Chapter 12: The Engineer King – 1780–1790
Hendrik II died in 1785, at the age of eighty. His son, Frederik Van der Berg, known as "Frits," took the throne. Frits had spent his youth in Europe, studying engineering in England and metallurgy in Germany. He returned to Zeelandia with a vision: to make his kingdom the workshop of the Indian Ocean.
One of his first acts was to summon Karl Brenner, now a respected engineer, to the palace in Koningstad. The palace was modest by European standards, but its windows looked out over a harbour filled with ships from a dozen nations.
"I have read your reports on steam engines," Frits said, pushing a stack of papers across his desk. "You believe we can build them here, without relying on British parts."
Brenner nodded eagerly. He had grown older, his beard streaked with grey, but his enthusiasm was undimmed. "I have corresponded with James Watt. His patents are restrictive, but there are designs that predate his improvements. We can adapt them. More importantly, we have coal from Northmoor and iron from Bergstad. We have everything we need."
Frits leaned back. "And if Watt's agents come here demanding licensing fees?"
"We pay them," Brenner said. "But we also build our own designs. In ten years, we will not need British engines at all."
The first Zeelandian steam engine was assembled in 1787, in a workshop near Port Victoria. It was a crude thing, with a beam that creaked and a boiler that leaked, but it worked. Frits was there when it first pumped water from a coal mine.
He turned to Brenner. "Build a hundred more. Then build one that moves."
The race to build a locomotive began. Frits poured state funds into the project, establishing the Royal Zeelandia Foundry in Oranjestad. He recruited engineers from across Europe, promising them land, titles, and freedom to experiment.
One such engineer was Thomas Ashworth, a Lancashire man who had worked for Matthew Boulton in Birmingham. Ashworth arrived in 1789, fleeing debts and a failed partnership. He expected a tropical backwater; instead, he found a kingdom hungry for his knowledge.
"This is not what I imagined," Ashworth said, standing in the foundry, watching molten iron pour into molds. "You have furnaces as good as any in Sheffield."
Frits, who had come to oversee the work, laughed. "We have better. Sheffield depends on charcoal. We use coal from our own mines. It is cheaper and hotter."
Ashworth looked at the young king. "You know a great deal about metallurgy for a monarch."
"I was an engineer before I was a king," Frits said. "My father thought I was wasting my time. Now he is gone, and I am proving him wrong."
By 1790, the first Zeelandian locomotive, De Hoop, ran on a short track between the coal fields and Port Victoria. It was not the first locomotive in the world—that honor belonged to Trevithick—but it was the first outside Britain.
Frits stood on the footplate as the engine chugged through the countryside. Farmers stopped their ploughs to stare. Children ran alongside, laughing.
"This is the future," Frits said to Ashworth, shouting over the noise. "We will bind this kingdom together with iron rails."
Ashworth nodded slowly. "And when the British realize what you have done, they will come for your secrets."
Frits's expression hardened. "Then we will have to be ready for them."