The East India Company (VOC) carried out a total of 2957 round trips and 2369 home trips during the eighteenth century. At least 1200 different skippers commanded two or more times on a round trip. In this book, full attention is paid to those skippers. They were men charged with the ultimate responsibility for ships with a precious cargo of Asian products and several hundred people on board on tours that lasted an average of eight months, both back and forth.
In Part I, the living and living environment of the skipper at home on the shore is at the centre of attention, so is also his social background. In Part II we follow the skipper in the pursuit of his profession on board and of course also in difficult circumstances.
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