De reys van kapiteyn Johan Saris, behelsende sijne aanmerkingen van 't geene, ten tijde van sijn verblijf tot Bantam in Oost-Indien voorviel, van October 1605, tot October 1609. Als mede de verrigting van een Hollandse vloot voor Malacca, onder den commandeur de Jonge Matelief, en het aantasten van Mosambique, onder Paulus van Caarden

Key Properties

Edition: the Dutch translation published by Pieter van der Aa, the title-page stating it is translated from the English for the first time ("Nu aldereerst uyt het Engels vertaald")

Imprint: Te Leyden, by Pieter vander Aa, Boekverkoper. Met Privilegie (undated)

Illustration: title-page with an engraved allegorical vignette signed J. Goeree del.; one engraving in the text on p. 5, showing a landing party before a fortified town ("Met noodig Register en Konst-Print verrijkt")

Size: 34 x 45 cm

Binding: in a plain heavy paper cover

Collation & Technical Description

Title-page with engraved vignette.

De reys van Kapiteyn Johan Saris, pp. 1-10, the text ending with "Eynde" on p. 10, followed on the same page by the Register der voornaamste saaken, ending with "Eynde"; with an engraving in the text on p. 5.

Size: 34 x 45 cm.

Condition

Some foxing and light wear, consistent with age.

References & Bibliography

STCN 190890509 (this part); STCN 190036478 (De wijd-beroemde voyagien na Oost- en West-Indien ... gedaan door de Engelsen)

Tiele, Nederlandsche bibliographie van land- en volkenkunde (Amsterdam 1884), p. 4

Description

John Saris stayed behind at Bantam on Java as a factor of the English East India Company when Henry Middleton's fleet sailed for England on 7 October 1605. This is his journal of the four years that followed, kept month by month until he himself left for England on the Hector on 4 October 1609, after "4 years, 9 months and 11 days" in the country.

It is a running record of life at the busiest port of the Indies: the arrival and departure of English, Dutch, Chinese and Gujarati ships and their cargoes of pepper, cloves, nutmeg and mace, the prices of goods and the weights in use, Sir Edward Michelborne's capture of a Gujarati junk, the great fire in the Chinese quarter, an eclipse of the moon and the Chinese reaction to it, an earthquake, the murder of the Governor of Bantam in 1608, and Saris's own dealings with the court. Much of it concerns the Dutch: the report that a Dutch pinnace had sought gold in New Guinea, the fleet of eleven ships under Cornelis Matelief de Jonge before Malacca and its sea battle with the Portuguese in 1606, and the voyage of Paulus van Caerden, whose attack on the castle of Mozambique in 1607 is told at length, followed by his cruise along the Indian coast to Goa and Calicut. The engraving on p. 5 belongs to that part of the narrative.

Historical Significance

Saris's Bantam journal is one of the earliest English eyewitness records of the East India Company's first factory in Asia, and an outside view of the Dutch in the years when the VOC was establishing itself in the archipelago. Saris later commanded the Company's first voyage to Japan (1611-1614), but that voyage is not part of this text.

Pieter van der Aa (1659-1733) of Leiden published, from 1706 onwards, a large collection of voyage accounts translated into Dutch, issued as separate parts with their own title-pages and later gathered into his collected editions. This part belongs to the series of English voyages.