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Chinese, Tartars and “Thea” or a Tale of Two Companies: The English East India Company and Taiwan in the Late Seventeenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Derek Massarella
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Extract

A number of years ago, Dr D. K. Bassett pointed out that the English East India Company's objective in re-entering East Asian waters during the second half of the seventeenth century was the re-establishment of a direct trade with Japan from which the company had withdrawn in 1623. It was a futile pursuit. But, far from being an inconsequential historical footnote, the unintended consequence of this policy was the beginning of a direct trade with China, first mooted in the 1610s and which was to prove of greater consequence to the company's fortunes than the chimera of trade with Tokugawa Japan. It is within this context and that of the changing fortunes of the English company and its Dutch rival as well as the broader East Asian situation that the brief, and largely ignored, history of the company's factory on Taiwan is worth examining.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , November 1993 , pp. 393 - 426
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1993

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References

1 “The trade of the English East India Company in the Far East 1623–94”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1–4 (1960), pp. 32–47, 145–57.Google Scholar

2 The only attempt at a history of the factory is Yung-hsiang, Lai, “T'ai-wan Cheng-shih yu Ying-kuo ti t'ung-shang kuan-hsi shih (History of trade between the Cheng Family and England”, T'ai-wan wen-hsien, XVI 2 (1965), pp. 1–50,Google Scholar but this is based upon printed sources, notably Seiichi, Iwao (ed.), Shih-ch'i shih chi T'ai-wan Ying-kuo mao-i shih-liao (Sources on English Trade with Taiwan in the Seventeenth Century) [English with Chinese translations], T'ai-wan yen-chiu ts'ung-k'an, 57, 1959,Google Scholar hereafter cited as Iwao) and older and now unreliable secondary sources. Iwao's compilation is only a small selection of the sources on the Taiwan factory.

3 van Linschoten, Jan Huygen, Iohn Hvighen van Linschoten his Discours of Voyages into ye East & West Indies (London, 1598), p. 388;Google Scholar Cortesao, Armando (ed.), The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires (London, 1944), i, p. 128 n. 2;Google Scholar Schurhammer, Georg, “O Descobrimento do Japāo pelos Portugueses no ano de 1543”, Orientalia, XXI (1963), pp. 520–1;Google Scholar Boxer, C. R., The Great Ship from Amacon (Lisbon, 1963), pp. 44, 309 n. 5.Google Scholar For early Chinese contact with Taiwan see Hsu, Wen-Hsiung, “From aboriginal island to Chinese frontier: the development of Taiwan before 1683”, in Knapp, Ronald G. (ed.), China's Island Frontier (Honolulu, 1980), pp. 3–11.Google Scholar

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6 Hsu, , “From aboriginal island to Chinese frontier”, p. 44;Google Scholar Hensan-jo, Tokyo Daigaku Shiryo (ed.), The Diary of Richard Cocks, 3 vols (Tokyo, 1977–1980), i, pp. 105, 260; ii, p. 119.Google Scholar

7 Campbell, William, Formosa under the Dutch Described from Contemporary Sources (Taipei, repr. 1967), pp. 38–51;Google Scholar Boxer, C. R. (ed.), A True Description of the Mighty Kingdoms of Japan & Siam (London, 1935), pp. xvi–xxvi.Google Scholar Yet for all its pretensions to establish a new East Asian world order, the shogunate's stance on the island is somewhat ambiguous. A number of aboriginal Taiwanese were taken on Japanese junks to Japan in 1627. At Nagasaki they ostensibly offered the shogunate sovereignty over the island which Edo unhesitatingly rejected (Campbell, , Formosa under the Dutch, p. 42Google Scholar). After the Taiwan incident, Japanese claims to sovereignty over Taiwan remained dormant until the late nineteenth century when the Meiji government annexed the island and made it into a Japanese colony.

8 This ratio remained favourable until the late 1620s. The literature on the global bullion flows of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is vast. For East Asia the best starting point is Atwell, William S., “Some observations on the seventeenth century crisis in China and Japan”, Journal of Asian Studies, XLV, 2 (1986), pp. 223–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Dennis O. Flynn offers some interesting speculations but those about the impact of silver on the Japanese economy lack judgement (“Comparing the Tokugawa shogunate with Hapsburg Spain: two silver-based empires in a global setting” in Tracy, James D. (ed.), The Political Economy of Merchant Empires: State Power and World Trade 1350–1750 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 332–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

9 Some of his activity can be gleaned from The Diary of Richard Cocks (see under Andreas Dittis). Unlike the bureaucratic trading companies, this entrepreneur and his network have left no personal or business papers. It is just such a lacuna that will always tip the scales of available sources in favour of European ones.

10 Blussé, Leonard, “The Dutch occupation of the Pescadores”, Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan, VIII (1973), pp. 28–44.Google Scholar

11 Takashi, Nakamura, “Oranda chika Taiwan ni okeru chiba no shozei ni tsuite (A study of various taxes in Taiwan under the Dutch)”, Yamato Bunka, XLI (1963), p. 65;Google Scholar Hsu, , “From aboriginal island to Chinese frontier”, pp. 15, 17;Google Scholar Osterhoff, J. L., “Zeelandia: A Dutch colonial city on Formosa (1624–1682)”, in Ross, Robert J. and Telkamp, Gerhard J. (eds.), Colonial Cities (Dordrecht, 1985), pp. 53, 55, 58.Google Scholar The Dutch controlled the southwest part of the island and were able to maintain an open road with Keelung in the north once they had expelled the Spanish in 1642. But they did not penetrate the mountainous interior nor the east coast. They also worked to convert the indigenous population, but not the Chinese, in the areas under VOC control to Christianity (Ginsel, W. A., De Gereformeerde Kerk op Formosa of de lotgevallen eener handelskerk onder de Oost-Indische-Compagnie 1627–1662 (Leiden, 1931);Google Scholar Hsu, , “From aboriginal island to Chinese frontier”, p. 15Google Scholar).

12 See Struve, Lynn A., The Southern Ming 1644–1662 (New Haven, 1984).Google Scholar

13 Teijiro, Yamawaki, “The great trading merchants: Cocksinja and his son”, Acta Asiatica, XXX (1976), pp. 108, 109.Google Scholar

14 I[ndia] O[ffice] R[ecords] G/12/1, p. 66; Wills, John E. Jr, Pepper, Guns & Parleys: The Dutch East India Company and China, 1662–1681, Cambridge MS, 1974, p. 27.Google Scholar

15 IOR G/12/1, p. 66; Wills, , Pepper, Guns & Parleys, p. 27.Google Scholar

16 Osterhoff, , “Zeelandia”, p. 59;Google Scholar Wills, John E. Jr, Embassies & Illusions: Dutch and Portuguese Envoys to K'anghsi, 1666–1687, Cambridge MS, 1984, p. 151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Between 1656 and 1672 an average of 80 per cent of Dutch raw silk imports to Japan came from Bengal, far removed from the turmoil on the China coast (Om Prakash, , The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, 1630–1720 (Princeton, 1985), p. 125CrossRefGoogle Scholar). It should also be stressed that the Cheng were more important participants in Japanese overseas trade in terms of volume and value than the VOC.

18 On this subject see Wills, Pepper, Guns & Parleys, passim.

19 Hummel, A. W., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, 2 vols (Washington, 1944), i, p. 111;Google Scholar Struve, , The Southern Ming, p. 193;Google Scholar Hung, Chien-chao, “Taiwan under the Cheng family 1662–1683: sinicization after Dutch rule” unpublished Georgetown University Ph.D. thesis, 1981, pp. 140–56.Google Scholar

20 Hsu, , “From aboriginal island to Chinese frontier”, pp. 20–7;Google Scholar idem, “Chinese colonization of Taiwan”, unpublished University of Chicago Ph.D. thesis, 1975, pp. 90–1, 98–100.Google Scholar For the common people there was little to choose between the brutalities of the Cheng and those of the Manchu (ibid., pp. 94–5).

21 Hung, , “Taiwan under the Cheng”, pp. 125–6, 231–8.Google Scholar

22 Seiichi, Iwao, “Kinsei Nisshi boeki ni kansuru suryo teki kosatsu (A quantitative study of Sino-Japanese trade in the seventeenth century)”, Shigaku Zasshi, LXII, 11(1953), pp. 992–3;Google Scholar Hung, , “Taiwan under the Cheng”, pp. 196–203;Google Scholar Oxnam, Robert B., Ruling from Horseback: Manchu Politics in the Oboi Regency 1661–1669 (Chicago, 1975), pp. 128–32;Google Scholar Yamawaki, , “The great trading merchants”, p. 113;Google Scholar Kessler, Lawrence D., K'anghsi and the Consolidation of Ch'ing rule 1661–1684 (Chicago, 1976), pp. 39–46;Google Scholar Viraphol, Sarasin, Tribute and Profit: Sino-Siamese Trade 1652–1853, Cambridge, MS, 1977, pp. 29, 44–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 IOR G/12/2, p. 253.

24 Massarella, Derek, A World Elsewhere: Europe's Encounter with Japan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New Haven, 1990), ch. 8.Google Scholar

25 Records of Fort St George: Despatches from England 1681–1686 (Madras, 1916), pp. 7, 97;Google Scholar Furber, Holden, Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient 1600–1800 (Minneapolis, 1976), p. 272;Google Scholar Quaison, Serafin D., English Country Trade with the Philippines, 1644–1765 (Quezon City, 1966), pp. 26–8.Google Scholar

26 Pratt, Peter, History of Japan, edited by Paske-Smith, M., 2 vols (repr. New York, 1972), ii, pp. 144–5.Google Scholar

27 IOR E/3/30 no. 3340; Iwao, , p. 76.Google Scholar

28 Chijs, J. A. (ed.), Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Batavia vant passereende daer ter plaeste als over geheel Nederlandts-India Anno 1670–1671 (Batavia, 1898), pp. 85, 92–3;Google Scholar Campbell, , Formosa under the Dutch, p. 501;Google Scholar Iwao, , pp. 132–3.Google Scholar Hosea Ballou Morse's account of the East India Company and Taiwan misses this voyage (The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China 1635–1834 (Cambridge, 1926), i, p. 41Google Scholar).

29 This was pure fantasy although a tribute to presumed Chinese engineering ability.

30 Dagh-Register 1670–1671, p. 264; Iwao, pp. 133–40. Considering the difficulties of language, Crisp's report is a good assessment of the condition of the island.

31 Ibid., p. 136. With the full authorisation of the imperial court in Peking, Manchu officials on the southern mainland coast, a number of whom were former Cheng supporters, made several attempts to induce the Cheng on Taiwan to surrender and recognise Ch'ing suzerainty by adopting the queue. The Cheng rejected these overtures. The most recent negotiations had broken down in 1669 when the Cheng stuck to their precondition for settlement that Peking establish a tributary relationship with Taiwan similar to that prevailing between China and Korea. This was rejected by the Ch'ing. A follow-up mission was immediately dispatched but both sides refused to compromise. See Hung, , “Taiwan under the Cheng”, pp. 219–27, esp. pp. 222–3.Google Scholar

32 Iwao, , pp. 77–9, 140.Google Scholar

33 In March 1671, a Cheng trading junk had slipped into the Bantam road under cover of darkness. The junk carried a letter from Cheng Ching to the sultan asking him to convey a message to the Dutch that the Cheng wanted to make peace. The message was conveyed to Batavia. The Dutch made it clear that any rapprochement had to be preceded by the restitution of all Dutch goods and prisoners detained on Taiwan. There was no followup. Some of the Chinese who had come from Taiwan returned there with the English, the sultan of Bantam having obtained an assurance from the Dutch that they would not be molested (Dagh-Register 1670–1671, pp. 271, 272, 275, 294, 298, 353). On the Dutch prisoners on Taiwan, see below.

34 Dagh-Register 1670–1671, pp. 259, 262, 264.

35 Iwao, , p. 134.Google Scholar

36 Dagh-Register 1670–1671, p. 272; Iwao, pp. 79, 80–1. The presidency referred to the “king” as “Our friend Coxin”.

37 Chijs, J. A. (ed.), Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Batavia vant passereende daer ter plaeste als over geheel Nederlandts-India Anno 1672 (Batavia, 1899), p. 172;Google Scholar Campbell, , Formosa under the Dutch, p. 503.Google Scholar The ships carried pepper, cloth and a selection of European goods and had given passage to a number of the Cheng supporters who had arrived earlier in the year from Taiwan (Dagh-Register 1670–1671, pp. 353, 373).

38 Iwao, , pp. 80–83.Google Scholar

39 Massarella, , World Elsewhere, p. 356.Google Scholar

40 Pepper, of course, served this function (Chaudhuri, K. N., The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company 1660–1760 (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 313–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar), but, as has been mentioned, the directors had made it clear to Bantam that the southwards trade could not be based on pepper alone and that alternatives were to be found.

41 On the company's failure to use its records see Massarella, Derek, “‘The loudest lies’: knowledge of Japan in seventeenth century England”, Itinerario, XI, 2 (1987).Google Scholar

42 Dagh-Register 1672, p. 160, Boxer, C. R., “Jan Compagnie in Japan 1672–1674: Anglo-Dutch rivalry in Japan and Formosa”, The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, second series, VII (1930), pp. 176–7.Google Scholar

43 Iwao, , pp. 144, 196, 197;Google Scholar Hsu, , “From aboriginal island to Chinese frontier”, p. 26.Google Scholar

44 Iwao, , pp. 143, 196.Google Scholar For versions of the 1672 treaty, which the Cheng would have seen as a statement of general intent to be interpreted flexibly, not as a binding legal document, see IOR G/12/2, pp. 168–9 and Chijs, J. A. (ed.), Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Batavia vant passereende daer ter plaeste als over geheel Nederlandts-India Anno 1673 (Batavia, 1901), pp. 81–3Google Scholar and Iwao, pp. 217–21 (in Dutch made from a copy which the Dutch seized from the Experiment).

45 Ibid., pp. 142, 196, 198.

46 IOR G/21/6a, fols. 95, 96.

47 The Dutch put a value of f. 22707 on the cargo of the Experiment and f. 55422:17:8 on that of the Camel (Dagh-Register 1673, pp. 106–7).

48 Massarella, , World Elsewhere, pp. 359–63.Google Scholar

49 IOR E/3/88, fols. 68v–69.

50 Iwao, , p. 151;Google Scholar IOR G/21/6a, fol. 90; G/12/1, p. 166.

51 Kessler, , K'ang-hsi, pp. 75–90.Google Scholar

52 Hummel, , Eminent Chinese, i, p. III;Google Scholar Kessler, , K'ang-hsi, p. 90;Google Scholar Wills, , Pepper, Guns & Parleys, pp. 154–5.Google Scholar The Cheng had held on to Amoy, Quemoy and some other places following their capture of Taiwan and retained them until 1664. Amoy was retaken in 1666 and became the centre for smuggling goods from the mainland. The island of P'u-t'u-shan became important in the Cheng trade with Japan (Hung, , “Taiwan under the Cheng”, pp. 239–41).Google Scholar This had been noted by Crisp in 1670 (Iwao, p. 191).

53 Wills, , pp. 27, 86, 181, 183;Google Scholar idem, Embassies & Illusions, pp. 151–2. In 1662 Cheng Ch'eng-kung had demanded that Manila send tribute to him. The Spanish refused but fears of invasion prompted a massacre of the Chinese community and the expulsion of those who survived (Wills, , Pepper, Guns & Parleys, p. 27).Google Scholar Ten years later, Cheng Ching overruled a request by two of his commanders to attack Luzon on the grounds that it was of little commercial or strategic value, would needlessly alienate foreigners (i.e. Westerners) and overstretch Cheng lines of communication (Fu, Lo-shu, A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relations (1644–1820) (Tucson, 1966), pp. 47–8).Google Scholar It was only after the Ch'ing conquest that Taiwan was finally incorporated into the Chinese empire.

54 Souza, George Bryan, The Survival of Empire: Portuguese Trade and Society in the South China Sea 1630–1754 (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 198–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55 IOR G/12/16, fols. 87v, 88; Iwao, p. 204. The Cheng had asked for seven or eight men but only two appear to have gone (IOR G/12/2, p. 165). When it learned about the demand, the Bantam agency's only concern was that the men should only serve at the king's expense, not the Company's {ibid.). Cf. Fu, , Documentary Chronicle, p. 457 n. 102.Google Scholar

56 IOR G/12/16, fols. 88v-89; Iwao, pp. 201–10. The Dutch reported the arrival of the ship at Bantam on 16 January and that the English complained of their unfriendly, unwelcoming treatment. In addition to the copper, the Eagle carried porcelain, Chinese paper and gold thread (Chijs, J. A. [ed.], Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Batavia vant passereende daer ter plaeste als over geheel Nederlandts-lndia Anno 1676 [Batavia, 1903], p. 17.)Google Scholar

57 Iwao, , p. 207.Google Scholar The Cheng had offered a chop to the Flying Eagle to proceed to Amoy but the factors had turned this down fearing that the ship and men would be pressed into Cheng service (ibid., p. 204). However, the cargoes of the Advice and Formosa which were sent to Taiwan from Bantam in May 1676 were beefed up with additional amounts of pepper and broadcloth on the expectation that trade at Amoy would be permitted (IOR G/12/2, pp. 170, 171; Dagh-Register 1676, p. 135).

58 IOR G/12/2, pp. 167, 172.

59 Ibid., p. 172

60 Ibid., P. 206. The strategy of attempting a trade at Canton while maintaining a factory on Taiwan is not as fanciful as first appears. For a while in the mid-1670s the Cheng controlled the Pearl River estuary and the town of Tung-kuan. Canton itself remained under the control of forces loyal to the Manchu. A junk trade between the Taiwan and the Pearl River existed and the Taiwan factors attempted to send a writer for Canton on a Cheng junk in 1677 (IOR G/12/16, fols. 102, 117v).

61 IOR G/12/2, p. 172; Bassett, D. K., “The factory of the English East India Company at Bantam”, unpublished University of London Ph.D. thesis, 1955, p. 358.Google Scholar

62 Ibid., pp. 352–7; Chaudhuri, , Trading World, pp. 345–6, 347Google Scholar.

63 IOR G/12/2, p. 206.

64 The details of the Taiwan and Amoy factories during these years can be followed in the IOR G/12/16, fols. 102–27, 156–62v. On examining its copy of the 1672-treaty the agency found no mention of a customs levy but supposed that there was one (IOR G/12/2, pp. 168, 212). For the Dutch version see Dagh-Register 1673, PP. 81–3;Google Scholar Iwao, p. 220. On the general problems with Seville and Pillar dollars see Chaudhuri, , Trading World, p. 170.Google Scholar

65 In 1676 two ships visited Taiwan, in 1677 three ships visited Taiwan and Amoy, in 1678 and 1679 two each year. One returned to Bantam, the other to Surat (in 1677, two to Surat) with the goods that were earmarked for England. In 1677, the value of the exports from Amoy/Taiwan was 15,400 reals (Surat), 10,352 taels (Surat) and 13,499 taels (Bantam); in 1678, 11,775 (Surat, the figure for Bantam is unknown); 1679, 23,635 taels (Surat) and 26,072 taels (Bantam). See IOR G/12/2, pp. 170, 171, 206, 208–9, 215, 216–17, 229; G/12/16, fols. 91, 92–2v, 93, 95–5v, 96–6V, 108v, 112, 119v, 136, 161; Dagh-register 1677, pp. 178, 193; De Hahn, F. (ed.), Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Batavia vant passereende daer ter plaeste als over geheel Nederlandts-India Anno 1678 (Batavia, 1907), p. 355.Google Scholar The account in Morse (Chronicles i, pp. 45–6) is confused and inaccurate.

66 In 1676, the Bantam agency informed Taiwan that no matter the factory's request that no more European goods be sent to the island, the agency would continue to do so because of its orders from London (IOR G/12/2, p. 170). Strangely, in August 1677 the agency reported back to London that broadcloth was making a profit of 80 per cent at Taiwan (IOR G/21/7, unfol., Bantam agency to London, 2 Aug. 1677). This could only have referred to certain types of cloth. Taiwan was not the only factory suffering from an over-abundance of broadcloth. Madras and Bengal were similarly overstocked (Despatches from England, 1670–1677, pp. 108, 121).

67 IOR G/12/2, pp. 229, 231. Efforts to dispose of cloth in Manila by way of Chinese junks met with no success (Despatches from England 1681–1686, p. 132).

68 IOR G/21/7, unfol., Bantam Agency to London, 21 Feb. 1680; G/12/2, pp. 230, 246. The “king” of Taiwan was still expected to mediate in the quest for a direct trade with Japan, but he was no longer seen as indispensable. The directors also hoped that pending a formal readmission to Japan, an indirect trade with the island empire would flourish from Amoy by means of Chinese junks (IOR G/12/2, pp. 231, 248).

69 IOR G/12/2, p. 214; G/12/16, fols. 161-iv, Morse, , Chronicles, i, p. 46.Google Scholar

70 IOR G/12/2, p. 230; G/21/7a, pp. 68–74. It wa asserted later that the Cheng had agreed with the Manchu generals to abandon these outposts (Kessler, , K'ang-hsi, p. 91).Google Scholar But the situation as described by the English suggests panic, suspicion and mistrust among the Cheng, certainly no orderly retreat. See also Hung, “Taiwan under the Cheng”, pp. 261–3.

71 IOR G/21/6b, fols. 118–118v; Hummel, , Eminent Chinese, i, p. III;Google Scholar Hung, , “Taiwan under the Cheng”, pp. 263–5Google Scholar. The Bantam agency sent its congratulations to the new “king”, reminding him (infelicitously) that the Company had enjoyed “a free and unmolested trade” for ten years with hopes that the friendship would continue and deepen and that he would continue to further their interest in Japan (IOR G/12/2, p. 281). The blacks had been brought originally to Taiwan by the Dutch as slaves (Fu, , Documentary Chronicle, p. 72 and n. 173).Google Scholar Rather like the Japanese employed by the Ayuthia kings in Siam as palace guards, the blacks were presumed to be above the factional fray and therefore dependable. Unlike the Japanese in Siam, they did not evolve into a constituency of their own. Two companies of blacks are reported to have accompanied Cheng Ch'eng-kung on his invasion of the island (Hsu, , “Chinese colonisation of Taiwan”, p. 85).Google Scholar They would have included blacks brought into China by the Portuguese and sold as slaves.

72 IOR G/21/6b, fols. 118v-119.

73 IOR G/12/2, p. 252. The directors were also prepared to authorise force to collect debts outstanding (ibid., p. 251). The agency replied to the directors saying it had decided that it would be imprudent to send such a menacing letter to Taiwan for fear that the Cheng (to whom the “lawes and customes of all Nations” was an alien concept) would seize the Company's goods and servants (IOR G/21/7, p. 79).

74 IOR G/12/2, pp. 231, 248. Such consideration for the public good was especially strong when the company was under attack at home. In the early 1670s the directors wrote that “We had rather at all times sell a great deale of Cloth etc for a little profit then a little cloth for vast profit. Quoted in Peter Loughead, “The East India Company in English domestic politics 1657–88”, unpublished University of Oxford D. Phil, thesis, 1980, p. 218.Google Scholar

75 IOR G/12/2, p. 247. Bantam endeavoured to follow this up, but through the Taiwan factory which was instructed to establish contact with Canton, again presumably using a Chinese junk. There is no indication that the agency was afraid of alienating the Cheng by following such a policy (ibid., p. 281).

76 Ibid., pp. 249–50; E/3/90, fols. 32–3. The directors assumed that their offer to assist the Ch'ing gave them an advantage over the Dutch whom they believed, wrongly, could not offer such naval forces for fear of losing their Japan trade (fol. 33). They were unaware of earlier Ch'ing-VOC cooperation.

77 Ibid., fol. 33V.

78 Souza, , Survival of Empire, pp. 199–200Google Scholar. Macao had been treated as administratively a part of the interior thus avoiding the orders to remove the population inland (Fu, , Documentary Chronicle, pp. 40–1).Google Scholar The English sources add some useful information to the circumstances of Macao.

79 IOR G/12/3, pp. 311–15.

80 On this see Wills, Pepper, Guns & Parleys, passim; Fu, , Documentary Chronicle, pp. 32–4, 39–40, 51, 52–5.Google Scholar

81 IOR G/12/3, PP. 322–5.

82 They were not liberated until after the Manchu conquest of the island. A debriefing of one, Alexander van's Gravenbroeck, at Batavia provided information about the English Company's activity on the island, convinced the Council of the Indies that it was time the VOC paid closer attention to China, and prompted the embassy of Vincent Paats to Peking in 1685–6 (Campbell, , Formosa under the Dutch, pp. 85–6;Google Scholar Wills, , Embassies & Illusions, pp. 148–9, 150–2).Google Scholar The English sources are strangely silent about these unfortunates but Dutch sources show that the English carried letters and news from the captives and on one occasion money and medicines and had access to them (Dagh-Register 1670–1671, pp. 259, 294, 298; Dagh-Register 1672, pp. 83–5, 329–30; Dagh-Register 1677, pp. 73–6, 161; Dagh-Register 1678, p. 60; De Hahn, F. (ed.), Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Batavia vant passereende daer ter plaeste als over geheel Nederlandts-India Anno 1679 (Batavia, 1909), pp. 60–4;Google Scholar idem (ed.), Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Batavia vant passereende daer ter plaeste als over geheel Nederlandts-India Anno 1681 (Batavia, 1919), pp. 151–3, 426).Google Scholar

83 IOR G/21/7a, pp. 74–5. 79.

84 IOR G/21/7, unfol., Bantam Agency to London, 28 Feb. 1681, 23 July 1681.

85 IOR G/21/6b, fol. 118. The factors acknowledged the letters and informed the agency of the Cheng surprise at the smallness of the cargo on the Formosa. They noted that the Cheng refused to provide a junk to allow the English to reply until they heard that the ship was carrying saltpetre and iron and then they announced that they would provide a couple of junks to off-load these goods but the factors told them that they could not order the ship to part with its cargo on credit (ibid., fols. 119v–120). The agency relayed this news to London, adding that the Canton merchants “show more respect to ye English then to any other Nacon” but that it was unlikely that there would be any free trade there. They also noted that the Company's servants on Taiwan were well and that the factory had been new built (IOR G/12/7, p. 64).

86 IOR G/21/6a, fol. 143v.

87 IOR G/21/6a, fol. 119.

88 Ibid., ff. 119v, 121.

89 IOR G/12/1, pp. 229, 216–17, 298, 306+1; G/12/16, fol. 69v.

90 Despatches from England 1681–1686, pp. 131–3.Google Scholar

91 Ibid., pp. 131, 133; Kessler, , K'ang-hsi, pp. 92–3.Google Scholar See also Fu, , Documentary Chronicle, pp. 52–6Google Scholar and Wills, , Pepper, Guns & Parleys, pp. 179–87Google Scholar for Ch'ing efforts to involve the Dutch in the attack on Taiwan including the despatch of an embassy to the “king of Holland” at Batavia (i.e. the governor general).

92 IOR E/3/16, fol. 134; Iwao, pp. 162–3; Hung, , “Taiwan under the Cheng”, p. 272.Google Scholar

93 IOR E/3/16, fol. 134v; Iwao, p. 164

94 IOR E/3/16, fols. 134–5, 135v; Iwao, pp. 164, 166; Hung, , “Taiwan under the Cheng”, pp. 273–4.Google Scholar

95 IOR E/3/16, fol. 134v; Iwao, p. 163; Fu, , Documentary Chronicle, p. 60 although n. 136 is inaccurate.Google Scholar

96 Kessler, , K'ang-hsi, p. 93.Google Scholar

97 IOR E/3/16, fol. 135v; Iwao, p. 167.

98 IOR E/3/16, fol. 134v; Iwao, p. 165.

99 IOR E/3/16, fol. 136–136v; G/12/16, fol. 130v; Iwao, , p. 168.Google Scholar

100 IOR E/3/16, fols. 136–137v; G/12/16, fols. 130v–132; Iwao, , p. 169–70.Google Scholar

101 IOR E/3/16, fol. 137v; Iwao, , p. 172.Google Scholar

102 Kessler, , K'ang-hsi, pp. 95–6;Google Scholar Wills, , Pepper, Guns & Parleys, pp. 130–2.Google Scholar

103 IOR E/3/16, fol. 139; Iwao, , p. 175.Google Scholar The goods comprised broadcloth and other cloth, lead, toys, quilts, Japanese copper, 100 muskets, glassware, household goods and furniture and “slaves, 3 men prime cost 64:0:8”.

104 IOR G/12/16, fol. 131v–32; Iwao, , pp. 173–7Google Scholar. As for the status of Taiwan, this had not yet been resolved by the imperial authorities. Should it be incorporated into the empire, a policy Shih Lang advocated, or should it be evacuated? After debate, Peking resolved upon the former and Taiwan finally became a part of the Chinese empire in 1684 (Kessler, , K'ang-hsi, p. 94).Google Scholar

105 Despatches from England 1681–1686, p. 89.Google Scholar

106 Ibid., p. 97.

107 Ibid., pp. 89–90.

108 His colleagues found him to be of a “malitious envios humor not fitting to correspond to with any one” (IOR G/12/16, fol. 144v).

109 IOR G/12/3, p. 366; Despatches from England 1681–1686, p. 90.Google Scholar A number of the Company's servants acquired competence in Malay but generally speaking the Company preferred to hire local people to act as linguists. It was not a central platform of Company policy to train its own people in Asian languages although the value of such a talent pool was recognised early in its history (Massarella, , World Elsewhere, p. 174).Google Scholar There was no follow up, but the absence of such people was felt. In the 1670s, the directors, concerned about linguistic deficiencies among its servants, tried to encourage its younger employees to learn the languages most important for the conduct of the Company's trade, Hindu and Persian in particular (Records of Fort St George: Despatches from England 1670–1677, pp. 52, 75, 91, 129).Google Scholar In 1678 George Jesscot, a ten-year old, was left in the Amoy factory to learn Chinese. The Bantam agency wrote to the directors that it favoured receiving more such potential linguists (IOR G/12/7, unfol., 28 Jan. 1678). The 1672 treaty contained a clause that allowed the English to employ up to three jurebassos (interpreters) in the Taiwan factory (IOR G/12/2, p. 168). At most one or two were employed and following the suggestion of the 1672 voyage (Iwao, p. 144) it is probable that these individuals were Chinese from Bantam who came on the various ships and who, the agency judged, could be held more accountable to the Company.

110 E/3/90, fols. 190v, 192–192v, 195; Despatches from England, 1670–1677, p. 123;Google Scholar ibid., 1681–1686, pp. 61, 73, 90, 119. An earlier plan to settle Hippin Island in the Straights of Sunda, briefly seized in 1683 and renamed “Carolus Secundus”, was quickly dropped (Barlow, R. and Yule, Henry (eds.), The Diary of William Hedges, Esq., 2 vols, London, 1887, ii, pp. clxiv–clxv)Google Scholar and the suggestion of the former VOC chief at Pegu that that place would fulfill such a role perfectly was rejected outright (Despatches from England 1681–1686, p. 55).Google Scholar

111 See below.

112 IOR E/3/90, fols. 226, 231; Despatches from England 1681–1686, pp. 98–99.Google Scholar

113 IOR E/3/90, fol. 57.

114 IOR G/12/16, fol. 168v.

115 IOR G/12/16, fols. 168v–177, 185v, 199v; Morse, , Chronicles, i, p. 52Google Scholar which is inaccurate. The Jesuits were taken along at the request of the resident Roman Catholic bishop at Ayuthia, Louis de Melelopotis. It seems likely that he intervened on behalf of the English in a dispute with Phaulkon over five barrels of nails which the English had been asked to provide. They refused and the ship was impounded and the crew deprived of victuals. The nails were finally handed over and were duly paid for (IOR G/12/16, fols. 185v, 199v). At Macao the ship received news that there was free trade at Amoy and Taiwan (ibid., fol. 176).

116 IOR G/21/6, fols. 178, 180.

117 Ibid., fols. 143v, 181v, 183v, 185v.

118 Ibid., fols. 174, 179–79; Morse, , Chronicles, i, pp. 53–4, 55.Google Scholar

119 IOR G/12/16, fols. 186v, 187–87V; Morse, , Chronicles, i, p. 55.Google Scholar

120 IOR G/12/16, fols. 174, 177v, 188, 189v, 190, 203v, 204. In 1675 the directors had specifically excluded Taiwan (and Tongking) from the more liberal approach to private trade set out in the indulgence of 1674 (Despatches from England, 1670–1677, p. 32).Google Scholar

121 IOR G/12/16, fol. 181.

122 Ibid., fol. 213–213v; Morse, , Chronicles, i, p. 57.Google Scholar

123 IOR G/12/16, fol. 190.

124 IOR G/12/16, fol. 142–149v.

125 IOR G/12/16, fols. 223–223v.

126 Ibid., fols. 150–51v;

127 IOR G/12/3, pp. 366, 382.

128 IOR G/12/16, fol. 228v.

129 Records of Fort St. George: Letters to Fort St. George, 1684–85 (Madras), pp. 123–6.Google Scholar The Surat factory was keen to follow up the Delight's voyage as soon as possible to impress the Chinese authorities that they were serious about trade. They also wanted the Chinese to appreciate that the China Merchant's voyage was part of the earlier voyage and that therefore no additional presents would be forthcoming, an argument that carried no weight with the Chinese.

130 IOR G/12/16, fol. 223.

131 Ibid., fol. 222. The number of Japan-bound junks was put at 250. Professor Iwao gives the number of arrivals in Nagasaki from China as 77 (“Kinsei Nisshi boeki ni kansuru suryo teki kosatsu”, p. 993). Even allowing for smuggling vessels which made it to Japan, and which went unrecorded in official records, the English figure is too high.

132 Kessler, , K'ang-hsi, pp. 95–7.Google Scholar Besides, the Ch'ing perceived Russian expansion as the new threat to the empire.

133 Over English protests, the authorities ordered that the sails of the China Merchant be brought ashore and stored until permission to depart was granted (IOR G/12/16, fol. 224). The company continued to order its servants not to heed such demands (see, for example, Records of Fort St George: Despatches from England 1701–1706 [Madras], p. 10)Google Scholar and eventually a compromise was reached whereby the English handed over a few old weapons and a gift to the mandarins (Chaudhuri, , Trading World, p. 400Google Scholar).

134 IOR G/12/16, fols. 224, 228v; G/12/3, p. 376. The Siamese junk carried a cargo of sandalwood, pepper, tin, bettle nut and birds' nests, a lading of 8,000 peculs (G/12/16, fol. 228v).

135 In addition to Amoy, customs houses were opened in Macao (although the Portuguese refused to permit other Europeans to anchor there), Canton, Chang-chou, Ningpo, and Yun-t'ai-shan with branch offices in smaller ports (Fu, , Documentary Chronicle, pp. 61, 461 n. 144;Google Scholar Kessler, , K'ang-hsi, p. 97).Google Scholar

136 IOR G/12/16, fols. 222v, 227; G/12/3, p. 382. 382.

137 The value of the China Merchant's unsold goods was 686 taels 2 mas 5 cundereen (ibid., p. 377). Alas the particulars of the goods bought and sold no longer survive.

138 IOR G/12/1, p. 250; G/21/6b, fol. 152. In 1677 the directors had firmly rejected a suggestion from Bantam that an envoy should be sent to the King of Taiwan saying it would “begatt a greater expectation from the Princes in those parts who would all expect the like” (IOR G/12/1, p. 206). It is not entirely clear whether the directors were referring to an embassy to Peking in 1682 or whether they thought an embassy to the governor of Canton was sufficient. One suspects the latter.

139 IOR G/12/3, P. 371. The Dutch embassy of Vincent Paats to Peking heard about the English proposal to send an embassy (Wills, , Embassies & Illusions, p. 166Google Scholar).

140 IOR G/12/3, P. 370.

141 IOR G/12/16, fols. 227, 228v-29; Wills, , Pepper, Cuns & Parleys, p. 197;Google Scholar idem, “Maritime China from Wang Chih to Shih Lang: themes in peripheral history”, in Spence, Jonathan D. and Wills, John E. Jr (eds.), From Ming to Ch'ing: Conquest, Region, and Continuity in Seventeenth Century China (New Haven, 1979), pp. 231–3;Google Scholar Wills, , Embassies & Illusions, pp. 146–7;Google Scholar Leonard, Jane kate Wei Yuan and China's Rediscovery of the Maritime World, Cambridge, MS, 1983, pp. 72–3.Google Scholar

142 IOR E/3/90, fol. 256; G/12/16, fol. 189v.

143 IOR G/12/3, pp. 376, 377. In a dispatch to Surat carried by the Portuguese, the factors recommended perpetuanos, fine broadcloth, pepper, sandalwood and certain types of India cloth (ibid., pp. 370–1).

144 Ibid., pp. 364, 382. The Jesuits were well informed. Cf. Father Verbiest's comment that the emperor had opened up trade for two years (Kessler, , K'ang-hsi, p. 96Google Scholar).

145 Morse, , Chronicles, i, pp. 66–77;Google Scholar Chaudhuri, , Trading World, p. 55.Google Scholar

146 There was still talk among the company's servants in East Asia about renewing trade with Japan into the new century but the company had no enthusiasm to realise such an ambition (British Library Sloane MS 4039, fol. 85v; Massarella, , World Elsewhere, pp. 367–8.Google Scholar

147 IOR E/3/91, fols. 70v, 104; Records of Fort St. George: Despatches from England, 1686–1692 (Madras, 1929), pp. 10, 20.Google Scholar

148 Diary of William Hedges, i, pp. 116–17, 121.Google Scholar

149 IOR E/3/91, fol. 95v.

150 Loughead, , “The East India Company in English Domestic Politics”, pp. 294–5;Google Scholar Chaudhuri, K. N. and Israel, J. I., “The English and Dutch East India Companies and the Glorious Revolution of 1688–9”, in Israel, J. I. (ed.), The Anglo-Dutch Moment (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 414–15.Google Scholar

151 BL Harley MS 4753, f. 7; Diary of William Hedges, 2, p. clxviGoogle Scholar). After his return to England in 1685, Grantham presented a copy of his journal to James II (BL Harley MS 4753, fol. 1 *). James could be expected to be less accommodating to the Dutch than his brother in the last years of his reign.

152 Diary of Richard Cocks, 3, p. 303.Google Scholar

153 Chaudhuri, and Israel, , “The English and Dutch East India Companies and the Glorious Revolution”, p. 420.Google Scholar

154 Furber, , Rival Empires, p. 126;Google Scholar Chaudhuri, , Trading World, p. 97.Google Scholar

155 Ibid., p. 420. The Dutch experience furnishes another reservation about the thesis of military superiority in European expansion. Advanced military technology can produce the required results, but if at the end of the day these results undermine or seriously weaken the home economy the advantage proves illusory. One does not have to agree with all of Professor Kennedy's arguments to see the considerable merit in his notion of imperial over-reach (Kennedy, Paul, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, New York, 1987Google Scholar). A parallel with the Dutch triumph in the Spice Islands that immediately suggests itself is the price of victory in the Cold War.

156 Glamann, Kristof, Dutch Asiatic Trade 1620–1740 (Copenhagen, 1958), pp. 230, 237, 240, 242;Google Scholar Furber, , Rival Empires, p. 126.Google Scholar A full discussion of the Batavian junk trade and its relationship to the VOC's China trade and the economy of Batavia can be found in Blussé, Leonard, Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women, and the Dutch in the VOC Batavia (Dordrecht, 1986), ch. 6,Google Scholar see esp. pp. 130, 135–8.