Travels in India (Tavernier) 151.3.10

151.3.10

It is true, I added, that to calculate it at the rate which the other merchants have to pay it would only amount to 5 per cent, but he made all pass as if on the account of the Company, which neither pays the freight of the vessel nor the customs at Gombroon, these two items amounting, in the case of the merchants, to 25 per cent. That when the vessel which had carried him, returned to Batavia, although the goods were not sold, he did not omit to write to you that he had refused 30 per cent profit in the hope of receiving more. That, however, three vessels arrived at Gombroon laden with the same kinds of goods, so that he had difficulty in getting for them what they had cost in India; this compelled him to give those which he had bought for you at the current price. That, nevertheless, M. Constant had been so generous that he never asked anything from you, but that he had told me in private that he had lost more than 15 per cent by the transaction.”