Jacques Specx (; 1585 – 22 July 1652) was a Dutch merchant, who founded the trade on Japan and Korea in 1609. Jacques Specx received the support of William Adams to obtain extensive trading rights from

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...

, the ''

shōgun , officially , was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, except during parts of the Kamak ...

'' emeritus, on 24 August 1609, which allowed him to establish a trading factory in Hirado on 20 September 1609. He was the interim

governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

in Batavia between 1629 and 1632. There his daughter Saartje Specx was involved in a scandal. Back home in Holland Specx became an art-collector. The Dutch, who, rather than " Nanban" were called "Kōmō" (, "Red Hair") by the Japanese, first arrived in Japan in 1600, on board the ''Liefde''. In 1605, two of the ''Liefde''s crew, Jacob Quaeckernaeck and Melchior van Santvoort, were sent to Pattani by

, to invite Dutch trade to Japan. The head of the Pattani Dutch trading post, Victor Sprinckel, refused on the ground that he was too busy dealing with Portuguese opposition in Southeast Asia.

1609 mission to Japan

Jacques Specx, the brother of Cornelius Specx, sailed on a fleet of eleven ships that left Texel in 1607 under the command of Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff. After arriving in Bantam two ships which were dispatched to establish the first official trade relations between the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

The two ships Specx commanded were ''De Griffioen'' (the "Griffin", 19 cannons) and ''Roode Leeuw met Pijlen'' (the "Red lion with arrows", 400 tons, 26 cannons). The ships arrived in Japan on 2 July 1609. Among the crews were the chief merchants Abraham van den Broeck and Nicolaas Puyck and the under-merchant Jaques Specx. The exact composition of the delegation is uncertain; but it has been established that van den Broeck and Puyck traveled to the Shogunal Court, and Melchior van Santvoort acted as the mission's interpreter. Santevoort had arrived a few years earlier aboard the Dutch ship ''De Liefde''. He had established himself as a merchant in Nagasaki. The ''shōgun'' granted the Dutch the access to all ports in Japan, and confirmed this in an act of safe-conduct, stamped with his red seal. (Inv.nr.1a.). In September 1609 the ship's council decided to hire a house on Hirado island (west of the southern main island Kiushu). Jacques Specx became the first ''opperhoofd'' (chief) of the new company's factory. In 1610, Specx sent a ship to Korea.

Gallery

Specx owned five paintings by

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Specx, Jacques 1585 births 1652 deaths History of the foreign relations of Japan Governors-general of the Dutch East Indies Dutch merchants Expatriates from the Dutch Republic People from Dordrecht Expatriates in Japan Dutch chiefs of factory in Japan