received
on their vessels on my return voyage, they again offered me a passage,
and promised to give orders that I should be treated even still better
than before ; that as soon as I arrived at Batavia I should be paid ;
that they would send an order to that effect to the General and his
Council, and that I might embark on the first vessel which left for
Surat or Hormuz. I thanked these gentlemen for all their fine offers,
and told them that I preferred to make three journeys by land rather
than one voyage by sea. In conclusion, at the end of five years the
Directors wrote to my brother—for I had then returned to India—that if
he was willing to take 10,000 livres in satisfaction of my claim, he
might come to receive them. This my brother did, and he gave them a
receipt in full. I leave the reader to judge of the equity and
conscience of these gentry. For either they owed me 17,500 florins or
they did not. If they did not, why pay me 10,000 livres ? And if they
did owe me, why not pay me fully ? I am not the only person to whom
they have done injustice of this kind. I know many other more serious
cases, the recital of which would not be to their advantage.1
Such
was my return from India in the year 1649, the only time I returned by
sea, having made, as I have said, all my Asiatic journeys by land, both
when going and returning, counting as nothing the short passage in the
Mediterranean ; and my first journey was wholly by land, from Paris by
Germany and Hungary to Constantinople, where I also went on the return
from my last journey in the year 1669. From Constantinople I went to
Smyrna, where I embarked for Leghorn, and from Leghorn I travelled by
land to Genoa, from Genoa to Turin, and from Turin to Paris, where I
took the King that beautiful parcel of diamonds of which I have spoken
in the discourse on precious stones.2 His Majesty had the goodness to give me a very favourable reception,
1
As to the merits of this case, without the other side of the question
before us, we cannot venture to decide. But, on the whole, Tavernier
got off much easier than did the Dutch subjects, who also bought
reken-ings at the same time, for they not only had to give them up but
were imprisoned and sent to Holland as common soldiers (vol. ii. 295).
2 See vol. ii. 100.
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