The average Company commander was a professional seaman and a person bent on improving himself in life. He had gone to sea at a young age and had passed through the ranks in the Company from ship’s boy, deckhand, sailor or petty officer before, somewhere around the age of twenty, he was appointed third mate. Gunner’s mates in particular took this step. Overseas or during a voyage, this promotion to third mate could be an emergency measure passed by the ship’s council. Because of the death of a commander or first mate and the subsequent promotions to fill vacancies, the lowest rank of the ship’s officers fell open. Anyone with some knowledge of navigation, and there were such men always at hand among the crew, had a good chance of suddenly finding himself third mate. Once he had returned home, before his next voyage this man could present himself at one of the Chambers or he could pass his name on to a director through an agent in order to be able to receive a properly acknowledged appointment as a third mate from one of the Chambers. However, it was not quite as easy as it sounds. First the candidate had to pass an examination.

Examinations

In 1619, the VOC, specifically the Amsterdam Chamber, had taken the revolutionary step of introducing examinations for its ship’s officers. The Amsterdam directors were convinced that sailing to Asia put higher demands than normal on the officers’ knowledge of navigation. Before they were accepted for service, each first and second mate had to sit an examination, in which he was questioned on his knowledge of the instruments and techniques available for navigating the high seas to the East and back again. Simultaneously with the introduction of this requirement, the Chamber had also appointed an examiner. It was nearly half a century before the Zealand Chamber decided to follow the example set by Amsterdam. The four smaller Chambers took even longer to follow suit. It may be that they required their candidates to take some sort of test of competence, but the appointment of their own permanent examiners came only in the eighteenth century. The Rotterdam Chamber was the last to put such a system in place, and that was not until 1737.