Читать книгу Abel Janszoon Tasman: His Life and Voyages - James Backhouse Walker - Страница 6

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It was in the midst of the Eighty Years. War, in the year after the foundation of the Company in whose service he was to win his fame, and in the same year that Sir Walter Raleigh presented to King James his memorial on the trade of the Hollanders, that Abel Janszoon Tasman stepped onto this world's stage. He was born in the little inland village of Luytjegast, in the province of Groningen, in the year 1603. Groningen is the most north-easterly province of Holland, and formed part of the ancient Friesland. It is flat, even for proverbially flat Holland. The highest hill, the Doeseberg, rises to a height of only 35 feet above the level of the ocean, and some of the country lies even below the sea level. It is protected from the furious inroads of the North Sea by magnificent dykes of timber and stone. Behind these massive ramparts stretch wide and fertile fields and meadows, rich in agricultural and dairy produce. The cultivators, who hold their lands under a species of tenant right, are at present the richest and most prosperous peasant farmers in the whole of Europe. In Roman times the Frisians occupied the country from the Elbe to the Rhine, including the extensive tract now covered by the Zuyder Zee, over which the sea burst so late as the thirteenth century. They were sea rovers as well as cattle herdsmen, and were distinguished for their fierce independence and indomitable love of liberty. They were one of the tribes that took part in the conquest of Britain. At this day the Frisian language, spoken by a handful of people is the most nearly related of all Low German dialects to the English, and the men are nearest to the English in blood. The Frieslanders are of a different race from the inhabitants of Holland proper. The typical Dutchman is squat and short-legged; the Frieslander, tall, yellow-haired, blue-eyed, and of powerful build. We may fairly believe that Tasman belonged to this tall, bold, and impetuous race, who supplied no small proportion of the hardy fishermen and sailors whose daring made Holland a great sea power.

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We have no information as to the Tasman family, but it is to be presumed that its social status was a humble one. How Abel came by the surname which is now world-renowned is a matter of dispute. In the Luytjegast district family names were unknown until the beginning of this century. The son added to his own christian name the christian name of his father; thus, Abel, the son of John, became Abel Janszoon, and by this name simply Tasman is often designated in the old records. A nickname was often acquired, derived from some personal peculiarity, from a trade, a sign, or a ship. It has been conjectured that either Abel Jansz or his father took the name Tasman or Taschman from a boat or vessel named the Tasch (bag or net), belonging to the family.[*1]

Of young Abel's early life in the flat polders or meadows of Luytjegast there is no record. The boy would see little or nothing of the horrors of the war which for forty years had been desolating a great part of the Low Countries. The most desperate part of the struggle was over with the death of Alexander of Parma. The gloomy bigot and tyrant, Philip the Second, was dead. Flanders had fallen, and had become an obedient and desolate Spanish province, under the rule of the Archduke Albert and his wife Isabella of Spain; but the United Provinces, under Prince Maurice of Nassau, son of William the Silent, were not only holding their own against the Spaniards, but were daily growing in prosperity and power. When young Abel was six years old they had succeeded in wringing from their exhausted enemy a twelve years' truce, with the acknowledgment of the Republic, and of its right to carry on the India trade. The boy's imagination must have been often stirred by tales of the daring deeds of the Beggars of the Sea, and the heroic resistance of Hollanders and Zeelanders to the mighty power of Spain. Not less must his spirit of adventure have been stimulated by the stories that drifted to his quiet village telling of the riches of India, of the Spice Islands, and of far Cathay. Small wonder that the old sea-roving Frisian blood asserted itself, and that Abel Jansz; like the majority of Hollanders in that age, found his vocation as a sailor. That he had managed to acquire some education is evident from the fact that he had at least leaned to write, a somewhat rare accomplishment in those days fore persons in his humble station.

It is not unlikely that in the fisheries of the North Sea, that nursery of daring sailors, he served his first apprenticeship to the ocean. But the adventurous spirit was strong within him, and it was natural that he should soon find his way to

[*1) In the Archives of Hoorn there is a document relating to a ship called the Tasch, of which the skipper was Cornelis Gerritszoon Taschman.]

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Amsterdam, the centre of the commerce of the world, eager to seek his fortune in the rich eastern lands which his countrymen had won. He had married young--either in his native province or in Amsterdam--and his wife, Claesjie Heyndricks, had died, leaving him an only daughter. When we get the first definite information respecting him he was a widower, living in the Terketelsteeg (Tarkettle Lane), one of the poorest quarters of Amsterdam. Here, on the 27th December, 1631, he married his second wife, Jannetjie Tjaers.[*1] He was not encumbered with property,--at least his name does not appear in the contemporary register of assessment for the half per cent. tax. His wife was not greatly his superior in social position, and could not sign the marriage register. She belonged to a working-class family,--her father being a powder-maker, and her brother a sailor, like her husband. The family were not, however, altogether without means. They were owners of one, if not two, small houses in Amsterdam. The young couple began life in a more respectable locality than Tarkettle Lane, setting up house in the Palm-street. It cannot have been long after his marriage that Abel Jansz, then 28 or 29 years old, made what was probably his first voyage to the East Indies, in the service of the Dutch East India Company. That shortly after this time he was in the service of the Company in the Eastern Seas we know from independent evidence. Mr. Heeres has found in the old Colonial archives two declarations signed by Tasman in 1634, which inform us of his rapid rise, during the space of two years at most, from the position of a simple sailor to that of master of a ship. In May he was mate of the ship Weesp (Wasp), trading from Batavia in Java, to Amboyna in the Moluccas. In July the Governor of Amboyna appointed him master--" skipper" was the term in those days--of the jachtt[*2]Mocha.

Tasman was therefore employed in the spice trade, the chief centre of which was the Moluccas or Spice Islands, and especially Amboyna and the Banda Isles, the native home of the nutmeg and the clove. In these days it is difficult for us to understand the value which our forefathers, even down to the end of the 17th century, set upon eastern apices--pepper, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and especially

[*1) The following is a translation of the entry in the Register of the Amsterdam Church, dated 27 December, 1031:--Abel Janss. of Luttiejast, seaman, aged 28 years, living in the Terketelsteech, widower of Claesjie Heyndricks; and Jannetie Tjaers, of Amsterdam, aged 21 years; her sister Geertie Tjaers being present, living in the Palm-street. [In the margin.] Dirckie Jacobs, the mother, consents to the said marriage, as Jan Jacobs attests.]

[*2) "Jacht," a small ship of from 100 to 200 tons burden.]

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cloves. It has been remarked that at banquets in England in the Middle Ages a place next to the spice-box was more coveted than the proverbial place above the salt. This may probably be explained by the fact of the little variety of food possible during the Middle Ages, when (in the winter especially) all classes had to live mostly on salt provisions--especially salt fish--and had hardly any fresh vegetables, until the Dutch taught Europe how to grow them. Before the discovery of the route round the Cape, a pound of spice was often worth as much as a. quarter of wheat. After Da Gama's voyage the trade remained for a century in the hands of the Portuguese, and the monopoly yielded them enormous profit, sometimes as much as fifty-fold. The hope of getting possession of this coveted trade was the chief incentive to Dutch efforts to reach the Indiea. Pepper, ginger, and cinnamon were too widely grown to enable them to command a monopoly, and in these articles the English East India Company was able with more or less success to divide the trade with the Dutch. It was otherwise with the more valued spices, such as nutmeg and cloves. These were limited to a few of the East India Islands. Cloves in particular grew nowhere but on two or three islands of the Moluccas. To secure the monopoly of these the Dutch accordingly bent all their energies. In 1605 they succeeded in driving the Portuguese out of Amboyna, and obtaining the mastery of the whole of the Moluccas. The English East India Company kept up an obstinate rivalry, but the Dutch met them with determined hostility. They attacked the English factories on small pretext, captured their vessels, and, after the massacre of a number of English traders at Amboyna, in 1623, finally excluded their rivals from all share in the trade. This contest for the spice trade was the origin and chief cause of the long and bitter enmity between the two nations. To such lengths did the Dutch go that some years later they ruthlessly rooted up the clove plantations on all the islands of the Moluccas except Amboyna and Banda. Here alone did they allow the clove to be produced, in order that they might enhance the price and make certain of preserving their monopoly.

But to return to Tasman. It is evident that his singular capacity had soon made itself evident to the colonial authorities, for in August, 1635, we find the simple sailor of three years before, now as "Commandeur Abel," cruising at the head of a fleet of small vessels (kiels) to protect the jealously guarded monopoly from foreign intrusion, and generally to harass the ships of hostile European rivals in the waters of Amboyna arid the Banda Sea. In September, 1636, he was on his way back to Batavia, the centre of Dutch rule and the residence

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of the Governor-General of the Indies. On his arrival, he found himself involved in difficulties with his crew. They cited him before the Chief Magistrate's Court complaining that while cruising in the Banda Sea he had, presumably in the interests of his own pocket, stinted them of their necessary allowance of rations. As he was acquitted by the Court, which was sufficiently experienced in such matters, we may conclude that he was unjustly accused: at least we may give him the benefit of the doubt.

He was now bent on revisiting the home country, and to accomplish this he was ready to accept for the time a subordinate post, and accordingly shipped as mate on board the Banda. The Banda was the flagship of a homeward-bound fleet (retour vloot) of several sail. Her skipper was Matthys Quast, a bold and capable sailor, of whom we shall hear more presently. When on the point of sailing, on 30th December, 1636, the officers and crew, 111 in number, were required to make a declaration, which is interesting as illustrative of the troubled state of the times, of the dangers of war, and the prevalence of privateering. It also shows the survival of the ancient usage--a part of the old maritime law of the 13th century, the Roles d'Oleron--which gave to the ship's Council, and even to the common sailors, a voice in the control of the voyage. By this declaration--to which the whole 111 set their signatures or marks--the Governor, skipper, merchant, mates, officers, soldiers, and seamen, presently appointed and sailing on the ship Banda, solemnly promised that, in view of the Spanish men-of-war and the privateers of Dunkirk, they would in no wise pass through the English Channel, but would hold their course round England, Ireland, and Scotland, so that they might in safety make the harbours of the Fatherland.

The Banda arrived at the Texel on 1st August, 1637, after a seven months' voyage. Tasman remained at Amsterdam for some months with his wife Jannetie, who had recovered from an illness so serious that she had made her will. This will is still in existence. It was drawn up on 18th December, 1636, by the Notary, Pieter Barcman. It recites that the worthy Jannetje Tjercks, wife of Abel Jansz Tasman, citizen, was then lying ill in bed, but was of good memory and understanding. Her residence was at the corner of the Palm cross-street on the Braeck. Should the testatrix die without issue, then, after certain bequests to the poor, she constituted her sister, Geertje Tjercks, her sole legatee. There is no mention of her husband or of the little step-daughter, Claesjen. We need not therefore assume that there had been any quarrel between the married pair. The absence of Abel in the

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Indies, from which return was so uncertain, may explain why the wife should leave her property to relations on the spot.

Meantime Abel and his brothers-in-law appeared before the Amsterdam magistrates with the object of selling the family house in the Palm-street for 500 florins. For some reason the contract was cancelled, and the family retained the house until 1650, when Powels Barentsz, in his own name, and as attorney for his brother-in-law Tasman, who was then in the Indies, conveyed the property to Andries Barents.

After a stay of some nine months in Amsterdam, Abel Jansz once more set his face eastwards. He entered into a new ten years' engagement with the Company, and in consideration of this he was allowed to take his wife with him--the Council of Seventeen having just passed a new regulation whereby the chief officers were permitted to take their wives to the East Indies, provided they were lawfully wedded, were of good lives, and could show good credentials. Tasman was put in command of the fly-ship[*1] Engel (Angel), fitted out by the Amsterdam Chamber. VThe Engel sailed from the Texel, 15th April, 1638, and arrived at Batavia on 11th October following. The skipper's pay was 60 guilders (£5) per month. On arrival at Batavia he was continued in his post for three years at an increased pay of 80 guilders (£6 13s. 4d.) per month.