Isaac Titsingh FRS ( January 1745 – 2 February 1812) was a Dutch diplomat, historian, Japanologist, and merchant.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Isaak Titsingh" in . During a long career in East Asia, Titsingh was a senior official of the Dutch East India Company (). He represented the European trading company in exclusive official contact with Tokugawa Japan, traveling to Edo twice for audiences with the shogun and other high officials of the shogunate. He was the Dutch and VOC governor general in Chinsura, Bengal.Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: the Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (NY: Knopf, 2018), 166-73.
Titsingh worked with his counterpart, Charles Cornwallis, who was governor general of the British East India Company. In 1795, Titsingh represented Dutch and VOC interests in China, where his reception at the court of the Qing Qianlong Emperor stood in contrast to the rebuff suffered by British diplomat George Macartney's mission in 1793, just prior to celebrations of Qianlong's sixty-year reign. In China, Titsingh effectively functioned as ambassador for his country at the same time as he represented the Dutch East India Company as a trade representative.
Life and career
Early life
Isaac Titsingh was born in Amsterdam, the son of Albertus Titsingh and his second wife, Catharina Bittner. His baptism took place at the Amstelkerk in Amsterdam on 21 January 1745. His father was a successful and prominent Amsterdam surgeon. He thus possessed the means for Titsingh to be brought up with an "enlightened education" of the 18th century. Titsingh became a member of the Amsterdam Chirurgijngilde (English: Barber surgeon's guild) and received the degree of a Doctorate of Law from Leiden University in January 1765. In March 1764, Titsingh was appointed as a freeman and 1766 went within his employment to Batavia, now Jakarta.
Japan, 1779–1784
Titsingh was the commercial opperhoofd, or chief factor, in Japan from 1779 to 1780, from 1781 to 1783, and again in 1784. The singular importance of the head of the VOC in Japan during this period was enhanced by the Japanese policy of Sakoku, the self-imposed isolation of Japan that lasted from 1633 to 1853.Edo-Tokyo Museum exhibition catalog. (2000). A Very Unique Collection of Historical Significance: The Kapitan (the Dutch Chief) Collection from the Edo Period – The Dutch Fascination with Japan, p. 207. Because of religious proselytizing by Europeans during the 16th century, the Tokugawa shogunate introduced a policy in the early 17th century that no European or Japanese could enter or leave the Japanese archipelago on penalty of death. The sole exception to this "closed door" was the VOC "factory" (trading post) on the island of Dejima in Nagasaki Bay, on the southern Japanese island of Kyūshū. During this period of seclusion, Titsingh is believed to have been the first Freemason in Japan.Far East Lodge No. 1 , "A Brief History of Freemasonry in Japan" ; excerpt, Titsingh "is believed to be the first mason to visit Japan" in 1779
In this highly controlled context, the traders became the sole official conduit for trade and for scientific-cultural exchanges between Europe and Japan. The VOC opperhoofd was accorded the status of a tributary of the shogun; Titsingh twice had to pay an obligatory annual visit of homage to the shogun in Edo. Given the scarcity of such opportunities, Titsingh's informal contacts with bakufu officials of Rangaku scholars in Edo may have been as important as his formal audiences with the shogun, Tokugawa Ieharu.Edo-Tokyo Museum exhibition catalog, p. 210.
During the 18th century, there was an improvement of the social position of the Dutch merchants and the treatment of the Dutch vis-à-vis the Japanese, who showed a higher degree of respect and recognition than in the centuries before. Nevertheless, the average opperhoofd was not interested in the customs or culture of the Japanese. Titsingh showed an almost incredible interest and distinguished himself as an attentive observer of Japanese civilization for a European of his time when compared to his colleagues in Dejima. Titsingh arrived in Nagasaki on 15 August 1779, where he took over the factory from Arend Willem Feith. He established cordial and amicable relations between the interpreters and Japanese; before his arrival there had been constant fights over trade issues and a deep hostility towards the Japanese interpreter, who seemed in trade issues corrupt to the Dutch traders. During his first audience with Ieharu in Edo from 25 March 1780 until 5 April 1780, he met a lot of Japanese daimyo with whom he later established vivid letter correspondence. He became incredibly prominent within the elite society of Edo and became friends with several current and retired daimyo of the area.
After a short return to Batavia in 1780, Titsingh returned to Nagasaki on 12 August 1781, due to his successes with the Dutch–Japanese trade in Dejima. There were no Dutch shipments from Batavia in 1782 due to the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, and thus the trading post in Dejima was cut off from communication with Java during this year. In that year, Titsingh stayed in his position as opperhoofd and concerned himself with befriending Japanese scholars, deepening relations with Japanese friends and researching all scopes of Japanese customs and culture. He also achieved, due to the absence of Dutch shipping that year, important trade talks and great concessions with the Japanese on a long-debated increase to copper exports from Japan to the Dutch traders.
Titsingh stayed a total of three years and eight months in Japan before finally leaving Nagasaki at the end of November 1784 to return to Batavia, where he arrived on 3 January 1785.
India, 1785–1792 In 1785, Titsingh was appointed director of the trading post at Chinsurah in Bengal. Titsingh was described by William Jones, the philologist and Bengal jurist, as "the Mandarin of Chinsura".Jones, William. (1835). Memoirs of the life, writings and correspondence of Sir William Jones, by Lord Teignmouth. London.
Batavia, 1792–1793 Titsingh's return to Batavia led to new positions as Ontvanger-Generaal (Treasurer) and later as Commissaris ter Zee (Maritime Commissioner).
While at Batavia, he met with George Macartney who was en route to China. Titsingh's comments were important factors in McCartney's decision to abandon a planned expedition to Japan in 1793. Mccartney's report to London explained: "... the expediency of attempting an intercourse with the Japanese subsists in its full force. Tho from the conversations I had at Batavia with a Dutch Gentleman of a very liberal disposition who was several years resident in Japan, Isaac Titsingh, I collected nothing that could induce me to depend on a favorable reception there, I learned nothing to deter me from the trial. The risk would, at least, be personal, as we have hitherto there no trade to lose. And no moment, if any, could be so propitious for opening up a new trade with them, as when, from the present general confusion of affairs of the Dutch East India Company, their connection with the Japanese is greatly on the decline."Macartney to Dundas, 23 December 1793, British Library, India and Oriental, Factory Records, China, 1084 G/12/20.
China, 1794–1795 Titsingh was appointed Dutch ambassador to the court of the emperor of China for the celebrations of the sixtieth anniversary of the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. In Peking (now Beijing), the Titsingh delegation included Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeestvan Braam Houckgeest, Andreas Everardus. (1797). Voyage de l'ambassade de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales hollandaises vers l'empereur de la Chine, dans les années 1794 et 1795; see also 1798 English translation: An authentic account of the embassy of the Dutch East-India company, to the court of the emperor of China, in the years 1974 and 1795, Vol. I. and Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de Guignes,de Guignes, Chrétien-Louis-Joseph (1808). Voyage a Pékin, Manille et l'Île de France. whose complementary accounts of this embassy to the Chinese court were published in the US and Europe.
Titsingh's gruelling, mid-winter trek from Canton (now Guangzhou) to Peking allowed him to see parts of inland China which had never before been accessible to Europeans. His party arrived in Peking in time for New Year's celebrations. By Chinese standards, Titsingh and his delegation were received with uncommon respect and honors in the Forbidden City, and later in the Yuanmingyuan (the Old Summer Palace).van Braam, An authentic account..., Vol. I (1798 English edition) pp. 283–284.
Titsingh is believed to have been the first Freemason in China,Screech, Timon. (2006). Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822, p. 58: excerpt, "Titsingh became the first Freemason ever to set foot in China" in 1794–1795. and the only to be received at the court of the Qianlong Emperor.
Return to Europe, 1796–1812
On 1 March 1796, the Dutch East India Company, already in decline, was nationalized by the new Batavian Republic.TANAP, The end of the VOC In that year, Titsingh returned to Europe. For some time, he lived in Britain, at London and Bath, and was a member of the Royal Society. In 1801, he went back to Amsterdam, and thence to Paris, where he lived until his death.Screech, Timon. (2006). Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822, pp. 61–62
Titsingh died in Paris on 2 February 1812, and is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery. His gravestone reads: "Ici repose Isaac Titsingh. Ancien conseiller des Indes hollandaises. Ambassadeur à la Chine et au Japon. Mort à Paris le 2 février 1812, agé de 68 ans." [Here lies Isaac Titsingh, formerly a councillor of the Dutch East India Company, Ambassador to China and to Japan. Died at Paris the 2nd of February 1812, aged 68 years.]
Family Titsingh had a son, Willem, born about 1790 of Titsingh's Bengali mistress. He took his son to Europe in 1800 so that he could be recognised as legitimate. When Titsingh moved to Paris, Willem went with him and attended the French Maritime Academy, graduating in 1810.Screech, Timon. (2006). Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822, pp. 56, 62
Library and collections
Titsingh's library and his collection of art, cultural and scientific material were dispersed; some entered the collections of the French state. Among the Japanese books brought to Europe by Titsingh was a copy of by Hayashi Shihei (1738–93). This book, which was published in Japan in 1785, deals with Joseon (now Korea), the Ryukyu Kingdom (now Okinawa), and Ezo (now Hokkaido).Cullen, Louis M. (2003). A History of Japan, 1582–1941: Internal and External Worlds, p. 137. In Paris, the text represented the first appearance of Hangul, the Korean writing system, in Europe.Vos, Ken. "Accidental acquisitions: The nineteenth-century Korean collections in the National Museum of Ethnology, Part 1", p. 6. After Titsingh's death, the printed original and Titsingh's translation were purchased by Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat (1788–1832) at the Collège de France.Kublin, Hyman. "The Discovery of the Bonin Islands: A Reexamination," Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 43, Issue 1 (March 1, 1953). p. 35. After Rémusat's death, Julius Klaproth (1783–1835) at the Institut Royal in Paris was free in 1832 to publish his edited version of Titsingh's translation.Pouillon, François. (2008). Dictionnaire des orientalistes de langue française, p. 542.
Legacy