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Recollections of Japan by Hendrik Doeff 256 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0212; ISBN 1-55395-849-7; US$22.50, C$25.99, EUR18.50, £13.00 As the only Western nation allowed to trade with Japan for almost 250 years, the Dutch provided an invaluable lens to the world for Japan during its "closed" period. Of all non-Western nations, it was Japan that was the best informed about all the technological and scientific developments in Europe, hence its rapid development after the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate.
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About the Book
Recollections of Japan is a personal account of living in Tokugawa Japan in the beginning of the nineteenth century, from a European's perspective. The author, Hendrik Doeff, chief of the United Dutch East India Company in Deshima, mastered the Japanese language, giving him a unique grasp of the Japanese culture which he describes with dispassionate, journalistic objectivity and respect.
With Europe engulfed in the Napoleonic wars, Holland occupied by the French and the Dutch colonies usurped by the English, Hendrik Doeff successfully thwarted attempts by the Russians, English and Americans to break the Dutch monopoly on trade with Japan.
Twice English ships forced themselves into the bay of Nagasaki and only Doeff's skill and diplomacy prevented a massacre of the English which in turn might have provoked a was between England and Japan and changed history. Doeff also describes in detail one of his three treks to the Court in Edo and the eagerness of Japanese scholars to obtain Western knowledge. There is a link with America's early history as the Dutch used American ships, to circumvent the capture of their own ships by the English. An embargo imposed by the United States Congress had idled many American ships who sailed to the Pacific instead. This book is a micro history and gives a delicious insight into international intrigues, national pride, hatreds and prejudices in a time of competitive monopoly seeking. Most of all, it reveals how supposedly "closed" Japan kept a window open to the world, especially the West, which explains its rapid transformation from a feudal to an industrialized nation after Perry opened Japan to the wider world.
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About the Author
Hendrik Doeff was born in Amsterdam on December 2, 1777, and sailed to Japan as a scribe for the united Dutch East India Company. Confined to the island of Deshima in the Bay of Nagasaki, he became Chief in 1803 and through force of circumstance, remained in Japan until 1817. He is best known for his Dutch-Japanese Dictionary, the Haruma-Dofu and for having safe guarded the Dutch trade monopoly in Japan.
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Sample Excerpts
I: Translator's Introduction
1, Publishing History.
The book Recollections of Japan by Hendrik Doeff, chief of the
Dutch East India Company in Deshima, Nagasaki, was first
published in 1833 in Haarlem, Holland. Subsequently, it was
translated into Japanese and saw several publications in Japan,
the latest one in 1966. It was not republished in Holland, but
such a move is under consideration given the renewed interest
in Doeff's contribution to the understanding of Tokugawa
Japan by Dutch scholars.
Although the book was never translated in its entirety into
English, an English historian, Mary Margaret Blait Busk (1779-
1863), first discussed Doeff's book extensively in The Quarterly
Review 1836, vol. 54, pages 415-437. She then edited a series
titled Manners and Customs of the Japanese which was based, in
part, on excerpts of Doeff's book in The Asiatic Journal, vol.
29, London 1839. This series was then excerpted "for the
proprietors" from the Asiatic Journal anonymously in The Chinese
Repository, vol. 9 from May to December 1840. The Chinese
Repository was a missionary magazine edited by an American,
the Reverend Samuel Wells Williams (1812-1884). This man
worked for the American mission in Canton, where he was the
honorary Dutch consul as well as the American consul in Hong
Kong. He was on board the American ship Morrison that wasn't
allowed to land in Japan, and in 1853 and 1854 he accompanied
Perry to Japan as a translator.
Mrs. Busk's series, Manners and Customs of the Japanese, was
mainly based on the works of Doeff, Overmeer Fischer,
Meylan, and von Siebold, the latter a physician and the other
former chiefs or employees of the Dutch trading station in
Deshima. Her series was subsequently published in book form
in 1841 in London and New York. On page 120, Mrs. Busk
wrote "Mister Doeff, to whom we are much indebted in
preparing this work." Her book saw reprints in 1845, 1848,
1859.
In 1856, by order of the Congress of the United States, a
book written by Francis L. Hawks for Congress was published
in Washington. Its title was Narrative of the Expedition of an
American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan, performed in the years
1852, 1853, and 1954 under the command of Commodore M. C. Perry,
United States Navy. Several pages of the book pertain to the
period when Doeff, whom Hawks calls "exceedingly shrewd,
adding to the craft of the trader the cunning of the diplomatist,"
was chief in Deshima. Although no source is actually listed
other than H. Doeff writer on Japan, it is clear that the material
comes from Mrs. Busk's series.
Andrew Steinmetz, in his book Japan and Its People (1859),
wrote: "Recollections of Japan by Hendrick Doeff, formerly
president of the Dutch factory at Deshima (Haarlem 1833).
This curious Dutch work has not been translated into English,
but numerous passages from it have appeared in the Quarterly
Review, vol. 56, 1836." This review took excerpts from the
Chinese Repository, and this time the authorship was attributed
to Busk.
In 1973 the Charles E. Tuttle Company of Vermont and
Tokyo published a pocket book titled Manners and Customs of
the Japanese in the 19th Century from the accounts of Dutch residents in
Japan and from the German work of Doctor Philip Franz von Siebold.
Terrence Barrow's introduction to this book does not mention
Busk nor does he acknowledge her authorship. He most likely
got hold of her (anonymous) work from the Chinese Repository.
Donald Keene, in his well-researched book The Japanese
Discovery of Europe (1720-1830), excerpts three passages from
Recollections of Japan and quotes Doeff several times. In a private
communication, professor Keene mentioned that he had
mastered Dutch sufficiently to be able to translate the passage
himself.
A Japanese writer, Agu Saito, wrote a book, Doeff and Japan,
which was published in 1922. Although translated into English,
it was not published officially in that language.1
2, Hendrik Doeff
The author of these recollections was born in Amsterdam on
December 2, 1777 and was baptized in the faith of his mother,
the Lutheran church. He died in that same city on October 19,
1835 and was buried in the family grave at the Lutheran
cemetery of Muiderberg, then situated near the shore of the
Zuiderzee. His father, also named Hendrik, was a ship broker
and one-time member of the Municipal Council of the city of
Amsterdam. The younger Hendrik Doeff was educated in a
French school and after graduation was employed by the
company of I. F. Taunay. This company went bankrupt soon
thereafter due to the French occupation of Holland and the
Napoleonic wars. Now unemployed, Hendrik applied to the
VOC, the Vereenigde Oost-Indie Companie or the (Dutch) United
East India Company, for a job as second buyer in Batavia (now
Jakarta), capital of the Dutch East Indies. On June 7, 1798, he
was appointed to and sworn in as second buyer by the
Committee for East Indian Trade and Possessions at a salary
of forty guilders per month. Like all prospective employees
of the VOC at that time, he had to swear an oath to the Batavian
Republic.2
After his appointment, Hendrik was told to leave at the
earliest possible opportunity. This posed a problem. Since
Holland was now closely allied to powerful France and thus at
war with England, it was no longer able to protect its ships
against attacks of the British navy. This meant that only neutral
ships, mostly Danish and American vessels hired by the Dutch,
could maintain Holland's connection to its colonies in the Far
East. Doeff was lucky, and barely a month after being hired,
he was able to sail, on July 5, 1798, to Denmark. From Elsinore,
he subsequently boarded the Danish ship Fadrelandet and set
sail for Java. A year later, on June 1, 1799, he arrived in Batavia
and was immediately appointed to the position of dispenser
and scribe in Japan. As June was the month that ships normally
set sail for Japan, he was able, after only a couple of days, to
board the American ship Franklin under Captain Devereux.
He arrived in Nagasaki in July, 1799. Little did he realize that
he would live on that little artificial island of Deshima, first
built on high ground in the bay of Nagasaki for the Portuguese
in 1634, as a virtual prisoner for 18 years.
Hendrik's book was part of our legacy but was tucked
away in a drawer as a curiosity rather than as something of
value beyond the family. Initially undertaken as a family project,
since several of Hendrik Doeff's descendants are now
American and no longer speak Dutch, this translation soon
took on an unanticipated dimension. It became clear that a lot
of historical semantic and bibliographical research was needed
to do this remarkable book justice.
In rereading it after several decades, the translator was
struck by how lively, fresh, and interesting this book, now almost
200 years old, still is. It represented history in a microcosm
with all its human dimensions of national pride and national
hatreds, as well as of political and international intrigues.
Written from the perspective of one who lived some of that
history and built on past history to give his experience depth,
Doeff was able to transcend his personal predicament and
discomfort. He writes with honesty and eloquence what it was
like to live as a European in a closed Japan around 1800 and
paints a picture of the Japanese, their culture, and their society
that indicates both a dispassionate objectivity and a real
understanding of that country. In rereading his book, it became
clear what an invaluable insight the book provided into a Japan
few foreigners really knew at a time when the country had been
closed to the outside world for almost 200 years.
Forced through a fluke of history, the Napoleonic wars,
to remain in Japan for eighteen years (Dutch chiefs normally
had to be replaced every five years at that time if not sooner),
only Hendrik Doeff had both the time and the inclination to
endeavor to get a real grasp of this truly alien culture. This
fortuitous situation combined with an exceptionally bright and
versatile personality, earned him a unique position among
Deshima chiefs. With a few notable exceptions, they had not
been inclined to learn the language nor had they shown much
interest in trying to understand their host country where, to be
fair, they were virtually held in captivity. Only a few wrote
their experiences down which was perhaps also due to the fact
that the VOC was not particularly keen to have its employees
write about Japan lest its competitors take advantage of this
information.
When almost no ships arrived for several years, Hendrik
Doeff used his forced idleness to enhance his knowledge of
Japan by truly mastering its language. A natural curiosity about
the world in general combined with an instinct for fairness in
human affairs, made him a keen and astute observer of this
land. He used the knowledge he acquired to hone his skills in
dealing with the complicated and difficult Japanese, not only
on a commercial, but on a diplomatic and political level as well.
These skills also served him well in his dealings with Western
nations who tried, peacefully or forcefully, to dislodge the Dutch
from their monopolistic position. As his knowledge and
understanding grew, so did his respect and understanding of
the Japanese character in all its positive and negative aspects.
In turn, it earned him respect and trust in his judgment among
the basically mistrustful Japanese.
Of all the Dutch chiefs or, for that matter, all the other
employees of the VOC, it was Doeff alone who truly mastered
the Japanese language, thereby giving depth to his understanding
of the Japanese and their culture. He became so fluent in the
language that he was able, in addition to writing haiku3 of high
quality, to fashion a Dutch-Japanese dictionary. This
accomplishment cannot be underestimated given that for over
two centuries Dutch was the only official Western language
Japan used to communicate with the world and through which
all Western knowledge entered Japan. The first two American
ambassadors to Japan had to avail themselves of Dutch
translators until the Japanese learned English and the
importance of the Dutch language declined.
Doeff's linguistic skills also permitted him to forge lasting
friendships with scholars, translators, and government officials,
low and high alike. This helped him immensely in the many
predicaments in which he found himself time and again. In
short, Doeff's description of his experiences, of Japan, of its
people and its customs, seems as objective, fair and balanced
as one would expect of a well-trained modern journalist. It
also makes his book a source of great value and interest to
American scholars of a pre-Commodore Perry closed Japan
and worthy of a larger American readership for this and other
reasons as well.
One of these is that the book has a connection with the
early history of the young American republic and its relationship
to the Dutch. For many years, American ships and their captains
who were chartered in the service of the Dutch, regularly plied
the sea routes from Batavia to Nagasaki. They in turn brought
back stories of this mysterious land to the young republic.
The Americans and the Dutch, who had been the first, in
1776, to recognize the flag of the United States of America
and the first to give financial aid, were united at that time in
their antagonism toward the English. Holland was at war with
Britain, and the British had seized not only the Dutch East
Indies but other Dutch possessions elsewhere as well.
In 1793, France and England declared war on each other
and each ordered the seizure of neutral American ships bound
to the ports of the other. British ships not only seized American
ships but kidnapped their crews and pressed them into the
service of the Royal Navy, especially if they had been born in
Britain or in the colonies before the revolution, and thus, in
their eyes, were still British. This situation became so bad that
in 1807, under the presidency of Jefferson, Congress passed
the Embargo Act prohibiting the sailing of merchant ships
from any American port. This act, however widely evaded it
was, created economic hardships and left American ships idle.
Many of these ships were diverted to the Pacific where the
Dutch, no longer able to protect their own ships from the
British, hired these neutral vessels, especially for their trade
with Japan. That neutrality however did not deter the British,
no doubt still bitter about losing their colonies, from frequently
attacking or harassing them. This and other abuses eventually
led to the war of 1812.
Another rather interesting incident gives evidence perhaps
of lingering American antagonism toward the British. In 1807
a squadron of the British fleet under rear admiral Sir Edward
Pellew forced its way into the roadstead of Surabaya, Java.
Pellew then sent a delegation, among whom was his son
Fleetwood, to shore demanding that all Dutch ships be handed
over under threat to destroy the city. The commander in
Surabaya refused to comply and, declaring that the English
were spies, ordered that they be taken prisoner. This of course
was against all international conventions. A curious fact is that
the man who gave this order was not Dutch but American, a
captain by the name of Cowell, who was in the service of the
Dutch. One can speculate that he saw an opportunity, if an
unlawful one, to get back at the British who had seized so
many American ships and taken their crews prisoner.
Another early Dutch-American link is one of competition.
A Dutch historian4 in a book called The Battle around Deshima
states that several nations jealous of the Dutch trade monopoly
in Japan, in particular Britain, Russia, and the United States of
America, tried to dislodge the Dutch from their privileged position.
A good case can be made for the first two nations, as
Hendrik Doeff describes so vividly in his book. The case in
regard to the United States is a more dubious one. It is based
on the actions of a shady character, an American by the name
of William Robert Stewart. This man first arrived in Nagasaki
in the service of the Dutch, but then returned, apparently on
his own, to try and get permission to trade with Japan for the
Americans "whose king he declared was named Jefferson." The
present translator received a letter from the curator of the
Essex-Peabody museum in Salem, Massachusetts who,
informed of the existence of Hendrik Doeff's recollections,
inquired whether by any chance William Robert Stewart was
mentioned in his book. The letter stated that Stewart was an
enigmatic figure, that a lot of mystery surrounded him, and
that it wasn't quite clear whether he was actually an American
or not. Doeff, who mentions him extensively in his book,
clearly didn't think so.
That leaves one other possible episode in which the United
States might have tried establishing trade relations with Japan.
It concerns a ship belonging to the Russian-American Company
which landed in Japan, supposedly by accident, because it was
in need of water. Some sources claim its true aim was to effect
a trade agreement. If that assumption is correct, it would have
been more a Russian than an American attempt. Only decades
later did the United States, impatient with Japan's isolation policy
and desiring normal relations, force the issue. To the translator's
knowledge, the United States never tried to dislodge the Dutch
from their trade monopoly in the same surreptitious, belligerent
or underhanded way as the British and Russians tried to do
during Doeff's tenure.
from CHAPTER IV
My Further Stay in Japan Until My Departure in 1817
Shortly after my return from Edo in 1806, the hired American
ship America under Captain Henry Lelar, as well as the Bremer
ship Visurgis under Captain G. Herklots arrived. Due to the
continuing war, I again had a much unwanted cargo on my
hands for which I still (but with great difficulty) received a
rather decent return cargo. In June of 1807, news arrived that
a ship had been sighted. It was too early in the year for the
arrival of our ships,1 but we soon received from a Japanese
ship a note written in very broken Dutch from which we gleaned
that the ship requested water and other provisions which it
lacked. Subsequently, as is the custom, a note from the governor
of Nagasaki requested that I, together with a commission of
chief banyos, go out to the ship to gather the necessary
information. It soon turned out that the ship flew an American
flag, and we went on board. I do not remember the name of
the captain, but the ship, if I remember correctly, was called
Eclipse.2 The captain asked me to intercede with the Japanese
Government in order to get water and wood for stoking. On
his way from Canton to the north-west coast of America, the
captain had struggled with adverse winds for 43 days, and was
in need of those provisions. On my urgent intercession with
the Japanese and strong affirmative answer to their question
whether it was truly an American ship (which, from the papers
I had read, left no doubt), his request was granted the next day.
He was then ordered to leave the shores of the realm with the
utmost speed. The captain wanted to pay for the provisions,
but the Japanese refused to accept anything. The next day, the
ship set sail for the open seas. There was a woman from the
Sandwich Islands on board this ship whose name was Cariabo.
She had quite a presence and was not at all bad looking were it
not for the fact that her whole face was tattooed, something
that surprised the Japanese who came on board quite a bit.
On July 22, 1807, the American ship Mount Vernon, which
we had hired, arrived under the command of Captain John
Davidson. On board was Mr. Hendrik Voorman, sea captain
in the colonial service. Before the American ship, another hired
one, the Danish boat Susanna under the command of Captain
Ditmar Smit, had already arrived and had brought us the news
that Louis Napoleon had become King of Holland.3 I
immediately informed the Japanese of this. In this year, I had
the pleasure of receiving in the cargo genuine Leiden sheets,
which had not happened since 1795. As the natives ascribed
this arrival to my good care, the regents of Nagasaki, out of
gratitude, offered me a hundred gold kobans, which they
themselves handed to me. Apart from the troubles I had with
the always drunken and difficult captain Davidson, and with
the previously mentioned Captain Stewart (of whom I still have
doubts that he was an American), I recognize with pleasure
that the American captains with whom I had dealings, J.
Devereux, W. V. Hutchings, S. Derby, G. Stiles, J. Deal, and
Lelar (who was, however, Dutch born) always presented
themselves as honest and very decent men who brought honor
to their country.
Catalogue Information
