Maritimo

A native of Bruges (now part of Belgium), Jacques de Coutre was a gem trader who spent nearly a decade in Southeast Asia in the early 17th century. In addition to a substantial autobiography written in Spanish and preserved in the National Library of Spain in Madrid, he wrote a series of memorials to the united crown of Spain and Portugal that contain recommendations designed to reverse the decline in the fortunes of the Iberian powers in Southeast Asia, particularly against the backdrop of early Dutch political and commercial penetration into the region. Translated into English for the first time, these materials provide a valuable first-hand account of the bigger issues confronting the early colonial powers in Southeast Asia, and deep insights into the societies De Coutre encountered in the territory that today makes up Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Four hundred years ago, the Dutch humanist and jurisconsult Hugo Grotius was commissioned by the United Netherlands’ East India Company (VOC) to write a defense of Admiral Jakob van Heemskerk’s seizure of a Portuguese merchant carrack in the Straits of Singapore (February 1603). At the time he was twenty-one years old. What Grotius produced between 1604 and 1606 is a comprehensive political and historical exposé on war. Today, this work is known as De Jure Praedae Commentarius, or “Commentary on Law of Prize and Booty”. Only part of this comprehensive manuscript was published during its author’s lifetime and is known as Mare Liberum or “The Free Sea” (1609).
Mare Liberum is essentially a propagandistic treatise and argues for Holland’s merchants to freely access emporia in Asia by unimpeded navigation across the high seas. The freedom of navigation forms a subset to the overarching arguments on the freedom of access and trade. This particular assessment of Mare Liberum stands in sharp contrast to past interpretations, insofar as these have placed the ‘freedom of the seas’ - and not the broader issues surrounding ‘free trade’ - at the forefront of scholarly attention. From this vantage point, Grotius was surprisingly consistent in his thinking on the broader issues of maritime trade and navigation.
During the first two decades of the seventeenth century, Grotius lent a helping hand in the process of forging political and commercial treaties between the VOC and Asian rulers. Far from championing peace and the freedom of navigation on the high seas for which the Dutch humanist is best remembered in modern times, Grotius should also assume a place among the intellectual fathers of Dutch colonial rule in Asia.""""

This paper examines Hugo Grotius’ ideas on the freedom of navigation on the high seas and Southeast Asian maritime practices in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In the past Charles H. Alexandrowicz (and closely following him Ram Prakash Anand) had argued that Grotius’ position – which was admittedly unusual in a European legal context at that point in time – had been influenced by early Dutch experiences in the island world of Southeast Asia. Recent Grotius research, however, has debunked these positions as both speculative and false. At the time of writing or revising his treatise Mare Liberum for the press (ca.1604-9), Grotius possessed only a very shallow knowledge of Asian maritime practices. This paper aims to take the analysis a crucial step further: Did the polities of insular Southeast Asia really pursue a policy of Mare Liberum as has been generally surmised by some legal historians and IR theorists? What concepts of maritime space prevailed, and how do they compare with Grotius and some of his contemporaries? A careful scrutiny and comparison of key concepts will yield some unexpected results.

Admiral Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge who also served as a director in the Dutch East India Company’s Rotterdam chamber for three decades during the early seventeenth century, set sail from the Dutch Republic in 1605. He launched an attack on Portuguese Melaka in 1606 and signed landmark treaties with Johor and Ternate in the same year. On his return to the Netherlands in the autumn of 1608 he began to write a series of epistolary reports and memoranda which were received and carefully studied by leading policy makers in the Republic at the time, including Hugo Grotius and Jan van Oldenbarnevelt. This paper provides an overview of the materials that survive in Dutch archives and specifically delves into his evolving conclusions about security, trade, and diplomacy in Singapore, Batu Sawar and the Johor River Region at large.

中国とモリソン文庫：翁文灝，中央研究院近代史研究所資料館（台湾）　　⑤マニュスクリプト，マカートニー使節記録　　⑥その他3．東洋文庫の設立とモリソン文庫の拡大　1）洋書・日本関連，漢籍，ぺリオ・スタイン文書複製，キリスト教関係資料　2）研究地域の増加：満蒙・中央アジア・ペルシャ・西アジア・インド・南洋4．東洋文庫の現在　1）民間の研究図書館：岩崎久弥　　チェスター・ビーティ・ライブラリー，ハンティントン・ライブラリー　2）東洋文庫ミュージアム　3）モリソンII世コレクションとヘッダー・モリソン使用資料：　モリソンパンフレット，ミッチェルライブラリー所蔵のモリソン日記および書簡など
This lecture examines the letters and memorials of Dutch Admiral Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge whose recommendations arguably set the stage for the first Dutch Empire in Asia. 1. Introduction　Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge, or Cornelis Junior　Dutch presence in Southeast Asia2. Matelieff’s voyage to Asia, 1605–8　Commercial and military purposes　Attacks on Portuguese positions　Siam Embassy’s visit to Europe3. Synopsis of Matelieff ’s writings　Journael ende Verhael  (Journal and Narrative)　Memorials　Letters (official & private)4. Evaluating the documents　Period of transition VOC finding its feet, coping with hybrid identity　MODERN ASIAN STUDIES REVIEW Vol.6 http://www.toyo-bunko.or.jp/research/e-journal/MASR06/index.html#page=13