Jahangir's India: The Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert

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THE Remonstrantie-Report, or Relation,-of Francisco Pelsaert, a name which usually appears in its French form as François Pelsart, has been quoted or referred to by various writers on Mogul India from de Laet downwards, but, so far as I am aware, the complete document has never seen the light. Its contents inevitably precluded publica- tion at the time, three centuries ago, when it was submitted to the Dutch East India Company, for it disclosed some important secrets of their trade. Nearly 40 years later, when the commercial situation was very different, M. Thévenot translated portions of it, about two-thirds of the whole, in his Divers Voyages Curieux (Paris, 1663), and this version, reproduced, I believe, in one or two later collections, has hitherto been the only source of information regarding Pelsaert's observations and opinions. Thévenot, who was working for a definitely commercial object, the promotion of French trade in the Indies, took only so much of the original as served his purpose, or, possibly, he had access to an incomplete manuscript, and it so happens that the portions omitted by him are of greater interest to students of history than those which he translated.

The translation now offered to the public has been made from photographs of the contemporary MS. in the Rijksarchief at The Hague. The Remonstrantie is primarily a commercial document, but, fortunately for posterity, Pelsaert included in it a detailed account of the social and administrative environment in which commerce had to be conducted. Readers who are not interested in such topics as the production of indigo, or the trade in spice, may be advised to pass lightly over the opening sections, which are mainly, though not exclusively, technical, in order to reach the subjects of more general importance which are treated further on-the administrative system, the standard of life, and the social and religious customs of the people.

THE brief but distinguished career of the author of the Remonstrantie can be traced in outline in the records of the Dutch East India Company. Francisco Pelsaert, of Antwerp, sailed for the East in the year 1618 in the position of assistant, the lowest grade but one in the Company's commercial service. In 1620 he was re-engaged in the higher rank of junior factor (onderkoopman), and was posted to India. He reached Surat in December of that year, travel- ling overland from the East coast, and was forthwith sent to Agra, where he remained until the end of 1627, rising to the position of senior factor. On the expiration of his engagement he returned to Holland, where he arrived in June, 1628, but his stay in Europe was short, for he was promptly re-employed, and sailed for Java on the Batavia, which cleared in October of the same year. In those days the command of a fleet or a ship, as distinct from the navigation, was ordinarily given to one of the Company's commercial servants, and Pelsaert was designated Commander of the Batavia, but he was finally appointed President of the fleet to which the Batavia belonged.

The voyage was disastrous. The Batavia was driven too far south, and was wrecked on an island off the west coast of Australia. Pelsaert undertook an adventurous boat journey to Java, reached Batavia safely, and returned on a relief-vessel to the scene of the wreck, where a serious mutiny had occurred. After dealing sternly with the mutineers, he brought the crew to Batavia, which was reached in December, 1629. The story of this shipwreck has a literature of its own. The journal of the voyage was published more than once in Holland, and a condensed translation was included in Thévenot's Divers Voyages Curieux, whence it passed into general circulation, until Francisco Pelsaert, expert indigo-buyer and general merchant, reappeared as 'the hard-headed Dutch sailor, Captain Francis Pelsart,' in tales of adventure published in the last century.

In a letter written in December, 1629, Pelsaert mentioned that his health had suffered from the fatigues and hardships he had experienced. In the following April he was appointed second-in-command of an expedition to Jambi in Sumatra; he returned to Batavia in June, and died in September. In the previous year he had been selected by the Directors of the Company as Extraordinary Member of the Council of India, but apparently his death occurred before the appointment could receive effect, as there is no record of his having taken his seat in Council.

The Remonstrantie, which sums up Pelsaert's seven years' experience in Agra, thus constitutes in effect the record of his regular work in the East. It was an important time, both for the Dutch Company and for the development of Indian commerce. After some abortive attempts to gain a footing in Western India, which terminated in the year 1607, the authorities at Batavia eventually found that a supply of cotton goods from Gujarat was indispensable to the success of their commercial operations, and they made a fresh start at Surat in 1616, but for a few years very little was accomplished. Then, towards the end of 1620, the well-known Pieter van den Broecke arrived in Surat as Director of what were called the 'Western Quarters,' comprising North and West India, Persia, and Arabia. In the course of the next seven years his talents and exertions secured for his employers a definite predominance in the trade of these regions, largely superseding the English merchants who had been first in the field.