Valentyn’s account of Malacca
D. F. A. Hervey’s 1890 continuation of his translation of François Valentijn’s account of Malacca completes the narrative of the Dutch conquest of the Portuguese stronghold in 1641 and extends through the early decades of Dutch administration, drawing on Valentijn’s original manuscript and a contemporary report by Commissioner Justus Schouten dated 26 October 1641. The text is a primary historical source of considerable value for understanding the military, administrative, and diplomatic dimensions of the VOC’s acquisition and governance of Malacca.
Summary
This continuation picks up at the blockade of Malacca in 1640, when the VOC, acting on the resolution of Antoni van Diemen and the Council of India, dispatched Sergeant-Major Adriaan Antonissoon to take the town by force. The narrative details the combined Dutch-Johor siege, the devastating famine and plague that reduced the Portuguese garrison to a fraction of its original strength, and the eventual storming of the town on 14 January 1641 under Captain Mime Willemssoon Kaartekoe. Hervey’s translation preserves Valentijn’s characteristic blend of military detail, moral commentary, and administrative record, including the author’s explicit condemnation of the Portuguese as a “godless” people deserving divine punishment.
The second half of the text shifts to the post-conquest period, cataloguing the succession of Dutch governors from Johan van Twist (first governor, arriving 1 February 1641) through Herman van Sugtelen (eighteenth governor, still in office in 1725). This administrative chronicle is interspersed with diplomatic episodes involving the courts of Acheen and Johor, trade figures for the Coromandel and Persian routes, and the contentious relationship between the VOC’s “seventeen gentlemen” and its colonial officers. Valentijn claims unique access to the personal writings and historical notices of the Malay kings of Malacca, which he presents as a source never before available to European authors.
Key Findings
- The siege of Malacca lasted from August 1640 to January 1641; the town’s population of over 20,000 was reduced to approximately 3,000, with more than 7,000 deaths attributed to famine and pestilence (p. 232).
- The Dutch lost more than 1,500 men, mostly to contagious disease, and suffered the deaths of three successive commanders—Adriaan Antonissoon, Jacob Koper, and Pieter van den Broek—during the siege (pp. 229–230).
- The fortified town was armed with 64 brass and 4 iron guns, 43 brass swivel guns, and 31 iron swivel guns (p. 232).
- The 1669 expenditure of the Malacca government amounted to 201,443 rix dollars, yielding a clear profit of 56,926 rix dollars (p. 241).
- Sultan Ibrahim Shah, the 20th Malay and 14th Muhammadan King of Johor, reigned from 1671 to 1682; his successor Mohammed Shah II (21st Malay, 15th Muhammadan King) reigned until 1699 (pp. 241–242).
- Valentijn asserts that the combined reign of the 22 Malay kings of Malacca, counted from 1160, had lasted 547 years and 11 months by 1708 (p. 243).
Conclusion
Valentijn presents the conquest of Malacca as a divinely ordained vindication against Portuguese impiety, while simultaneously framing it as a testament to Dutch martial virtue. His administrative chronicle, though dense with names and dates, serves the broader purpose of establishing the VOC’s legitimate and continuous sovereignty over the territory from 1641 onward, and his claim to have drawn on previously inaccessible Malay royal records positions his work as an authoritative synthesis of Dutch and indigenous perspectives on the region’s history.
Context
- The translation is based on Valentijn’s original Dutch manuscript and a report by Commissioner Justus Schouten dated 26 October 1641, which Valentijn notes may no longer survive in the official archives at Batavia or Malacca (p. 233).
- Hervey acknowledges the assistance of J. R. Innes in revising the translation and notes that the paper is accompanied by a copy of Valentijn’s map of Malacca (p. 225).