Travels in India (Tavernier) 151.2.3

151.2.3

As the captain and other officers of the vessel strive 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 in Holland. They also have recourse, for the same purpose, to 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 any one has exceeded, it orders 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 at Batavia.