Trials and Travels of Willem Leyel: An Account of the Danish East India Company in Tranquebar, 1639-48

182 Pages·2009·4.152 MB·English

by  Asta Bredsdorff MA

On November 8, 1639, Willem Leyel left Denmark as com-
mander of the ship Christianshavn bound for the Danish
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colony of Tranquebar with its fortress Dansborg, where
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he was to take charge of all trading operations of the first ee

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Danish East India Company. The voyage, however, be- rr
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came a seemingly endless nightmare of difficulties and
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disasters. a a
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When Leyel finally reached Tranquebar almost four
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years later, he found the fortress in a state of complete T T
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disrepair – with the former governor having run off with aa
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everything of value. But despite having only a few men in ee
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his service, barely any capital and almost no possibility
oo The Trials and Travels
of communicating with the managers of the Company in ff

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Copenhagen, Leyel managed to turn things around – be-
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friending local princes and establishing a profitable trade ll
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mm of Willem Leyel
with their kingdoms, at times even resorting to piracy in

order to preserve Tranquebar on Danish hands. LL
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Drawing on Leyel’s own letters and papers located in yy
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The National Archives in Copenhagen, Asta Bredsdorff ll An Account of the Danish
ingeniously weaves together the rich narrative strains in
East India Company
order to produce a moving and memorable account of
Leyel’s exploits in the East Indies. The source material
in Tranquebar,
even allows for a reconstruction of several dramatic epi-
sodes down to the last detail. 1639-48
The Trials and Travels of Willem Leyel offers a fascinating
account of personal fortitude, courage and determination

as well as a unique and fantastic glimpse of the condi-
tions in Tranquebar at the time, of life at sea during the Asta Bredsdorff
dangerous voyages and of Danish history in general.
Asta Bredsdorff was born in southern India. She has
written several books on English maritime history.
ISISBBNN 997788--8877--66335533--002233--11
Museum Tusculanum Press
9 788763 530231
www.mtp.dk
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the trials and travels of Willem leyel
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Asta Bredsdorff
The Trials and Travels of Willem Leyel
An Account of the Danish East India Company in Tranquebar,
1639-1648
museum tusculanum Press
University of Copenhagen
2009
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Asta Bredsdorff
The Trials and Travels of Willem Leyel
An Account of the Danish East India Company in Tranquebar,
1639-48
Museum Tusculanum Press
University of Copenhagen
2009
78360_willem_r2.indd 3 6/9/09 11:11 AM
Asta Bredsdorff: The Trials and Travels of Willem Leyel: An Account
of the Danish East India Company in Tranqubar, 1639-48
© Museum Tusculanum Press and the author, 2009
Language revision by Roda Morrison
Originally published in Danish as Willem Leyels liv og farefulde
rejse til Indien (Museum Tusculanum Press, 1999)
Set and printed by Narayana Press, www.narayanapress.dk
ISBN 978 87 635 3023 1
Cover illustration: Ove Gjedde’s fortress Dansborg in
Tranquebar. Courtesy of Skokloster, Sweden
This book is published with financial support from
Konsul George Jorck og hustru Emma Jorck’s Fond
VELUX FONDEN
Museum Tusculanum Press
126 Njalsgade
DK-2300 Copenhagen S
www.mtp.dk
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ConTenTs
Foreword 7
Chapter 1 The Beginning 9
Chapter 2 Willem leyel 17
Chapter 3 Preparations for the voyage 27
Chapter 4 The new voyage 34
Chapter 5 Obstacles 64
Chapter 6 Claus rytter and The Gilded Sun 71
Chapter 7 leyel arrives 86
Chapter 8 The Clergymen 106
Chapter 9 The Fate of Berent Pessart 120
Chapter 10 “laus deo in Tranquebar” 126
Chapter 11 The last voyages 152
Chapter 12 rebellion 167
Bibliography 178
Chronology of events in leyel’s life 180
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ForeWord
it is some time since i came across the unique material to be found in
Willem leyel’s and Claus rytter’s papers in The danish state archives
in Copenhagen, denmark. Here you can get a first-hand impression of
the old danish east india Company’s activities in the first half of the
seventeenth century – a piece of danish history that suddenly comes to
life when you can handle the letters and reports of the main characters
and thus gain some insight into the enormous difficulties that confronted
them during the long voyages to the east and the huge efforts neces-
sary to carry on trade in foreign countries with insufficient capital and
a chronic lack of men to replace the many who died or deserted. But
perhaps the worst privation for the little colony at Tranquebar in south-
ern india at this time was the lack of contact with home – the first ship
from denmark after leyel’s own arrival in 1642 did not turn up until
1669. in the intervening years the men left to direct the enterprise must
often have asked themselves whether there was any point in carrying on.
in spite of the huge difficulties they faced they nevertheless elected
to keep things going by whatever means came to hand – and these were
not always for the squeamish. They had many problems: clashes with the
local rulers, competition from other european nations, drunkenness and
unruliness among the garrison, the shipwreck of several of the almost
irreplaceable ships, doubts as to the best trading stations, famine result-
ing in a dearth of the cotton goods that formed the main staple of trade
with the east indies, from where one had to buy the spices demanded
by the european nations. it is hardly to be wondered at that men could
not cope under these conditions; but the will to hang on conquered, and
thanks to Willem leyel and the new leaders who came after him, the
fortress of dansborg survived on danish hands until the arrival of a new
ship twenty-seven years later.
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Chapter 1
The Beginning
a wave of new enterprise and daring swept over europe in the first years
of the seventeenth century. as early as 1498 the Portuguese had discovered
the sea route to india around the southern tip of africa and had then been
able to profit from their monopoly for a hundred years without interfer-
ence from other european nations. But in 1600 the english formed their
east india Company with a patent from Queen elizabeth i, and in 1602
the netherlands followed suit with a similar company, the vOC. From
then on english and dutch ships brought their own rich cargoes home.
at this time the east was still something of a fairytale land. it was
here all the exotic new spices were to be found; here were pearls and
diamonds, peculiar creatures such as elephants, tigers, crocodiles, monkeys,
and peacocks. and possibly in some still unknown country – though
the likelihood seemed to diminish with every passing year – the strange
people spoken of in the middle ages: men with dog’s heads; men with
one foot so large it could be used as a parasol to shield one from the sun;
men with such long ears that one could lie on one of them and use the
other as a coverlet.
The spices, however, were real enough, although the old stories of
how on some islands they lay on the ground in such heaps that they
could easily be shovelled into sacks were somewhat exaggerated. in the
beginning it had been the spices that had drawn the europeans out on
the dangerous long voyages down the western coast of africa in the hope
of finding a sea route to india, and now that the Portuguese, english,
and dutch companies had established trading stations in the east a steady
stream of the costly merchandise flowed around the Cape of Good Hope
to europe.
To be sure, the days were long past when pepper was weighed on
special scales behind closed doors for fear that a breath of air might carry
away even a grain of the precious condiment. The demand for the eastern
spices had grown rapidly: by 1620 annual imports are said to have reached
7,000,000 pounds of pepper, 490,000 pounds of cloves, 450,000 pounds
of nutmeg, and 180,000 pounds of mace. But even in leyel’s time, more
than a hundred years after vasco da Gama, prices were still so high that
even though ships were regularly lost on the long voyage around africa
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