JAN PIETERSZOON

See also:

• JAN PIETERSZOON COEN (1587-1630)

COEN (1587-1630)  , fourth governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, was born at Hoorn, and spent his youth at Rome in the house of the famous merchants the Piscatori . In 1607 he sailed from Amsterdam to the Indies as second commercial agent, and remained away four years . He had proved so capable that in 1612 he was sent out a second time at the head of a trading expedition . In the following year he was made a councillor and director-general of the East Indian trade . Afterwards he became president at Bantam, and on the 31st of October 1617 he was promoted in succession to Laurens Reaal to the post of governor-general . To his vigour and intrepidity the Dutch in no small measure owed the preservation and establishment of their empire in the East . He took and destroyed Jacatra, and founded on its ruins the capital of the Dutch East Indies, to which he gave the name of Batavia . In 1622 Coen obtained leave to resign his post and return to Holland, but in his absence great difficulties had arisen with the English at Amboina (the so-called massacre of Amboina), and in 1627 under pressure from the directors of the East India Company he again returned as governor-general to Batavia . In 1629 he was able to beat off a formidable attack of the sultan of Mataram, sometimes styled emperor of Java, upon Batavia . He died the following year .