Verhandeling der zee-horenkens en zee-gewassen in en omtrent Amboina

François Valentijn was a Dutch minister, author, and compiler who spent much of his career in the service of the Dutch East India Company. In 1685 he was sent to Ambon as a minister in the East Indies, where he remained for about a decade. After returning to the Netherlands, he went back to the Indies in 1705 and the following year served as army chaplain on an expedition to eastern Java. Ill health soon forced him to request permission to return to the Netherlands.

Back in Dordrecht, Valentijn completed his large compilation Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien. Published between 1724 and 1726 in five parts and eight volumes, the work drew on Valentijn’s own journals, correspondence, and research, as well as material obtained from VOC officials and earlier written and printed sources. It was one of the most extensive printed accounts of the Dutch East Indies, combining geography, history, natural history, ethnography, maps, views, and commercial information.