little insignificant
schooners." In this statement there was more wisdom than the captain
suspected. The English sailors knew their business and could afford
to take risks. The Portuguese sailors of that day hastened from one
coastline and from one island to the next, as they had done a century
before. As long as they were on the high seas they were unhappy.
They returned to life when they were in port. Every time the _Santa
Maria_ passed a few days in some harbor we get a recital of the joys
of that particular bit of paradise. If we are to believe Portuguese
tradition, St. Helena, where the ship passed a week of the month of May
of the year 1589, was placed in its exact geographical position by the
Almighty to serve His faithful children as a welcome resting-point upon
their perilous voyage to the far Indies. The island was full of goats,
wild pigs, chickens, partridges, and thousands of pigeons, all of which
creatures allowed themselves to be killed with the utmost ease, and
furnished food for generations of sailors who visited those shores.
Indeed, this island was so healthy a spot that it was used as a general
infirmary. After a few days on shore even the weakest of sufferers was
sufficiently strong to catch specimens of the wild fauna of the island.
Often, therefore, the sick sailors were left behind. With a little salt
and some oil and a few spices they could support themselves easily
until the next ship came along and picked them up. We know what ailed
most of these stricken sailors. They suffered from scurvy, due to a
bad diet; but it took several centuries before the cause of scurvy was
discovered. When Jan Huygen went to the Indies the crew of every ship
was invariably attacked by this most painful disease. Therefore the
islands were of great importance.
Nowadays St. Helena is no longer a paradise. Three centuries ago it
was the one blessed point of relief for the Indian traders. The diary
of Jan Huygen tells of attempts made to colonize the island. The King
of Portugal, however, had forbidden any settlement upon this solitary
rock. For a while it had harbored a number of runaway slaves. Whenever
a ship came near they had fled to the mountains. Finally, however, they
had been caught and taken back to Portugal and sold. For a long time
the island had been inhabited by a pious hermit. He had built a small
chapel, and there the visiting sailors were allowed to worship. In his
spare time, however, the holy man had hunted goats, and he had entered
into an export business of goat-skins. Every year between five and six
hundred skins were sold. Then this ingenious scheme was discovered, and
the saintly hunter was sent home.
On the twenty-first of May the _Santa Maria_ continued her northward
course. Again bad food and bad water caused illness among the men. A
score of them died. Often they hid themselves somewhere in the hold,
and had been dead for several days before they made their presence
noticeable. It was miserable business; and now, with a ship of sick
and disabled men, the _Santa Maria_ was doomed to fall in with three
small British vessels. At once there was a panic among the Portuguese
sailors. The British hoisted their pennant, and opened with a salvo
of guns. The Portuguese fled below decks, and the English, in sport,
shot the sails to pieces. The crew of the _Santa Maria_ tried to load
their heavy cannon, but there was such a mass of howling and swearing
humanity around the guns that it took hours before anything could
be done. The ships were then very near one another, and the British
sailors could be heard jeering at the cowardice of their prey. But just
when Jan Huygen thought the end had come the British squadron veered
around and disappeared. The _Santa Maria_ then reached Terceira in the
Azores without further molestation.
Like all other truthful chroniclers of his day, Jan Huygen speculates
about the mysterious island of St. Brandon. This blessed isle was
supposed to be situated somewhere between the Azores and the Canary
Islands, but nearer to the Canaries. As late as 1721 expeditions were
fitted out to search for the famous spot upon which the Irish abbot of
the sixth century had located the promised land of the saints. Together
with the recital of another mysterious bit of land consisting of the
back of a gigantic fish, this story had been duly chronicled by a
succession of Irish monks, and when Jan Huygen visited these regions he
was told of these strange islands far out in the ocean where the first
travelers had discovered a large and prosperous colony of Christians
who spoke an unknown language and whose city could disappear beneath
the surface of the ocean if an enemy approached.
Once in the roads of Terceira, however, there was little time for
theological investigations. Rumor had it that a large number of British
ships were in the immediate neighborhood. Strict orders had come from
Lisbon that all Portuguese and Spanish ships must stay in port under
protection of the guns of the fortifications. Just a year before that
the Armada had started out for the conquest of England and the Low
Countries. The Invincible Armada had been destroyed by the Lord, the
British, and the Dutch. Now the tables had been turned, and the Dutch
and British vessels were attacking the Spanish and Portuguese colonies.
The story of inefficient navigation is here supplemented by a recital
of bad military management. The roads of Terceira were very dangerous.
In ordinary times no ships were allowed to anchor there. A very large
number of vessels were now huddled together in too small a space.
These vessels were poorly manned, for the Portuguese sailors, whenever
they arrived in port, went ashore and left the care of their ship to a
few cabin-boys and black slaves. The unexpected happened; during the
night of the fourth of August a violent storm swept over the roads.
The ships were thrown together with such violence that a large number
were sunk. In the town the bells were rung, and the sailors ran to the
shore. They could do nothing but look on and see how their valuable
ships were driven together and broken to splinters, while pieces of the
cargo were washed all over the shore, to be stolen by the inhabitants
of the greedy little town. When morning came, the shore was littered
with silk, golden coin, china, and bales of spices. Fortunately the
wind changed later in the morning, and a good deal of the cargo was
salved. But once on shore it was immediately confiscated by officials
from the custom-house, who claimed it for the benefit of the royal
treasury. Then there followed a first-class row between the officials
and the owners of the goods, who cursed their own Government quite as
cheerfully as they had done their enemies a few days before.
To make a long story short, after a lawsuit of two years and a half the
crown at last returned fifty per cent. of the goods to the merchants.
The other half was retained for customs duty. Jan Huygen, who was
an honest man, was asked to remain on the island and look after the
interests of the owners while they themselves went to Lisbon to plead
their cause before the courts. He now had occasion to study Portuguese
management in one of the oldest of their colonies. The principles
of hard common sense which were to distinguish Dutch and British
methods of colonizing were entirely absent. Their place was taken by
a complicated system of theological explanations. The disaster that
befell these islands was invariably due to divine Providence. The
local authorities were always up against an "act of God." While Jan
Huygen was in Terceira the colony was at the mercy of the British. The
privateers waited for all the ships that returned from South America
and the Indies, and intercepted these rich cargoes in sight of the
Portuguese fortifications. When the Englishmen needed fresh meat they
stole goats from the little islands situated in the roads. Finally,
after almost an entire year, a Spanish-Portuguese fleet of more than
thirty large ships was sent out to protect the traders. In a fight with
the squadron of Admiral Howard the ship of his vice-admiral, Grenville,
was sunk. The vice-admiral himself, mortally wounded, was made a
prisoner and brought on board a Spanish man-of-war. There he died. His
body was thrown overboard without further ceremonies.
At once, so the story ran, a violent storm had broken loose. This storm
lasted a week. It came suddenly, and when the wind fell only thirty
ships were left out of a total of one hundred and forty that had been
in the harbors of the islands. The damage was so great that the loss
of the Armada itself seemed insignificant. Of course it was all the
fault of the good Lord. He had deserted His own people and had gone
over to the side of the heretics. He had sent this hurricane to punish
the unceremonious way in which dead Grenville had been thrown into the
ocean. And of course this unbelieving Britisher himself had at once
descended into Hades, had called upon all the servants of the black
demon to help him, and had urged this revenge. Evidently the thing
worked both ways.
This clever argument did not in the least help the unfortunate owners
of the shipwrecked merchandise. One fine day they were informed that
they could no longer expect royal protection for the future. Jan Huygen
was told to come to Lisbon as best he could. He finally found a ship,
and after an absence of nine years returned to Lisbon. On his trip to
Holland he was almost killed in a collision. Finally, within sight of
his native land, he was nearly wrecked on the banks of one of the North
Sea islands. On the third of September of the year 1592, however,
after an absence of thirteen years, he returned safely to Enkhuizen.
His mother, brother, and sisters were there to welcome him.
He did not at once rush into print. It was not necessary. The news of
his return spread quickly to the offices of the Amsterdam merchants.
They had been very active during the last dozen years and they had
conducted an efficient secret organization in Portugal, trying to buy
up maps and books of navigation and, perhaps, even a pilot or two. They
knew a few things, and guessed at many others. A man who had actually
been there, who knew concrete facts where other people suspected, such
a man was worth while. Jan Huygen became consulting pilot to Dutch
capital.
The Dutch merchants still found themselves in a very difficult
position. They had to enter this field of activity when their
predecessors had been at work for almost two centuries. These
predecessors, judging by outward evidences, were fast losing both
ability and energy. But prestige before an old and well-established
name is a strong influence in the calculations of men. Those who
directed the new Dutch Republic did not lack courage. All the same,
they shrank from open and direct competition with the mighty Spanish
Empire. Besides, there were other considerations of a more practical
nature.
The Middle Ages, both late and early, dearly loved monopoly. Indeed,
the entire period between the days of the old Roman Empire and the
latter part of the eighteenth century, when the French Revolution
destroyed the old system, was a time of monopolies or of quarrels
about, and for, monopolies. The Dutch traders wondered whether they
could not obtain a little private route to India, something that
should be Dutch all along the line, and could be closed at will to all
outsiders. What about the Northeastern Passage? There seem to have been
vague rumors about a water route along the north of Siberia. That part
of the map was but little known. The knowledge of Russia had improved
since the days when Moscow was situated upon the exact spot where the
ocean between Iceland and Norway is deepest. The White Sea was fairly
well known, and Dutch traders had found their way to the Russian port
of Archangel. What lay beyond the White Sea was a matter of conjecture.
Whether the Caspian Sea, like the White Sea, was part of the Arctic Sea
or part of the Indian Ocean no one knew. But it appeared that farther
to the north, several days beyond the North Cape, there was a narrow
strait between an island which the Russians called the New Island (Nova
Zembla) and the continent of Asia. This might prove to be a shorter and
less dangerous route to China and the Indies. Furthermore, by building
fortifications on both sides of the narrows between the island and the
Siberian coast, the Hollanders would be the sole owners of the most
exclusive route to India. They could then leave the long and tedious
trip around the Cape of Good Hope, with its perils of storms, scurvy,
royal and inquisitorial dungeons, savage negroes, and several other
unpleasant incidents, to their esteemed enemies.
[Illustration: VOYAGES OF LINSCHOTEN]
The men who were most interested in this northern enterprise were
two merchants who lived in Middleburg, the capital of the province of
Zeeland. The better known of the two was Balthasar de Moucheron, an
exile from Antwerp. When the Spanish Government reconquered this rich
town it had banished all those merchants who refused to give up their
Lutheran or Calvinistic convictions. Their wealth was confiscated by
the state. They themselves were forced to make a new start in foreign
lands. The foolishness of this decree never seems to have dawned upon
the Spanish authorities. They felt happy that they had ruined and
exiled a number of heretics. What they did not understand was that
these heretics did not owe their success to their wealth, but to the
sheer ability of their minds, and before long these penniless pilgrims
had laid the foundations for new fortunes. Then they strove with all
their might to be revenged upon the Government which had ruined them.
De Moucheron, one of this large group which had been expelled, had
begun life anew in the free Republic and was soon among the greatest
promoters of his day. Of tireless energy and of a very bitter ambition,
none too kindly to the leading business men of his adopted country, he
got hold of Jan Huygen and decided to try his luck in a great gamble.
He interested several of the minor capitalists of Enkhuizen, and on the
fifth of June of the year 1594 Jan Huygen went upon his first polar
exploration with two ships, the _Mercurius_ and the _Lwaan_. Without
adventure the ships passed the North Cape, sailed along the coast of
the Kola peninsula, where Willoughby had wintered just forty years
before, and reached the Straits of Waigat, the prospective Gibraltar of
Dutch aspirations. The conditions of the ice were favorable.
On the first of August of the year 1594 the two ships entered the Kara
Sea, which they called the New North Sea. Then following the coast,
they entered Kara Bay. After a few days Jan Huygen discovered the
small Kara River, the present frontier between Russia and Siberia. He
mistook it for the Obi River, and thought that he had gone sufficiently
eastward to be certain of the practicability of the new route which
he had set out to discover. The ice had all melted. As far as he
could see there was open water. He cruised about in this region for
several weeks, discovered a number of little islands, and sprinkled
the names of all his friends and his employers upon capes and rivers
and mountains. Finally, contented with what had been accomplished, he
returned home. On the sixteenth of September of the same year he came
back to the roads of Texel.
After that he was regarded as the leader in all matters of navigation.
The stadholder, Prince Maurice, who had succeeded his father William
after the latter had been murdered by one of King Philip's gunmen,
sent for Jan Huygen to come to The Hague and report in person upon
his discoveries. John of Barneveldt, the clever manager of all the
financial and political interests of the republic, discussed with him
the possibility of a successful northeastern trading company. Before
another year was over Jan Huygen, this time at the head of a fleet
of seven ships, was sent northward for a second voyage. Everybody,
from his Highness the stadholder down to the speculator who had risked
his last pennies, had the greatest expectations. Nothing came of this
expedition. As a matter of fact, Jan Huygen had met with exceptionally
favorable weather conditions upon his first voyage; on the second he
came in for the customary storms and blizzards. His ships were frozen
in the ice, and for weeks they could not move. Scurvy attacked the crew
and many men died.
In October of the same year he was back in Holland. The only result
of the costly expedition was a dead whale that the captain had towed
home as an exhibit of his good intentions. He was still a young man,
not more than forty-five, but he had had his share of adventures. He
did not join the third trip to the North in the next year, about which
we shall give a detailed account in our next chapter. He was appointed
treasurer of his native city. There he lived as its most respected
citizen until the year 1611, when he died and was buried with great
solemnity. His work had been done.
In the year 1595 the "Itinerary of His Voyage to the East Indies"
had been published. By this book he will always be remembered. For a
century it provided a practical handbook of navigation which guided the
Dutch traders to the Indies, allowed them to attack the Spaniards and
Portuguese in their most vulnerable spot, and gave them the opportunity
to found a colonial empire which has lasted to this very day.