BRITAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS IN EUROPE AND ASIA

Transcription

1 BRITAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS IN EUROPE AND ASIA

2 Britain and the Netherlands in Europe and Asia Papers delivered to the Third Anglo-Dutch Historical Conference Edited by J. S. Bromley and E. H. Kossmann Palgrave Macmillan 1968

3 Editorial matter J. S. Bromley and E. H. Kossmann Text Macmillan and Co Ltd Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1968 Published by MACMILLAN AND CO LTD Little Essex Street London WC2 and also at Bombay Calcutta and Madras Macmillan South Africa (Publishers) Pty Ltd Johannesburg The Macmillan Company of Australia Pty Ltd Melbourne The Macmillan Company of Canada Ltd Toronto St Martins Press Inc New York Library of Congress catalog card no ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI /

4 PIAE MEMORIAE PETRI GEYL PRAECEPTORIS PRUDENTIS SCRIPTORIS PRAECLARI AMICI EGREGII GRATO ANIMO DEDICATUM

5 Contents I ~~s 8 Preface 9 Abbreviations I I The Netherlands and Europe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries by J. W. Smit, Columbia University, New York I3 2 English Attitudes to Europe in the Seventeenth Century by J. R.Jones, University ofeastanglia 37 3 Aspects ofdutch Colonial Development in Asia in the Seventsenth Century by M.A. P. Meilink-Roelofsz, Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague 56 4 Early English Trade and Settlement in Asia, I602-I690 by D. K. Bassett, University of Hull 83 5 Britain as a European Power from her Glorious Revolution to the French Revolutionary War by Alice C. Carter, London School of Economics and Political Science 6 The Netherlands in the European Scene, I by]. C. Boogman, Rijksuniversiteit, Utrecht England and Europe, by Alun Davies, University College of Swansea Britain as an Imperial Power in South-East Asia in the Nineteenth Century by J. S. Bastin, School of Oriental and African Studies, London The Netherlands as an Imperial Power in South-East Asia in the Nineteenth Century and After by S. L. van der Wal, Rijksuniversiteit, Utrecht The Dutch Retreat from Empire by H. Baudet, Rijksuniversiteit, Groningen 207 n The British Retreat from Empire by A. J. Hanna, University of Southampton 234 Index no

6 CONTENTS MAPS (i) Dutch and English in the Far East, ca. I68o (ii) Malaysia and Indonesia in the nineteenth century 190 8

7 Preface With the exception of Chapters 2 and 5, which were specially written for it, this book consists of papers presented to the Third Anglo-Dutch Conference of Historians, which took place in London between 19 and 24 September The editors wish to record their keen sense of obligation to the organisers of that meeting- especially to Professors C. R. Boxer and S. T. Bindoff and to Mrs Alice Carter - as well as to the Marquess of Salisbury, the Trustees of the National Maritime Museum, the University of London and several of its constituent Colleges, whose hospitality they were fortunate to enjoy. There is another debt of gratitude which it is fitting to record. While the Netherlands Ministry of Education has generously continued to meet some of the expenses of the Dutch membership, it is not the practice of the British government to subsidise conferences of this kind. This one accordingly owed much to the kindly interest of the Shell Transport and Trading Company, Unilever, and Philips Industries, all of whom affirmed their belief in the value of academic traffic across the North Sea and in the relevance ofhistorical study. In spite of unavoidable changes of publisher and format, the present volume may be regarded as the third in the series 'Britain and the Netherlands' which was launched in 1960 by Chatto & Windus, with the backing of St Antony's College, Oxford, and continued in 1964 by J. B. Wolters of Groningen, acting for the Historical Institute of the University of Utrecht. A small addition to the title on this occasion is intended as a rough indication of the two major enquiries which formed the programme of the 1966 Conference. The first of these might be described as the study, still in its infancy, of changing attitudes in Britain and the Netherlands to 9

8 PREFACE the respective situations, at times even to the raison d'ltre, of the two countries in the highly unstable power-complex which remains so prominent a feature of modem European history, however much we should wish to stress (and still need to explore) the cultural and institutional sympathies implied in the concept of a Western civilisation. It is to be hoped that English and Dutch historians will one day be able to confer on the subject of their cultural and institutional environments, so much akin as the world goes and yet so strangely and subtly diverse; and there is need to explain further the contrasts of national mentality which may strike the attentive reader in the pages here presented. He will readily understand why their bias is towards Anglo-Dutch relations in particular, and perhaps concede that these were of outstanding importance, at least from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, to western Europe as a whole. The history of Anglo-Dutch relations is of course 1led with tensions and misunderstandings. For the origin of these, as everyone knows, the rivalry between two trading powers in Asia had much to do, although there is still a great deal that we do not know about the 'fort and factory' stage of European intervention in the Far East. Less familiar to most people is the mutual distrust bequeathed by the East India Companies to the territorial empires which they founded. It seems hardly too much to say that the later history of Netherlands India is only now being written, while recent work has thrown a fresh light on British activity in South-East Asia during the nineteenth century. The character of both empires, and not least the motivation which gave rise to them and influenced the imperial policy-making itself, is still open to judgement. Meanwhile, historians face problems which to the unwary may appear no more interesting than yet another foregone conclusion in the chain of inevitability: the recent and in many respects obscure history of the 'retreat from empire'. This group of questions constitutes the second main theme of our volume. Since all the questions here discussed are large in proportion to the scope of a single chapter, and in many cases are questions under active revision by scholars, it has been decided to add short reading lists as an initial guide for the benefit of students or amateurs who may be stimulated to further enquiry. An attempt has been made to include representative collections of printed source materials as IO

9 PR.EFACB well as monographs and general histories in these 'bibliographies', but of necessity they are as a rule highly selective. The place of publication is London unless otherwise stated. J. S. B. E.H.K. Abbreviations ARA BKI BM CCM EFI EIC IOL PEC RGP VKI VOC Algemeen Rijksarchief Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie. Uitgegeven door het Koninklijk Instituut voor de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie British Museum A Calendar of Court Minutes etc. of the East India Company , ed. E. B. Sainsbury (Oxford, ) The English Factories in India, [ , etc.] ed. W. Foster [Sir C. Fawcett, etc.] (Oxford, 19o6 [ 1908, etc.]) East India Company India Office Library, London Parlementaire Enquetecommissie Regeringsbeleid, 194o-1945 (The Hague, 1956) Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatien Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie V ereenigde Oostindische Compagnie II