As Fernandez-Armesto (Reference Fernandez-Armesto, Fernandez-Armesto and Blussé2003: 185) noted, early modern Asia was a world of strangers. This was but a corollary of the mobility of commodities, people, and ideas that shaped maritime Asia. While the Hakluyt Society has, for the past century and more, published journals and travel accounts in English written by early modern British travellers, ship captains, and expedition commanders between the late 16th and the 20th centuries, far fewer non-English travel accounts of early modern Asia have been made available to English reading audiences, especially from Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish corpuses. Notable exceptions include Blair and Robertson (Reference Blair and Robertson1903–1909), a voluminous translation into English of early modern Spanish records and accounts of the Philippines, while the Linschoten-Vereniging had a long tradition of publishing early modern and 19th century Dutch ship journals, travel accounts, and studies by travellers and ship captains. Nevertheless, knowledge and study about these travellers have largely followed national and linguistic lines, although some important accounts have been translated into other languages.
Peter Borschberg's Memoirs and Memorials of Jacques de Coutre is an annotated translation of the autobiography, reports, and proposals written by such a ‘stranger’ figure in maritime Asia. Jacques de Coutre was a Flemish gem trader who operated between bases in Goa, Melaka, and Manila between 1591 and 1623. Coming from Bruges, in Belgium, de Coutre (or do Couto) worked not within the structures of the Dutch East India Company or its forerunners, but within the spheres of the Portuguese maritime empire in Asia. His ventures brought him all across maritime Asia as far east as Manila.
De Coutre's career straddled a crucial period of transition in the European engagement with Asia that was marked by the challenges posed to the Portuguese Estado da India by the Dutch and British East India Companies. He survived the growing regulations against non-Portuguese settlers in the Portuguese colonies, and accusations of collaboration with the Dutch East India Company, until 1623 when he was finally deported to Europe by the Portuguese authorities in Goa.
De Coutre's memoirs and memorials provide an important window into the world of maritime Southeast Asia and various aspects of social, economic, and political life in places like Melaka, Ayutthaya, Pahang, Johor, and Manila. They also reflect the strategies and vicissitudes of not only the Portuguese Estado and northern European companies, but also the individual traders and priests, both European and Asian, who played important intermediary roles in facilitating company projects.
The writings are of special interest to scholars of the Malay world, particularly de Coutre's accounts of Johor and Patani and proposals for a fortified position on the north western coast of Sentosa, off Singapore, to protect Iberian interests in the region. They also provide important nuggets of information on the early modern history of Singapore, pointing out how the island was associated with the Sabandar of the Johor polity, and the possibilities of establishing a strategic outpost on Sentosa. De Coutre's suggestions for countering Dutch trade and advancing Spanish and Portuguese commercial interests in the region not only provide useful information on commodity flows and markets in maritime Asia, but also reflected the ways in which trade and politics were inextricably interlinked.
This collection of papers, kept at the National Library in Madrid, Spain, has long been known to scholars of early modern maritime Asia, especially Belgian and Dutch scholars, as Borschberg points out. He also discusses earlier editions that published transcriptions and translations of parts of the collection. The memoirs and memorials have also been published in their entirety as a volume in a Spanish-language series on the Americas. Some of these editions suffered from the lack of annotations as well as contextual notes, which prevented the effective use of these materials by professional historians and the broader public alike. The lack of an annotated English translation also meant that these documents remained inaccessible to audiences who did not know Spanish or Dutch.
Borschberg's detailed introduction, annotations, and selection of maps and illustrations complement this new translation by Roopanjali Roy. Borschberg provides important contextual information on the career of de Coutre with respect to the socio-cultural, political, and economic history of Europe and Asia. He also compares de Coutre's career with European contemporaries who traded or served in Southeast Asia during this critical transitional period of European engagement with the region, such as Christovao van Undiston and Ferdinand Cron. This annotated edition also includes translations of additional primary documents pertaining to de Coutre and the events he describes originating from the National Archives in the Netherlands.
Borschberg also delves into issues underlying the authorship of the memoirs and memorials, such as why and how they were written. He underscores the ways the intended audience and literary conventions of the time shaped the narratives in both the memoirs and memorials. For instance, he explained that de Coutre was keen to reiterate his loyalty to the Habsburg monarchy in Spain, his disappointment with the Portuguese, and his personal achievements and knowledge of Asia.
This annotated translation of the memoirs and memorials of de Coutre is an important source publication for both the professional historian and general public. It provides an interesting case study straddling the periods covered in the works of Jan Huygens van Linschoten, which were translated into English and published as early as 1598 (Linschoten Reference Linschoten and Phillip1598), and of Francisco de Vieira de Figueiredo, an itinerant Portuguese trader also writing in this period (Boxer Reference Boxer1967). Ultimately, it fills an important gap for an English language audience interested in early modern Southeast Asian history and global history.
