Travels in India (Tavernier) 110.1665

110.1665

arranged, I drew the packet of English letters from the pocket of my greatcoat, and giving it to one of my servants to place in my bouccha, which is the valise of these countries, he put the bouccha between the side of the vessel and the head of my bed. There had come with us to the ship two small boats, which contained more than sixty bags of silver, some of 50 and others of 100 tomans, all the bags being made in Persia in that manner. Immediately the boats were alongside, [the crew] commenced to hoist the bags, one after the other, into the vessel, but did so very slowly, with the object of delaying us the whole night, and to compel me to go to bed. But as they observed that I was unwilling to retire, the captain, the pilot, and the Company’s Broker, to whom, as I have said, the vessel belonged, consulted with the Dutch, and all together conspired to let a bag of 100 tomans fall into the sea when hoisting it into the vessel; this was done in order to have time to accomplish their design. As soon as the bag fell into the sea they sent a boat to Gombroon to fetch a diver, who reached the vessel by daybreak, in order to dive for the sack. Seeing then that the vessel could not leave before the following day at two or three o’clock, I went to lie down, my bouccha being all the time in the same place, half under the head of my bed and half outside. My servants went to rest in the gunner’s cabin, and while I slept alone in that of the captain my bouccha was quietly drawn out, and from it the packet of letters was taken, another well sealed and of similar form and size, which only contained white paper, being put in its place. The bag which they had purposely allowed to fall into the sea in order to accomplish this wicked coup, having been pulled up, we made sail, and arrived at the port of Surat on the 5th of May of the same year. The Dutch Commander having done me the honour to send a barque 2 or 3 leagues out to sea to fetch me, immediately when I landed, which was about midnight, I desired before all things to pay my respects to him, asking two Capuchin Fathers, who were at the port at our debarkation, to deliver to the English President the packet which I had taken out of my bouccha, this service they willingly undertook. But they told me that, as it was an unseasonable hour, and that the President, who was gouty, might be then asleep, they, not considering it proper to awake him, would wait till the morrow to accompany me, when I should be able to deliver the packet to the President myself. But the gout from which he suffered not permitting him to sleep much, it was delivered to him the same hour. The President having opened the packet in presence of the chief officers of his staff, they only found white paper folded like letters inside it. This having been reported to me, I realised at once the bad turn which Van Wuck and his accomplices had played me. What confirmed me further as to this perfidy was, that on going to examine my bouccha I found that a jewel which I had tried to sell to the Governor of Gombroon had also disappeared. Not having been able to agree with him as to the price, he returned it to me some hours before I embarked for Surat, and I had placed it in haste with the packet of letters in my bouccha, where I did not find it on arrival at Surat.
Nevertheless the theft of this packet of letters, which had been thus accomplished, incensed the President against me so much that he refused to allow me to justify myself, and I was moreover an object for the rage of many private Englishmen affected by the loss of the letters in the packet, which were addressed to them. They went so far on different occasions as to attempt my life, as I am able to prove by the evidence and affidavits of many men of honour, and particularly of M. Hartman, who was then the second officer in the factory at Surat. So, to protect myself from snares which were set for me, I was obliged to be constantly accompanied by many people, and I was even unable to go to Golconda, where there is a great trade in diamonds, having been warned by my friends that ten or twelve English awaited me in that part of the world in order to do me some injury. The treachery which was thus done to me disturbed all my plans and caused me considerable loss; besides which I was obliged to carry back to Persia a large sum of money, in consequence of my not being able to invest it in India.
This is a copy of the letter which I sent on this subject to Batavia, to the General of the Dutch Company and the members of his Council, dated Surat, the 16th May 1665.