chap, xiv PREVENTION OF PRIVATE TRADE 35
of
the Dutch, and follow the rule which they have adopted since they
realized the extent of this injury after an experience of many years.
For, in fine, the Commander is not ignorant of the profit which there
is for officials of the house when they load the goods of foreigners on
the vessels of the Company, be it for Hormuz, for Bassora, for Mocha,
or other places. With respect to Mocha on the Red Sea, the merchants
who trade there are allowed one bale free of customs ; it is for this
reason that among their bales they have always one five or six times
larger than the others, which ten or twelve men have difficulty in
carrying.1
The
freight of some vessels amounts to 60,000 rupees, and when the
Commander and broker are in league, they sometimes make a third, and
even as much as a half, as their profits, besides which a vessel never
leaves without the Commander and his wife presenting some rewards to
their most faithful servants and slaves of both sexes. To one they give
permission to ship six bales, to another eight, and to another ten,
more or less, and as the bales in these countries pay freight according
to the value of the goods, when a merchant has any bale of great value,
amounting sometimes to 20,000 rupees, he agrees for the freight at the
best price he is able, and abates one half, at least, in the case of
one of these servants or slaves who has received this free permission
from his master or mistress.
The
pursers also take part in it, but as for the merchants and
sub-merchants, they generally disdain these small profits, and content
themselves with their own shipments. Another trick is played, when a
merchant has some bales of rich goods, such as Deccan caps, which are
sometimes worth as much as 400 ecus, or the ornis 2 of
Burhanpur, of which I have spoken above, which serve to make veils for
the ladies of Persia, Constantinople, and other places in Asia and
Europe— when, I say, a merchant has some bales of such valuable goods
1
The early records of the East India Company abound in complaints
against the Interlopers, as they are called, who interfered with the
Company's monopoly (Yule, Hobson-Jobson, 438), and against the trickery of officials (Court Minutes of the East India Company, 1660-1663, Index, s.v. Trade, Private).
* Orhni (see vol. i. 43).
