Sesde reys van de Engelsche Maatschappy na Oost-Indien
Why this matters
Leiden publisher Pieter van der Aa built a market by translating foreign travelogues for Dutch readers. His 1707 edition of the Company’s sixth voyage renders Sir Henry Middleton’s 1610–1613 expedition and Nicholas Downton’s day-register into Dutch, transmitting English commercial intelligence about the Red Sea coffee trade to the VOC’s home audience.
What’s inside
Middleton’s journal recounts the fleet’s watering at Socotra, the fraught negotiations at Mocha that ended with Ottoman officials imprisoning English factors, and his retaliation—detaining Red Sea shipping until reparations were paid. Van der Aa preserves Middleton’s hydrographic notes, cargo inventories, and letters to Surat merchants. Downton’s “Dag-register” then records daily routines aboard the Peppercorn: provisioning at Saldanha Bay, skirmishes near the Hadhramaut coast, and the tactics used to fend off Portuguese patrols while escorting vessels bound for Bantam.
Historical setting
The sixth voyage marks the Company’s earliest sustained bid to buy coffee directly in Yemen and secure a permanent factory at Surat. Middleton’s clash with Ottoman authorities shaped later Company instructions about factory security and diplomacy. Downton would soon command the 1614 fleet that fought the Portuguese off Swally, making this diary a precursor to Anglo-Portuguese naval rivalry narratives. Dutch translation of the text shows how closely the VOC monitored English moves.
Research notes
Comparing van der Aa’s edition with English printings (Purchas’s Pilgrimes or the Hakluyt Society) reveals abridgements and emphases tailored to Dutch readers. The engravings inserted by van der Aa supply coastal profiles absent from English editions, and the index (“Kort inhoud”) aligns with Dutch mapping conventions. Because the translation compresses some passages, researchers can map divergences to track how intelligence circulated between rival companies.
Access
The Internet Archive scan includes high-resolution images of the engraved title and fold-out plates. OCR supports keyword searches for ports such as “Mocha” or “Suratte,” while the PDF download allows close inspection of the cartouches and marginal notes.