[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Dark Ages](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages) › [Travellers (1500–1858)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel) › [Les six voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.tavernier) › [Travels in India (Ball)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.tavernier~en-ball) › 85.2 # Travels in India (Tavernier) 85.2 Travels in India (Ball) 85.2 - **Language:** English ### [85.2.1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.tavernier~en-ball.85.2.1) Intelligence is not less necessary for these two men, in order that they may detect any adulteration in the manufacture of the goods. It arises, as I have said, either from the wickedness of the workmen and merchants or from the connivance of the sub-brokers with them. This adulteration may cause so much injury to the Company that private brokers profit by it sometimes from 10 to 12 per cent. If the Commander and the Broker-general connive together it is very difficult for the Company to guard against this fraud, but if they are both faithful and wise it will be easy to remedy it by changing the private brokers. The unfaithfulness which these officers are able to commit against the Company is this. When a vessel arrives in port, the letters of the Company and the bills of lading are handed to him who commands on shore for the particular nation. This Commander assembles his Council, and sends for the broker and gives him a copy of the bill of lading. The broker communicates it to two or three of the merchants who are in the habit of buying wholesale. If the broker and the Commander connive together to profit, the broker, instead of expediting the sale as he ought, tells these merchants privately that they have only to keep firm and offer such a price. ### [85.2.2](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.tavernier~en-ball.85.2.2) Then the Commander sends for the broker and these two or three merchants. He asks them in the presence of his Council what they offer for the goods mentioned in the bills of lading which have been communicated to them. If the merchants persist in saying that they will only give so much, the Commander postpones the sale for fifteen days, more or less, according as he has reason for being pressed to sell. He causes these merchants to come many times, merely for the look of the thing, and he then takes the advice of the Council in order to save appearances, and for his and the broker agree to make it increase. In the event of French vessels carrying the same goods as the Dutch, they should carry in addition money for the advances to the artisans who work in the provinces, and for a part of the price of the goods which are being made for the following year. The Company by making this advance will not pay the high interest on the loan, namely 12 to 15 per cent, which the Dutch pay ; it will have the very best goods and at the best price. All the artisans will work more willingly for it on account of this ready money. ### [85.2.3](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.tavernier~en-ball.85.2.3) The cargo of the vessels will be in readiness before they arrive in port. Being quickly laden they will be able to seize the good season for their return. The Company will not be compelled by necessity to sell at a bad price to three or four local wholesale merchants who have made themselves masters of the trade, whereas its brokers will be enabled to await the arrival of foreign merchants who will come to carry away its goods, or rather, because they will have the means to have them exported to the places where they will themselves be able to dispose of them. It should be remarked, besides, that it is profitable to carry gold and silver to India in bullion rather than in coin, because gold and silver are not valued in India except by their standard, and because there is always a deduction on coined money on account of the cost of minting. Should the broker be unfaithful, he is, moreover, able to come to an understanding with the master of the Mogul’s mint, established in every port in the Empire, and to value the gold or silver, coined or in bars, at a lower standard than it really is, by telling the Commander and his Council that in the assay which has been made at the mint it is found to be only of such a standard. ### [85.2.4](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.tavernier~en-ball.85.2.4) But it is easy to prevent this fraud, provided that the Commander is upright and intelligent, if he sends for one of the native refiners of gold and silver, who can easily be found, and who understand how to assay metals perfectly, and if he has it done in his own presence. This is what the Sieur Waikenton did for the Dutch Company, in whose name he held a factory at KAsimbAzAr, where he received each year from 6000 to 7000 bales of silk. He ascertained by this test that his broker, having an understanding with the master of the mint, cheated him of 1 or 2 per cent on the quality of the gold and silver which was brought to him from Japan, whether it was in bar or in coin, and that the Company had been defrauded of considerable sums. The broker is able to defraud also by having an understanding with the master of the mint, or with him who weighs the gold and silver in bars, coin, or dust, by employing too heavy weights, or scales which are not true. It is easy to prevent this fraud if the Commander, assisted by his Council, has them weighed in his presence with a scale and weights proved and stamped, which he keeps by him for the purpose. One of the most important observations that is to be made on the commerce of the proposed Company and the discipline of its factors is this:— ### [85.2.5](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.tavernier~en-ball.85.2.5) It should forbid the merchants, sub-merchants, the scribes, and sub-scribes, who serve under the Commanders, and the brokers, and also these superior officers, from doing any trade on their own private accounts, because having communication with all the artisans, and obtaining by the correspondence from the other factories information as to the articles of merchandise which will be good for sale in the following year, they do not fail to purchase them on their own account, and ship them on the vessels of the Company to the address of their correspondents, who share the grain therefrom. The Commander being himself interested, either by closing his eyes, or by a too great laxity, permits them to make this profit on account of their poor salaries. The captain of the vessel is in league with them, because he secretly derives some advantage for allowing them to load and unload. And inasmuch as these officers have but little capital, and desire to receive the price on the return of the vessel, they direct their correspondents to sell at from 8 to 10 per cent below market price, which they can easily do, because, as I shall say further on, they do not pay custom dues either at Surat or at Gombroon, and because they gain by this means about 26 per cent ; and so this causes a considerable injury to the Company, and particularly to foreign merchants. ### [85.2.6](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.tavernier~en-ball.85.2.6) To remedy this disorder it is requisite to profit by the mistake of the Dutch, and to do that which they now practise, having realised the extent of this injury after an experience of many years. For, in fine, the Commander is not ignorant of the profit which there is for officials of the house when they load the goods of foreigners on the vessels of the Company, be it for Hormuz, for Bassora, for Mocha, or other places. With respect to Mocha on the Red Sea, the merchants who trade there are allowed one bale free of customs; it is for this reason that among their bales they have always one five or six times larger than the others, which ten or twelve men have difficulty in carrying. The freight of some vessels amounts to 60,000 rupees, and when the Commander and broker are in league, they sometimes make a third, and even as much as a half, as their profits, over and above which a vessel never leaves without the Commander and his wife presenting some rewards to their most faithful servants and slaves of both sexes. To one they give permission to ship six bales, to another eight, and to another ten, more or less, and as the bales in these countries pay freight according to the value of the goods, when a merchant has any bale of great value, amounting sometimes to 20,000 rupees, he agrees for the freight at the best price he is able, and abates one half, at least, with one of these servants or slaves who has received this free permission from his master or mistress. ### [85.2.7](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.tavernier~en-ball.85.2.7) The pursers also take part in it, but as for the merchants and sub-merchants, they disdain for the most part these small profits, and content themselves with their own shipments. Otherwise, by another artifice, when a merchant has some bales of rich goods, as of those Deccan caps, which are sometimes worth as much as 400 écus, or of these ornis of Burhanpur, of which I have spoken above, which serve to make veils for the ladies of Persia, Constantinople, and other places in Asia and Europe — when, I say, a merchant has some bales of valuable goods which should pay high duty to the Prince of the place where they are to be loaded, as soon as they are on board, the purser and captain, who are in league with the merchant, place on each the Company’s mark, and after reaching the store of the place where they have been landed with the goods of the Company, they are removed at night in secret to the house of the merchant. --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.tavernier~en-ball.85.2](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.tavernier~en-ball.85.2) · Pramāṇa