chap, xxix THE SIEUR OBRECHIT 321
and since his time others have employed it, especially the Sieurs Constant and Van-Wuck.
Moreover,
there is also the profit that these gentry make on silk. It is true
that for some years past the Company has not esteemed Persian silk so
highly as it did formerly, because it has not so great a sale in Japan
as it would have had if the trade had continued as it was in the years
1636 and 1637.1 All the chiefs of the factory who succeeded
Obrechit could not have made as much as he did ; for in the two
above-named years silk was dear in Japan, because the people of China
and Tonquin were then at war with the Dutch, and the latter prevented
them from trading with Japan ; so the Chinese and Tonquinese could not
obtain silk except through the hands of the Dutch. Whatever it may cost
they must have it to clothe themselves with, as they use no other
materials for their garments. It was in these two years, 1636 and 1637,
that the Sieur Obrechit filled his purse ; for instead of 500 or 600
bales of silk, which is the most they receive from the King of Persia,
the General of Batavia and his Council wrote to him that at any cost he
must send them 2,000 loads. I have alluded, in the first volume of my
history, to the agreement made between the King of Persia and the Dutch
Company ; and I have also made mention, in connexion with this subject,
of the small success of the negotiation of the Ambassadors of Holstein,
of which the secretary of that embassy has without doubt not boasted in
the account which he has given to the public. Therefore, for fear of
wearying the reader, I shall not repeat it here, and I shall only ask
him to remember that the arrival of these Ambassadors, which caused
apprehension and jealousy among the Dutch, caused the latter to raise
the price of silk so much that they removed all desire in other nations
to outbid them.
Thus
Obrechit, having then received an order from Batavia for 2,000 loads of
silk, irrespective of cost, and this quantity being all that Persia
could supply, as he was shrewd and loved profit beyond all things,
succeeded so well in intriguing
1 For an account of the Persian silk trade see Curzon, Persia, i. 366 ff.
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