Hendrik Doeff was the Dutch commissioner in the Dejima

Dejima

was a small fan-shaped artificial island built in the bay of Nagasaki in 1634. This island, which was formed by digging a canal through a small peninsula, remained as the single place of direct trade and exchange between Japan and the outside world during the Edo period. Dejima was built to...

 trading post in Nagasaki, during the first years of the 19th century.

Biography

Doeff was born in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

. As a young man, he sailed to Japan as a scribe for the Dutch East India Company

Dutch East India Company

The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...

. He became chief of the Dejima post in 1803, succeeding Willem Wardenaar, who was Director from 1800 to 1803. Doeff remained in Japan until 1817, when Jan Cock Blomhoff

Jan Cock Blomhoff

Jan Cock Blomhoff was director of Dejima, the Dutch trading colony in the harbour of Nagasaki, Japan, 1817 - 1824, succeeding Hendrik Doeff....

 succeeded him. After Britain captured the Dutch colony in Indonesia in 1811, Dejima became the only place in the world flying the Dutch flag. Doeff steadfastly defended against British attempts to take over the Dejima post. The Netherlands was restored in 1815, and Doeff was later decorated for his loyalty and courage.

Doeff wrote a Dutch-Japanese dictionary, and a memoir of his experiences in Japan, titled Recollections of Japan. He was notable for his strong activity in maintaining the Dutch trade monopoly in Japan. He is the first westerner known to have written haiku

Haiku

' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...

, two of which have been found in Japanese publications from the period of his stay in Japan. One of his haiku:

lend me your arms,

fast as thunderbolts,

for a pillow on my journey

The Phaeton incident

After the French had annexed the Batavian Republic

Batavian Republic

The Batavian Republic was the successor of the Republic of the United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on January 19, 1795, and ended on June 5, 1806, with the accession of Louis Bonaparte to the throne of the Kingdom of Holland....

 in 1806 and Napoleon had begun to use its resources against England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, Royal Navy ships started to prey on Dutch shipping. In 1808, HMS Phaeton, under the command of Captain Fleetwood Pellew

Fleetwood Pellew

Admiral Sir Fleetwood Broughton Reynolds Pellew CB KCH was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He was the son of Captain Edward Pellew, who later became an admiral and first Viscount Exmouth...

, entered Nagasaki

Nagasaki

is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese in the second half of the 16th century on the site of a small fishing village, formerly part of Nishisonogi District...

's harbour to ambush a couple of Dutch trading ships that were expected to arrive shortly.

Phaeton entered the harbour on 14 October under a Dutch flag. As was the custom, Dutch representatives from the Nagasaki trading enclave of Dejima

Dejima

was a small fan-shaped artificial island built in the bay of Nagasaki in 1634. This island, which was formed by digging a canal through a small peninsula, remained as the single place of direct trade and exchange between Japan and the outside world during the Edo period. Dejima was built to...

 rowed out to welcome the visiting ship, but as they approached, Phaeton lowered a tender to capture the Dutch representatives. The Phaeton demanded that supplies (water, food, fuel) be delivered to her in exchange for the release of the Dutch employees. The Phaeton also fired cannons and muskets to press her demands, and threatened to destroy the Japanese and Chinese ships in the harbour.

The meager Japanese forces in Nagasaki were unable to intervene. At the time, it was the Saga clan's

Saga Domain

Saga Domain was a han, or feudal domain, in Tokugawa period Japan. Largely contiguous with Hizen Province on Kyūshū, the domain was governed from Saga Castle in the capital city of Saga by the Nabeshima clan of tozama daimyō...

 turn to uphold the policy of sakoku

Sakoku

was the foreign relations policy of Japan under which no foreigner could enter nor could any Japanese leave the country on penalty of death. The policy was enacted by the Tokugawa shogunate under Tokugawa Iemitsu through a number of edicts and policies from 1633–39 and remained in effect until...

and to protect Nagasaki, but they had economized by stationing only 100 troops there, instead of the 1,000 officially required for the station. The Nagasaki Magistrate, Matsudaira Genpei, immediately ordered troops from Kyūshū

Kyushu

is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include , , and . The historical regional name is referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands....

. The Japanese mobilized a force of 8,000 samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

 and 40 ships to confront the Phaeton, but it would take them a few days to arrive. In the meantime, the Nagasaki Magistrate provided supplies to the British.

The Phaeton left two days later on 17 October, before the arrival of Japanese reinforcements, and after she had learned that the Dutch trading ships would not be coming that year. She also left a letter for Doeff. The Nagasaki Magistrate, Matsudaira, took responsibility by committing suicide by seppuku

Seppuku

is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku was originally reserved only for samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honor code, seppuku was either used voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies , or as a form of capital punishment...

.

Following Phaetons visit, the Bakufu

Tokugawa shogunate

The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...

 reinforced coastal defenses and promulgated a law prohibiting foreigners coming ashore, on pain of death (1825-1842, Muninen-uchikowashi-rei). The Bakufu also requested that official interpreters learn English and Russian, departing from their prior focus on Dutch studies. In 1814, the Dutch interpreter Motoki Shozaemon produced the first English-Japanese dictionary (6,000 words).

External links

• Hendrik Doeff and Dejima (Dutch)
• Works by or about Hendrik Doeff at Internet Archive
  Internet Archive
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  (scanned books original editions color illustrated)