In the early modern era commanders of East Indiamen were men of considerable importance. They commanded big ships which carried expensive commodities from Asia to European markets, ships mostly crewed by impressive numbers of seafarers, and soldiers too. Their journeys were long. From the beginning of the seventeenth century until well into the eighteenth the Dutch East India Company was the largest organization in European-Asian trade. From 1602 to 1795, many thousands of voyages took place under its aegis. Most voyages were in the eighteenth century: 2,957 times to Asia and 2,369 times back to the Dutch Republic. Hundreds of men were in command on board these ships, some making a voyage only once but others on two or even more occasions. The commanders were men about whom we know very little, perhaps almost nothing. The ordinary seaman is in several respects perhaps better known.

A solid study of commanders of Dutch East Indiamen has to be founded upon research into their individual lives and careers. This research was done by forty-four students in three consecutive seminars in Maritime History at Leiden University. Inspired by Ms Els van Eyck van Heslinga, Ms Els Jacobs and myself the students wrote ‘biographies’ of commanders assigned to them by selective random sampling. The biographies were mainly based upon documents available in national, provincial and municipal archives. These reports became the starting point for this book. The focus is on the eighteenth century, chosen because it was then that the Company deployed its greatest shipping activity. That meant that more consistent and archival material with few breaks exists for the period. Last but not least, the all-important ship’s pay-ledgers survive, covering the whole period from 1700 to 1794. They include 655,000 names, probably 95 per cent of the total of all the men who sailed on board Company ships.

The book is divided into two parts. The lives of commanders – in Dutch they were called schippers – are not described in chronological order. In Part One the home front is the centre of attention. This home front mainly consisted of the six Chambers which formed the Company, which were located in the cities of Amsterdam, Middelburg, Enkhuizen, Hoorn, Delft and Rotterdam. The commanders’ social background and origins are discussed as well as their lives ashore.