Letter VI

Malabar an expensive settlement to the Dutch East India Company—Its importance—Remarks on the duties incumbent on our Commandants—Encomiums on Joh: Hertenberg—Administration of the East India Company—Landed estates belonging to them.

As the welfare of our State and the prosperity of commerce have always concerned you deeply, I have no doubt that you will peruse with pleasure the account of the Company’s trade in Malabar, and the importance it has attained on this coast: the methods of maintaining it, and its vast wealth, which influence in a peculiar manner the welfare of our country.*

Malabar is considered by the East India Company as an expensive settlement, for the profits obtained on the goods which are here sold are far from defraying the expenses required for its support. You will easily understand this, when you learn that a ship of 145 feet is sufficient to provide the settlement not only with merchandize, consisting chiefly of arrack, sugar, spices, tin, copper, &c., but also with all the provisions requisite for a year. But, on the other hand, the maintenance of the garrison, its munition, and its servants, who may be reckoned at present at 1,200 souls, costs a large sum of money; and if to this we add the extraordinary expenses which have been incurred by the Company for some years past, by the erection of a new dispensary, rice-warehouse, hospital and powder magazine, a new fort at Chetwa, and a smith’s shop, which are now almost completed—and also the expenses they have still before them in the establishment of a new factory at Porcad, and the occupation of the two forts of Cananore and Quilon—it is evident that their outlay must far exceed their profits here, without mentioning their expensive wars, the last of which cost nearly two millions.

You must not, however, conclude from this statement that this settlement is a useless position to the Company, and that it were better to abandon it; for there are weighty reasons for its retention. The first is that we may remain masters of the pepper trade in Malabar, for it is certain that if the Company were to quit this place, the Portuguese would endeavour to obtain possession of it. They already affect to have claims upon it, and say arrogantly enough that “the Company are keeping it for their king.” Still more would the English strive to get hold of it; for they have no commercial station in all Malabar that can at all be compared with this, for abundance both of pepper and of other goods.

In the second place, Cochin is very useful as a provisioning station for vessels sailing from Batavia to Mocha, or returning from Surat and Persia to Batavia. They can obtain here not only very good water (fetched from the river Mangatti), but also abundance of victuals at a cheap rate, such as poultry, pigs, cattle, fish and fruit. For this reason European vessels visiting the Indian coasts always put in at Cochin for provisions.

In the last place, we may add that Cochin serves as an outpost to protect Ceylon against the attempts of other European nations, especially the English, whom we have most cause to fear; for if they were masters of this place, they might use it as a rendezvous for their fleets. This they could do even in the rainy season; for light vessels of less than twelve feet might be brought over the sand bank into the river, while the larger ones might lie securely in the Muddy Bay, three leagues distant.

Thus, you see the importance of this settlement, which requires a man of ability to manage it with discretion; for though, like the Company’s other settlements it is governed by the Political Council, the chief responsibility rests with the head of that assembly, who is the Commandant; and it behoves him to be very ready witted when he converses with the native Rajahs, who are most difficult to deal with. For, if he hesitates, they deem it a sign of fear and confusion, and immediately assume a contempt for him. The Commandant must cultivate, also, a figurative and metaphorical mode of expression, which, besides being considered a proof of wisdom, enables him to throw a cloak over subjects which are disagreeable to them, and to carry out measures which they would not take so easily if they were expressed in plain words.

Having made close observations on all the commercial affairs of Malabar, my belief is that the following rules should be observed in order to a successful management of this country:—

I. The Commandant must effectually defend the kingdom of Cochin against the future attacks of its enemies, to which end the Company have declared themselves the Protector of that kingdom. If this were not done, the Zamorin would soon weaken the power of the Rajah of Cochin, and would allow other nations to establish themselves in the territories he might gain. It is therefore clearly for the Rajah’s interest to keep on good terms with the East India Company.

II. The Commandant must especially endeavour to prevent the Rajah of Cochin from making aggressions on the Zamorin or others, or provoking them to war; which he would be very ready to do, relying on the Company’s arms, and hoping by their assistance to regain some lands to which he lays claim.

III. He must enquire narrowly into the justice of the claims the Rajahs make mutually on each other, as he is often called on to arbitrate between them. This is the more necessary as their claims are very obscure and are seldom settled, so that they have continual pretexts for the wars which perpetually arise between them. A wise Commandant will take care not to involve himself in these disputes, unless they immediately affect the interests of the Company.

IV. He must be thoroughly acquainted with the laws and customs of the natives, who cling very much to them, making them a part of their religion. They carry these feelings to such an extent that if a Commandant were unwittingly to infringe their laws in passing sentence, it would arouse a general spirit of murmuring and dissatisfaction.

V. He must undertake no wars without great deliberation, and with a good prospect of success, as the Company might otherwise be placed in great danger ; the character of the natives disposing them to grow insolent and daring at the slightest misfortune that happens to us, and in such cases their numbers swell like a snowball. An instance of this occurred in 1715-16, when we lost the fort of Chetwa, on which occasion the natives broke out into all manner of extravagance, using most insolent language ; their spirit was quelled, however, in the following year by our arms.

The Commandant Johannes Hertenberg has extorted from the Rajah of Cochin two stipulations which are very conducive to the welfare and tranquillity of the Company. The first is that all the Rajahs, Princes and Nobles of the kingdom shall lay their complaints and disputes before him, so that he is constituted arbitrator between them ; by which means he becomes acquainted with the grounds of their differences, and is thus enabled to hinder many illegal enterprises of the Rajah of Cochin, which occasioned great annoyances to the former Commandants. The second stipulation is that the Rajah shall undertake no hostilities against the Zamorin or any other Prince without the previous knowledge and consent of the Commandant ; without which agreement he could frequently plunge us into war merely to advance his own interests.

As we are engaged on the subject of the administration, it will be as well to describe how this settlement is managed. The East India Company having received by patent, from the States General, supreme jurisdiction in their own settlements, this power is vested in the chief place of each great settlement, of which Malabar is one. All the native Christians dwelling in the lowlands are under the authority of the Company, and neither the Rajah of Cochin nor any of his princes have the power of putting them to death or punishing them ; if they did so, satisfaction would be demanded. The Jewish, Moorish, and Canarese inhabitants are partly under the authority of the Rajah, and partly under that of the Company.

Crimes are punished here, as they are in Europe, by fines, imprisonment, flogging, branding, hanging and shooting. Criminals are sometimes sent in chains to labour on the public works, as there are no jails here. The assemblies, as in the other Indian settlements, are either political, where the Company’s affairs are discussed ; judicial, where criminals are tried and judgment passed in important causes ; and civil, where disputes of less amount than 100 rix dollars between the native townspeople are decided, and before which the ceremony of betrothal takes place. There are also an Orphan chamber, whose business it is to take care of the property of orphans, and the College of Aldermen, who have the superintendence of the streets, houses and canals.

In the last place, it will be as well to notice here the various landed properties which the Company possess in this place, and the rents they receive. They consist of estates and islands which the Company have acquired from time to time either by gift or by treaty. I must premise that the islands are situated not in the sea but in the rivers, or else are detached pieces of land washed over by the sea and rivers. They are let on leases of ten or fifteen years, in order by this length of possession to encourage the tenants to make new plantations, hoping in the interval to receive the fruits of them ; and the rents consequently rise at each new lease. Indeed it is made a condition of the lease that the tenant shall make plantations of cocoa-nut palms ; and a person is appointed to number the trees in all the estates every year, in order to ascertain how much the plantations have increased. The islands contain not only cocoa palms, but also arable fields and salt-pans, for this country produces an abundance of salt, which is exported to other places. The following is a list of these arable lands and fields, with the years in which they were acquired.

                                        Acquired.

The lands of Edourtien Paponetti ………….A. D. 1166 Muskieten island, gardens, and arable field … 1708 Gardens in the island of Caddemata………… 1689 ——— at Arkotte…… ………………….. 1712 Saltpans in the island of Bollogatti………… 1670 Arable fields and gardens in the island of St. Domingo……………………………………. 1718 ————————————————— in the island of Poul 1665 or Hosser’s Island………………………… ———————————————— in the island Ilha Perdido … 1664

The East India Company has also bestowed on the Deaconry some gardens and lands in the island of Vypeen, behind the Canarese bazaar, in order that the revenues thence derived should be devoted to the use of the poor.