chap, xiv FRAUDS BY COMPANY'S OFFICERS 31
in the provinces where the offices of correspondents are established.1
Intelligence
is not less necessary for these two men, in order that they may detect
any adulteration in the manufacture of the goods. It arises, as I have
said, either from the trickery of the workmen and merchants or from the
connivance of the sub-brokers with them. This adulteration may cause so
much injury to the Company that private brokers profit by it sometimes
from 10 to 12 per cent. If the Commander and the Broker-General
conspire together it is very difficult for the Company to guard against
this fraud, but if they are both faithful and wise it will be easy to
remedy it by changing the private brokers.
The
way in which these officers are able to defraud a ComÂpany is this.
When a vessel arrives in port, the letters of the Company and bills of
lading are handed to him who commands on shore for the particular
nation. This Commander assembles his Council, and sends for the broker
and gives him a copy of the bill of lading. The broker communicates it
to two or three of the merchants who are in the habit of buying
wholesale. If the broker and the Commander conspire together to profit,
the broker, instead of expediting the sale as he ought, tells the
merchants privately that they have only to keep firm and offer such a
price. Then the Commander sends for the broker and the two or three
merchants. He asks them in the presence of his Council what they offer
for the goods mentioned in the bills of lading which have been
communicated to them. If the merchants persist in saying that they will
only give so much, the Commander postpones the sale for fifteen days,
more or less, according as he has reason for being pressed to sell. He
causes the merchants to come many times, merely for the look of the
thing, and he then takes the advice of the Council in order also to
save appearances, and for his own protection ; after which he orders
the goods to be sold at the merchants' prices.
But although the, temptation is great for these two officers,
1
Some of the contemporary writers describe the importance of the Broker
to the Factory (Fryer, i. 127 f. ; Ovington, 401; Rawlinson, British Beginnings in Western India, 127).
