chap, xxii CHARGES AGAINST TAVERNIER 259
loss than gain by carrying them, while on coarse goods there is always much profit to be made.
As
the captain and other officers of the vessel try to do private trade as
well as the Commanders, knowing that it will be difficult to take their
goods out of the vessels without being discovered, they sometimes
discharge them on the coast of Norway, making believe that it is bad
weather which has driven them thither. Moreover, when the Dutch are at
war with the English, they send vessels of war to meet those coming
from India, and into these vessels those who wish to defraud the
Company tranship their bales of goods, before arriving at Holland. They
also employ, for the same purpose, the fleet of herring fishers when
they meet them. In short, there is no kind of artifice of which they do
not make use. But when the Company entertains a suspicion that anyone
has cheated them, they order the Commanders to undress and put on other
clothes, and more than once diamonds have been found in those which
were taken off. In conclusion, it has been remarked that the majority
of those who have defrauded the Company and have returned to Holland
with great wealth have not left their heirs any the richer ; all this
wealth being, as it were, evaporated in a few years. This proves that
wealth ill-acquired does not profit.
Returning
to the affair which had been stirred up against me St Batavia. On the
order which the members of the Council had given, that the Avocat
Fiscal should take the cause in hand on the Company's behalf, three
days afterwards he sent me many pages of paper containing written
charges, so that I might reply to each. The first demanded that I
should declare to what extent M. Constant and I had traded together
since we had known one another. The others were mere nonsense, for
instance the demand for a reply from me, who was in no wise responsible
to the Company, and had only come to Batavia to render it a service ;
so I had no need to trouble myself about the Fiscal's order. There was
a special query that the General and his Council wished to know what M.
Constant had done at Bandar 'Abbas, where he had been sent as Commander
; that they were aware of the fact that we were together day and night,
and
S 2
