2 This version of the story is first found in letters from the Heeren XVII as early as 1609, repeated in pages 18–32 of Nicolaas de Graaff's Oost-lndische Spiegel of 1703, continued in de Haan, F., Priangan: De Preanger-Regentschappen onder hel Nederlandsch Bestuur tot 1811 (4 vols; Batavia 1910–1912)Google Scholar and in de Hullu, J., ‘De Matrozen en Soldaten op de Schepen der Oost-lndische Compagnie’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land-, en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch- Indië 69 (1914) 318–365CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprised in pages 225–230 of Boxer, Charles, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1600–1800 (London 1965)Google Scholar, and recently recapitulated in pages 41–42 of Andaya, Leonard, The World of Maluku (Honolulu 1993).Google Scholar

3 Boxer, Dutch Seaborne Empire, 245–250.

4 Each sailor and marine was permitted to trade whatever non-monopolized items he could fit into his chest.

5 The records of the prosecution allow the detailed recreation of the crimes with which Schaghen was charged. The preceding paragraphs are based on witnesses statements filed by the prosecution. The notes for this documentation appear below.

6 van der Chijs, J.A., Nederlands Indisch Plakaatboek I (Batavia and The Hague 1885) 585Google Scholar. ‘Belangen den particulieren ofte verboden handel sal een yder voor syn huysvrouw ende familie moeten responderen ende instaen’ (regarding private or forbidden trade, each shall have to respond and stand in for his wife and family).

7 ARA, VOC 9521, document B: unfoliated ‘Eijsch ende Conclusie’ points 5–10. This document has numbered paragraphs to which I have referred as ‘points’ in the notes. The organization into numbered paragraphs is typical of summations of legal cases.

8 ARA, VOC 9521, document B: ‘Eijsch ende Conclusie’ points 15–16.

9 ARA, VOC 9521, document B: ‘Eisch ende Conclusie’ points 21–24.

10 ARA, VOC 9521, document B: ‘Eisch ende Conclusie’ point 31.

11 ARA, VOC 9521, document B: ‘Eisch ende Conclusie’ point 27.

12 ARA, VOC 9521, document B: ‘Eisch ende Conclusie’ points 28–30.

13 ARA, VOC 9521, document B: ‘Eisch ende Conclusie’ points 37–40. Stompius signed her name to document L.

14 Prakash, The Dutch East India Company, 86–88.

15 ARA, VOC 1422, pages 1334 and 1340.

16 This number does not include native auxiliaries, quasi-independent agencies like the churches and hospitals, the numerous merchants licensed by the VOC, or most of the employees’ families. Some Company men, of course, had sons employed by the VOC, and a few men's wives were employed as midwives.

17 The biographical information on Schaghen, on the chief prosecutor, Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede van Mijdrecht, and on Laurens Pit the younger comes from van Resandt, W. Wijnaendts, De Gezaghebbers der Oost-Indische. Compagnie op hare Buitm-Comptoiren in Azië (Amsterdam 1944) 33–34, 181–182, and 103–104Google Scholar, respectively.

18 ARA, VOC 1422, page 1292: Letter from Hendrik Adriaen van Rheede to Batavia, December 28, 1686:

‘[…] over en van wegen de verkiesing van de heer Extraord. Raed Nicolaus Schaghen uyt het Malaxxe gouverneur tot directeur in Bengalen, ende de aenstellingh ran mijn oudsche broeder den president Laurens Pit tot gouverneur ten custe Coramandel, soodanigh als hier vooren uyt het annl. extract synen Ed. brief van 18. maert te sien is, soude icke in het bysondere my niet hebben aen te trecken, indien niet duysterlyck, daer mede te kennen gegeven wiers, dat de leden van de vergaderingh ten belangen van mijn broeder waren gebragt tot een angevolgelycke verkiesingh […] Ick hebbe te veel resepct voor een Commissaris, die op een extraordinaris wyse met seer groot pouvoir vand Ed. heeren Bewindhebberen, onse heeren meesters uyt gesonden is, om daer tegens te contesteren […]’

19 Unfortunately, the court records for 1687 no longer exist, so it is not possible to tell precisely what Schaghen's complaint against Zeeman may have been. Zeeman was not responsible for the prosecution of Schaghen. As the fiscaal or prosecutor in Batavia, he was responsible for passing on van Rheede's materials, but the ultimate decision to prosecute and how came from van Rheede.

20 Coolhaas, W. Ph. ed., Generate Missiven van de VOC IV (The Hague 1971) 72–74; ‘valsche practiquen en ontrouwheden’.Google Scholar

21 ARA, VOC 9348, points 21–24. Although this document is paginated, the paragraphs are also numbered separately. The length of the trial was typical of malfeasance and private trade cases. But Schaghen was right to point out that the long delay before re-opening the trial was unusual. Recesses of individual cases rarely lasted longer than a few weeks.

22 ARA, VOC 9348, points 36–37.

23 ARA, VOC 9348, points 39–46.

24 ARA, VOC 9348, points 91–95.

25 ARA, VOC 9348, point 98: ‘synde voorts een persoon van soo daenigen leven en debauche dat hij op het moment der schepbruck van de fluyt Stryven Simoor=droncken is bevonden, en van meer ander grose vitien […]’. Although the Strijen did indeed have some accident in the Ganges river this researcher has found no evidence that Diest was drunk at the time. The comment may be simple slander.

26 ARA, VOC 9348, points 220–221: ‘om dat den ged. niet specifice werdt gementioneert eenige order tot het ontlossen te hebben gegeven’ (emphasis (italics) in original).

27 ARA, VOC 9521, document P, points 147 and 153.

28 ARA, VOC 9348, points 227–228, 231.

29 ARA, VOC 9348, points 245–250.

30 ARA, VOC 9521, document B: ‘Eisch ende Conclusie’ points 4–28.

31 ARA, VOC 9348, points 254–258.

32 ARA, VOC 9348, points 266–269.

33 ARA, VOC 9348, point 321: ‘Leest niet sonder admiratie, dat den Hr. Eijsch […] heeft ontdeckt de straffe die den Ged. soulde hebben geincurreert’. I have loosely translated ‘Hr.’ as ‘the honorable’ to convey the sarcasm of the paragraph from which it is taken.

34 ARA, VOC 9348, points 350–351.

35 ARA, VOC 9348, points 363–368. The non-specialist may need to be told that ‘arrack’ was (and is) a generic term for strong alcoholic drinks made in the East Indies. Because the Company leased the right to sell arrack to various distributors and salespeople, private trade in arrack cut in not only on one of the Company's steady sources of income but also stepped on the toes of numerous small businesses and distributors. This would seem to explain that trials for trade in arrack were the most frequent kind of private trade trial. A large number of people besides the Company had an interest in stopping the competitors.

36 ARA, VOC 9348, point 169: ‘Wyders is bijna de werelt bekent, dat hij van ouden tijde is geweest een groet en onbeschaemt particulier handel negotiant, en overtreder van sijn eedt en pligt’.

37 ARA, VOC 9348, point 292, emphasis (italics) in original.

38 ARA, VOC 9348, points 298–300.

39 ARA, VOC 9348, points 306–313.

40 ARA, VOC 9348, points 302–303: ‘En wie twijfelt dat de Romeijnen, die groote en onse eijgen meesters van alle regt en regtmatigheyt, ook net soo hebben gedaen mitgeen hunne proconsules, die onschuldig aen de verkeerde conduite en in inslagen ran hare vrouwen wierden bevonde’. The title of ‘proconsul’ was roughly analogous to a provincial governor, and thus to Schaghen's responsibilities (Randall Howarth, personal communication). Of course, the irony of this statement is that Roman women had the power to make contracts and trade in their own names, precisely the privilege Mrs Schaghen was not supposed to have been given in this case. Wiesner, Merry, Women and Gender in Early Modem Europe (New York 1995) 32–33.Google Scholar

41 The precise rights of married Dutch women with regard to property seem to have been in flux during the seventeenth century. Although all the commentators on the topic from the period agreed that the husband could encumber or alienate his wife's property as he pleased, the question of when and under what circumstances the wife could alienate and encumber her own and her husband's property was much less well settled. The wife was presumed, for instance, to have the right to buy and sell for household use, and could bind herself and her husband to contracts with his explicit or tacit permission. But under what conditions? According to Hugo Grotius, the earliest commentator, once a wife had been granted such permission a husband required a judicial decree and a formal notification to break contracts she chose to enter against his will. But according to Johannes Voet, one of the latest, the degree to which a wife's transactions were within the proper scope her authority and to which she needed his consent depended on local custom and was thus highly variable. Robert Warden Lee summarizes the various positions of seventeenth century authorities on this issue on pages 62–64 of An Introduction to Roman Dutch Law (Oxford 1925)Google Scholar. Shattuck, Martha Dickinson calls attention to women's property rights in ‘Women and Trade in New Netherland’, Itinerario 17/2 (1994) 44Google Scholar, although she is uninterested there in the changing loopholes in the law. Linda Briggs Biemer found so little evidence that husbands’ rights to control their wives’ contracts were enforced in the New Netherlands that she treats coverture as largely a non-issue for Dutch women in Women and Property in Colonial New York: The Transition from Dutch to English Law, 1643–1727 (Ann Arbor 1983).Google Scholar

42 The exact disposition of VOC trials is often somewhat ambiguous. Unless the court simply dismissed the case or some of the requested penalties of the prosecution, decisions made by the magistrates were never couched in the form of finding a defendant guilty of various criminal charges. Instead, magistrates simply announced what the penalties would be. We have no record of the Schaghen trial's minutes, which is where the sentence would have been recorded. The detail provided here comes form the correspondence of the Governor-General and Raad van Indië with the Heeren XVII. The reader may find that ‘Governor of Ambon’ seems a higher title than ‘Director of Bengal’. In fact, the position was a demotion, but most importantly, Ambon was territory controlled entirely by the Company and offered little scope for private trade. It was a less profitable and therefore less desirable position.

43 ARA, VOC 9333, case 9. Over three or four days they traded some two hundred shoulderloads (‘pikols’, a measure of roughly 100 kg) of pepper.

44 Although there were regulations stipulating this, it is helpful to know that Johann Jacob Merklein, a ship's surgeon, and Johan P. Rauscher, a soldier, both confirm that they observed this to be true of Batavia. Merklein, Johann Jacob, Rase nachjava, Voider- Und Hinter-Indien, China und Japan, 1644–1653 (The Hague 1930) 18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Respectively, from Timor, ARA, VOC 1312, f. 2329–2350, sentence carried out July 17, 1674; ARA, VOC 1484, f. 879, and from Batavia ARA, VOC 9335, case 1, signed January 10, 1664. Other cases amplify the point. In Batavia in January of 1643, Sybrant Joris, quartermaster's assistant, was found guilty of stealing eight or nine dried fish from the Company store. (ARA, VOC 9332, f. 2) Also in Batavia on January 17 of 1665 Cornells Claessen, cook and sailor, was found guilty of stealing two planks of sandalwood from the Company storehouse while the guard looked the other way (ARA, VOC 9334, unfoliated case 2). Jan Fransen, like a number of other soldiers, was found guilty of selling his weapon for drink in the same year. ARA, VOC 9335, case 2.

46 ARA, VOC 9335, case 2. In other examples of embezzlement related to the employee's access, Claas Pietersz van Amsterdam, the record-keeper for the garrison at Timor, was condemned for embezzlement in 1690. ARA, VOC 1366, case 2, signed July 17, 1674. Gysbert Willemsz van Delft, harbourmaster of the ship Schielandt, was accused of stealing Company provisions, because he had brought fewer provisions to Ternate than he had claimed to pay for. ARA, VOC 1392, August 2, 1682, case 1.

47 Jan Baptiste Tavernier, for instance, told the magistrates of Batavia's civilian court (Schepenbank) that they and every other VOC official were all involved in illegal trade: Travels in India II (London and New York 1889) 33.Google Scholar