Laurens Reael

Laurens Reael (22 October 1583 – 21 October 1637) was an employee of the Dutch East India Company, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1616 to 1619, and an admiral of the Dutch Republican Navy from 1625 to 1627. Early life Laurens Reael was the son of Laurens Jacobsz Reael, a merchant in Amsterdam named after the sign or gable stone of his house/shop In den gouden Reael ("In the Golden Real") and an amateur poet known for writing Geuzenliederen (songs of the geuzen). The Amsterdam neighborhood Gouden Reael is named after Laurens Reael's birth house, via a later (1648) warehouse of the Reael family on the Zandhoek that turned into a popular inn. Laurens Jr. had academic talents, excelling in math and languages. He studied law in Leiden, where he lived in the house of Jacobus Arminius who had married his older sister Lijsbet Reael in 1590. Laurens received his doctorate in 1608. East Indies In May 1611, he left as commandeur of four ships for the East Indies. He quickly worked his way up to become the third Governor-General in 1616, where he was stationed at the VOC headquarters, at that time on Ternate in the Moluccas. That year he could personally welcome both Joris van Spilbergen (30 March) and Schouten & Le Maire (12 September) upon their respective arrivals at Ternate from the Dutch Republic via the Strait of Magellan and Cape Horn. He was unaware that the VOC had ordered Schouten & Le Maire's ships to be confiscated for alleged infringement of its monopoly of trade to the Spice Islands. Already after a year, on 31 October 1617, Reael resigned following a dispute with the VOC's leadership (the Lords XVII) on the treatment of both the English competitors in the Moluccas and of the native people. The jurist Reael would only take action against the English if international law would allow that and had protested repeatedly against the incursions against the natives. He, like the local admiral Steven van der Haghen, was of the opinion that the VOC's goals should be achieved solely via commercial and diplomatic routes. In his official report to the Staten Generaal and the VOC's Lords XVII upon his return to the Dutch Republic, he made these points again very clear.