chap, xxvi DUTCH PAY-BILLS 295
which
would be on board, and that I should find old friends whom I had known
in Persia and in the territories of the Great Mogul. I tendered him my
thanks for having placed me in such good company ; but after he had
made this obliging offer he added that it was absolutely necessary that
I should place all the rekenings which I had bought in the hands of the
Avocat Fiscal, and that until I did so I should not be permitted to
leave Batavia. He received no further reply from me than that I had
already given, that the rekenings were at Bantam, and that I should
have them sent for. provided he returned my money, on which he told me
that for the amount I had disbursed, when I was about to leave, he
would give me an order from himself and the Council to be paid in
Holland by the Company. Some days passed without the matter being
further discussed, save that once or twice I met the Fiscal, who asked
me whether I had not yet obtained the rekenings from Bantam. My last
reply was that I had written about them to the English President, who
had my box in his house, and that I had asked him to send them to me ;
but that he had replied that I must go for them in person, or at the
least send a man with an order in my own hand, and without that he
could not send back my box. The truth was that it would have been
difficult for him to send them, for the whole were with me, and I
wished to see whether the time would not come when I should be asked no
more about them. However, all those who had purchased these rekenings,
merchants as well as captains and other persons who were returning this
year, were put in prison, and the Council took from them, by force, all
their papers, dismissed them from their offices, and they -were sent to
Holland as common soldiers.
Four
or five days before the fleet left, the Avocat Fiscal came to tell me
that he had the General's command to arrest me if I still refused to
place in his hands the rekenings which he had already so often
demanded. When I replied I had nothing to give him, he said, ' Be so
good then as to follow me ' ; this I did willingly. He conducted me to
a beautiful place on one of the bastions, called ' Sapphire,' where
there is a pleasant house devoted to the amusement
