What role did he play in a bribery case?

Cornelis de Vlamingh accompanied his father on the expedition to the Southland and eventually even became one of the three skippers on this adventurous voyage. In our opinion, father and son should have been united together in a statue on Vlieland or in Australia. Instead, we are now erecting an online monument to Cornelis by describing his life.

Career

As soon as Willem de Vlamingh was appointed as a skipper at the VOC, he took his son along on his trips. Cornelis was only ten years old at the time and, as the youngest servant, he performed all kinds of jobs on board for which he was paid only 8 guilders a month.

In 1688 Cornelis earned 8 guilders a month as an errand boy (National Archives in The Hague: 1.04.02, 5360)

It seems from the age of fourteen Cornelis was sent on ships other than the one on which his father was skipper. For example, Cornelis Vlamingh van Vlielant sailed from March 1692 on various ships with cool names such as the Batavia, the Java and the Bantam (1). The latter left Java on December 7, 1693 and arrived in the Netherlands on July 27, 1694, while Willem de Vlamingh himself had left the Texel roadstead on January 7, 1694 as skipper on the Meerestein.

It was not until their great expedition to the unknown Southland that Cornelis - who had since risen to the rank of third guard - served again under his father on the Geelvinck. During the trip, Cornelis was promoted to the rank of commanding helmsman of 't Weseltje (and thus skipped two whole ranks). After their great expedition, Cornelis made several more voyages as a skipper for the VOC. On his last journey, he was appointed commander of the complete return fleet - just like his father once was. Quite an honor! As we shall see, he got a golden medal for it.

The voyages of Cornelis de Vlamingh as skipper (2)

In Batavia

After living in Batavia for a number of years, Cornelis and Constantia returned to the Netherlands and settled in the capital. First on the Singel near the Jan Rodenpoorttoren, which stood on the corner of the Torensteeg. In1725 they moved to the other side of the Raadhuisstraat, to a house about 500 meters away, directly opposite the Utrecht ferry boats. Cornelis and his wife saw every day how these cargo ships - because that's what they were - sailed back and forth to Utrecht

These are the boats Cornelis and Constantia saw from their window (Collection Rijksmuseum)

The couple very regularly acted as witnesses at the baptisms of various nephews and nieces on both her and his family side (13). Being a godmother or -father was not only a great honor, it also came with a huge responsibility. If something happened to the parents of the baptized child, they promised to take over the care of the orphaned child. The many godparentships Cornelis and Constantia were entrusted with says a lot about them as the people that they were.

In Batavia they also took care of no fewer than four children from Constantia's side of the family for a number of years and had them under their supervision, management and education (14). Once again we see family members who take good care of each other.

Two amusing stories

In the archives we found two nice anecdotes about Cornelis which we would like to share. For example, from one of his many trips, he once tried to send a beautiful box to his eldest sister Evertje in Amsterdam (15). To this end, he gave the box to a skipper in Bengal who happened to be sailing to the Netherlands and told his sister in a letter where she could pick up the trinket in question.

Evertje suspected the skipper had kept the package for himself, because an acquaintance of Evertje who was on board with Dirk van der Weijde had offered the skipper to take the box to Evertje, but the skipper claimed he would do it himself. When Evertje's acquaintance later arrived in Amsterdam, he checked the list and the box in question was no longer listed among the goods... We can only guess at the contents. It never surfaced again.

Why those exact day indications were so important becomes clear later in the deed when the maid Giertje speaks. She stated she was looking after the other de Vlamingh family's house in Amsterdam by herself. On Tuesday morning a certain paper or writing was delivered there. She then told the person who brought it the master of the house was in the country estate and she did not know when he would return to the city. Whereupon the person left the paper and went away.

The next day Giertje prepared the note to send it to the country estate via the Geijnse Schuijt (a mail boat), when Cornelis suddenly arrived in Amsterdam. The girl then personally handed the note to Cornelis and now solemnly declares her Lord did not know any earlier than that moment about the paper which was brought.

Why was it so important no fewer than two servants testified for Cornelis that he was only aware of the message on September 13 and really not a day earlier? We can only speculate about this, but it was probably - as so often - something about money.

What's so nice about the above-mentioned country estate on the Gein is its name: Oost-Vlieland! On April 25, 1722, Cornelis and his wife bought this large estate from one Anna van Gelder for 10,500 guilders (17). In addition to a mansion and a farmhouse, it also included approximately 29 hectares of land (more than 15 football fields in size) where they kept oxen, cows, horses and a pig. So somewhere in North Holland between Weesp and Abcoude there was a piece of land on the east side of the Gein called Oost-Vlieland! (18)

Seedy business

Cornelis was only 37 years old when he stopped sailing. He seemed to have found another source of income in Batavia and during his years as a skipper in the service of the VOC: bonds. We have come across more than a hundred deeds in which he lent people money at a certain interest rate. These were often seafarers who got a job on a ship by mediation of Cornelis and paid a large sum of money in return. And even though Cornelis seems to be just an intermediary who worked for a certain Willem Sautijn, this case haunts the De Vlamingh family to this day and that is why it makes sense to pay some attention to it.

Newspaper article from 1931

The humiliated accomplice went to the police in April 1724 and told them a lot about the colonel's fraudulent practices, but he could not prove anything. The chief sheriff did not dare to take on the influential Sautijn family (Willem's brother, Nicolaes Sautijn, was mayor of Amsterdam at the time). In the end Pieter Backer himself was convicted by the aldermen on December 14 and Mr. Sautijn went free. Backer had to pay a 6,000 guilder fine and was not allowed to enter Amsterdam for four years.

Under pressure from public opinion, they ultimately did not leave it at that and the court then heard several witnesses, including Cornelis, but he did not say a word. Afterwards, he and his wife presented themselves to a notary to make a declaration for the love of truth (20). It turned out skipper de Vlamingh, just before he had to appear before the committee of the provincial court, was pressured by Colonel Sautijn not to answer any questions, otherwise his sister might have been harmed.

For the love of truth

Apparently Cornelis could harm his eldest sister Evertje by his testimony and this is why he tried to keep his mouth shut that afternoon in front of the court at the Doelen in Amsterdam. But the committee members did not accept this, which meant Cornelis ultimately had to answer all the questions. He did this with a heavy heart and many emotions. After all, he is a sailor and has no understanding of lawsuits, he argued in his defense. Once he got home, Cornelis realized he had not explained himself clearly to the committee and this is why he is now at the notary to relieve his burden and to explain the matter in more detail in all honesty.

Start of the process. (From the Archives of Sheriff and Aldermen)

Ultimately, his sister Evertje Vlaming was also heard in court in this case (21). Evertje freely admitted that she had sold a total of three skipper's jobs for Sautijn in the years 1719 and 1721, each for an amount of approximately 2,000 guilders (22). That is of course a lot of money, but it seems more like Evertje has been a middleman three times than a seasoned accomplice of a notorious criminal. Especially because Evertje probably should have simply given most of that money to Sautijn, although she would of course have received compensation for her role as an intermediary.

Her openness was the deciding factor in convicting the colonel. However, the case was dragged out and before the Court of Holland could pass judgment, Willem Sautijn died on November 10, 1731.

Last days

And then suddenly Cornelis' wife, Constantia, died on August 23, 1734 (23). She had just turned fifty two months earlier.

A busy period began for Cornelis de Vlamingh. First Constantia had to be buried. This happened in Amsterdam, the city where she was born and had lived all her life. The church book states for August 27:

Constantia Soreau, wife of Cornelis Vlaming, out Commander of the Return Fleet of the General East India Company, on the Cingel. (8 guilders). Burial at Evening Comes Before Light (2.10)

Cornelis' wife died in their house on the Singel, where they lived together for more than ten years. The funeral cost 8 guilders. Because she was buried in the evening, there were some additional costs for the light. Since daylight saving time was not yet practiced in those days, the sun set around the end of August at half past seven. At the time, it was considered extremely chic to bury the deceased in the evening.

Cornelis worked himself to death. Especially because Constantia had stated in her will he had to provide a complete inventory of both their estates within six weeks, which was a huge job. But as a result, we now have more than 32 pages of insight into their material possessions (27). Anyone who leafs through it will see that the entire house is full of things from the East Indies, brought with them in the year 1715, such as a Bengali kris, a Javanese sofa and countless pieces of Japanese tableware for tea, coffee and chocolate milk. And who has almost 300 napkins?

The most striking is a cabinet especially for all silverware. This was placed in the most visible place in the living room and in it the family members appear to store their most important things in addition to the silver cutlery. Cornelis kept his tobacco container in it with a spittoon (a container in which he could spit out the juice of his chewing tobacco) and Constantia, among other things, her powder box, pin box and thimble. But our eye is especially drawn to two very special items:

Two valuable chains in the inventory of Cornelis de Vlamingh (Amsterdam City Archives, Notarial Archives number 5075, Inventory number 9754, scan number 361)

The first object is a silver chain worth 256 guilders and 10 stuivers, of which it is added in the margin that it was honored by the directors of the VOC when Cornelis fought against French warships in 1702. We didn't know anything about that!! Via Delpher we looked through all the newspapers from 1702 and, to our great pleasure, found a long piece in the Amsterdam Courant of September 2, 1702, so we can now read everything about this dangerous episode in the life of Cornelis de Vlamingh:

Found via Delpher.nl

The second item in the silver cabinet mentioned on the contents list is even more valuable, judging by the price: it is a chain with a medal, worth a total of 399 guilders. This also turns out to be a gift from the directors of the VOC to Cornelis, because he returned home in 1715 as admiral of the fleet. Because just like his father, Cornelis was commander-in-chief of the large return fleet from the East and we wonder whether Willem de Vlamingh ever received such a medal aswell?!

Finally, we will mention just a few telling items elsewhere in the house from that enormous inventory: for example, the couple kept an empty parrot cage at the top of the attic, as well as a chest with 20 cotton children's shirts and a doll set. Their two portraits, worth 15 guilders each, stood prominently on the mantelpiece. And in the end, Cornelis - who has been ashore for years - turns out to have never forgotten the sea, because he owned shares in many ships. Most of these were fluyts that regularly went to Greenland for whaling!

Cornelis invested in several ships with names such as the Juffrouw Maria, the Constantia, the Young Cornelis and 's Lands Welvaren (Amsterdam City Archives, 5075, Inventory number 9754, scan number 373 and 374)

In the months after Constantia's death, Cornelis appeared no fewer than 14 times in the office of Son's notary regarding the handling of his wife's last will. This whole affair probably deeply affected the old sailor, who was now left alone. Because while the very last things were completed on December 13, Cornelis himself died not long afterwards - on January 18, 1735 - just five months after his wife.

Remarkably, the spouses are not buried next to each other. Amsterdam's Constantia Soreau was laid to rest in her hometown, but Cornelis is and remains a Vlielander through and through. On January 21, 1735, his body was sailed to Oost-Vlieland. The family again paid a fine of ten guilders for this (29). 

Amsterdam City Archives, Fines on burials, archive number 343, inventory number 576

And on January 24 it is written in the books on Vlieland:

Received for the right of burial (a fine of) thirty guilders for the Corpse of Cornelis Vlaming brought from Amsterdam (Register of impost on marriages and burials Municipality of Vlieland, archive number 28, Collection DTBL - Tresoar, inventory number 0738, deed number 331. Found via Alle Friezen)

For that amount of money he may have been given a final resting place in the islander church? Or would he have been buried somewhere in the cemetery. Unfortunately it was no longer possible to find out. It is remarkable that all other bodies on the same page of the Vlielander burial book - eight in number - were buried pro bono. The only surviving son of Willem de Vlamingh had gone far. The joint heirs of Cornelis and Constantia had together about two and a half tons to divide.