LA INVASIÓN DETENIDA: VALMY (20 de Septiembre de 1792 )

Pulo Condore also ended in death. The accounts given by the English and the Vietnamese disagreed with each other both on the cause and the date of the event. The English version claimed that Allan Catchpole, president of the factory of the English East India Company, "got some Maccassers to serve for soldiers, and help build a fortification, and made a firm contract with them to discharge them at the end of 3 years". For some reason he reneged on the contract at the end. So the "revengeful and cruel" Maccassers killed almost all of the English in 1705.94

According to the Tien Bien, however, the killings happened in 1703 rather than 1705. If this is correct, it means that the murders had nothing to do with the contract, which had not yet expired. The Tien Bien says that 15 Javanese (or Malays) had been recruited by Truong Phuc Phan, a Nguyen general, who had ordered them to pretend to serve the English in order to find a chance to kill them. And, it adds, the Nguyen rewarded the Javanese for their deed.95

While there is no other evidence to support the date given by the Tien Bien, some English sources strongly support^that tSe deaths could not have happened in 1703. According to The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834. the Catherine, a ship of the English Company, arrived at Pulo Condore on July 5th, 1704. On her departure, "the President and Council ordered 4 chests to be landed from her for the use of the factory".95 This "president" could not be anybody but Allen Catchpole, who obviously was alive in 1704. This was confirmed by another 5 ships - the Kent, the Eaton, the Loyal Cooke, the

Herne, and the Stretham enroute to China in 1704, all calling at Pulo Condore for orders in late July 1704.97

Although Allen Catchpole was blamed for making a "bad choice for a colony” in Pulo Condore, for a time the English Company’s ships did call there regularly for orders and to exchange commercial intelligence. But after the competition between

94 Alexander Hamilton, "A new account of the East Indies", in John Pinkerton, A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and travels in All Parts of the World, London, 1811, vol.8,pp.480-481.

94 Tien Bien, Vol.7, pp.106-107.

“ Morse, H.B., The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1926, vol.l, p.130.

97 Ibid, p.137. There is a seven years gap between 1705 and 1711 in the extant records of

the English trade in China, presumably the records of 1705 were destroyed when the Maccassers fired the fort in Pulo Condore.

the "old" and "new" Companies had increased prices in India and oversupplied the m arket in England, the English Company sent no more ships from India to England, or from England to China, but only ships from India to China to "allow time for the Indian markets to return to normal conditions and for stocks in England to be reduced". All such ships stopped at Pulo Condore for directions from the President and Council.98

The Southeast Asians

That trade links existed between Dang Trong and other Southeast Asian countries should not be neglected. Though not well documented, these links seem to have played a small but significant role in Cochinchina’s trade. But historically their most important feature was probably that they were two-way relations. For the first time in history, numbers of Vietnamese set out on trading voyages with the full blessing of their government, while neighbouring kingdoms were able to trade with a Vietnamese state without having to disguise their commercial relations as "tribute" to the emperor.

Trade with Manila began in 1620, and reached its peak at the end of the 1660s, when four Dang Trong junks per years sailed there.99 During this period, Dang Trong junks also voyaged regularly to Batavia. In 1637, for instance, the Daghregister recorded one junk, loaded with Cambodian rice, arrived in Batavia. It also noted th at the junk, owned by the king and high officials (presumably of

D ang Trong), would ship 150 last (or 300 tons) from Cambodia to Cochinchina.100 This particular trade was not unusual at the time: in 1636, sources repeatedly mentions rice exported from Cambodia and Siam to Cochinchina.101 The Nguyen rulers also traded directly with Siam, too. In 1632, for example, we hear of a ju n k dispatched by them to Siam th at carried 10,000 tael of silver as capital.102

“ Ibid, pp.127-128.

99 Bertin, J., Bonin, S., & Chaunu,P., Les Philipines et le Pacifique des Ibriques. Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris, pp.60-62.

100 Daghregister, Chinese translation by Guo Hui, vol.l, p.198. 101 Ja n Dircsz Gaelen, "Journeal ofte voornaemste geschiedenisse in Cambodia", in Hendrik Muller, De Oost-Indische Compagnie in Cambodia en Laos: Verzameching van bescheiden van 1636 tot 1670. The Hague, NijhofT, 1917, pp.61-124.

102 Journal of Brownuershaven and Sloterdyck in 1633, quoted from Iwao, pp.263-264.

Trade was not restricted to royal families and high officials. The Kai-hentai gives us a tantalising glimpse of much wider participation when reporting the comment of some Chinese merchants in Siam:"We are familiar with Guang Nan people who from time to time visit Siam, where we have seen them".103

Certainly Cochinchina’s neighbours came in greater number. Bowyear actually gave the list of countries and the products they brought to Cochinchina:

From Siam, petre, sapan, lac, necarie, elephant’s teeth, tin, lead, rice. From Camboja, camboia, bejamin, carldamons, wax, lac, necarie, coyalaca, and sapanwood, dammar, buffalo’s hides, deer skins and nerves, elephant’s teeth, rhinosceros’ horns, etc..

From Batavia, silver, brimstone, petre, coase bastaes, red and white, vermillion.

From Manila, silver, brimstone, sapan, cowries, tobacco, wax, deer nerves, etc..104

The presence of Vietnamese traders tends to be overwhelmed by the dominant role of Japanese and Chinese merchants and middlemen at the time. Yet fragmentary as the sourceJare, they do indicate an attem pt by 17th century Dang Trong, encouraged by its Nguyen rulers, to follow the Cham example and develop its own commercial relations with its Southeast Asian neighbours. Though an old practice among the Cham, it represented a new phenomenon to the Vietnamese, and was one more factor in helping make the 17th century the most prosperous trading era in traditional Vietnamese history.

103 Kai-hentai. vol.20, p.1589.

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Figure 4 This drawing is called "Picture of tamed elephant being led along

Chaya Street", from Oishi Shinjahuro, Edo to chiho bunka (Local culture in Edo

period), p.156. A poem "On the elephant presented by Quang Nam", can be seen in the picture. This elephant was carried first to Nagasaki sind then to Nagoya

by a Chinese junk from Quang Nam in 1728. The two people who leading the