Travels in India (Tavernier) 85.3.4

85.3.4

This injunction against private trade cannot be too strictly imposed. It is observed to-day with so much strictness amongst the Dutch that when a vessel of that Company is ready to leave Amsterdam, a Burgomaster administers to the captain and all on board a solemn oath that they will content themselves with their wages, two months’ of which are given in advance, and that they will not trade on their own account ; but the conduct of the Company in respect to their wages compels them, in spite of their oaths, to aid themselves by secret traffic to subsist while in their employment. This is the artifice which they make use of to satisfy their consciences. When they have arrived in India, and see themselves in the way of obtaining some good employment, they marry as quickly as possible, and trade secretly in their wives’ names ; this is not always permitted. And they imagine that in this way their conscience is relieved. But they are sometimes caught, and I shall give a somewhat amusing example of it, from among many others which I could recount.