Chris’ report on archive work in the British Library and in Holland
On the archives
I focussed my attention on the official trade of the EIC. We have found the following things: the
ordering lists. They are spread through the L E-series (letter books) and L G-series (possible some
material in the L Z-series too). These work per year, in every number of its archive one or several
years. It is impossible to give you the exact pages, nor is it necessary. It simply works like this: every
year there is an ordering list, so in every year (the L E-series goes by year) you will find one. In
general (yet not always), they are even in the same spot every year. I had a look at E 3 98, and
established there is ample information about: 1) the amounts ordered 2) what the desired quality
are and how they related to the goods send the year before. I made some notes, but they are not as
extensive as the information in the original (The kind of good, number ordered further information),
only what I found interesting and I hope this will give you a good idea (It strongly resembles the
picture of the Dutch archives I have included):
Bed
Damask
Bed
damask
Poises
ditto
ditto
Plain
poises
White
ditto
painted
ditto
striped
Black
flowered
coloured
Goshes
Brocades
White
Goshees
Coloud
Goshees
Striped
goshees
Black
ditto
Plain
Goshees
White
ditto
100
50
400
100
50
Half st Paul's work very large forty sky thirty yellow thirty cherry and
pink
of two colours twenty sky en white fiteen french yellow ten cherry Five
pink usefull for bed
of one colour
of two colours
White but clear
150
50
20
30
20
200
50 colours to match for beds
25
100 two colours more variety
50
25
100
50
painted
ditto
Plain
Taffaties
25
bright colours most desirable yellow and Cherry but more variety than
600 in the patterns of the Dutch trade
The ordering lists in the L E-series go up to 1756, if recall correctly. But, it seems they simply changed
the procedure afterwards. So Meike has found ordering lists for China from after 1756 (in the L Gseries and probably in the L Z-series). The next time I will go I will establish how this works for India
for the later period.
Now, having spend significantly more time in the Dutch archives, which material I have already been
processing too, I can already say the following: yes, they strongly resemble each other, although the
Dutch ones seems more extensive, although this could be due to the fact I only spend a week in the
BL and ad several long stays in Holland. In the Netherlands, I have included a picture of what they
look like (there you are allowed to take pictures). Here, I am already at the point to say the
following: 1) amounts ordered 2) general reflection on what has been send and if advice has been
listened to 3) the quality of what has been send 4) If quality is in sufficient advice how to change the
quality 5) sending over of examples is also very common. They run from NA, VOC, 151 to NA, VOC
196.
Within the Company sources, we can also find a different source: the amount of goods bought by
the company per item. These indicate numbers or weight plus the amount at which they were
bought. Now, the problem with this source is that you need to do it per ship that comes in through
the L AG-series. Again, it would be useless to give you numbers of pages, as it works per ship and
year. Unfortunately, no records of sale seem to exist, so this is the only way into assessing what
individual goods cost over time. I have done some work on it to see what it would give and have
been trying to find similar sources in the Dutch archives, which I first thought was not possible, but
lately I have been changing my mind on this, as it also seems possible for the Dutch case to do this
per ship, at least for the Amsterdam chamber (1/2 of the VOC total trade). For the VOC, I have
already found the General statements about the sales of all the different Chambers, which is a
structural source for the whole 18th century. They are not as specific as I wanted them to be on
textiles.
Then, there is a second layer, pertaining to private trade. To a large extent, I would say, Meike is the
expert on this. So she can tell you even better. The thing, I have added to her work from my
experiences in the Dutch archives, which I could use to help her for the English archives, was that a
lot of private trade was brought into the official accounts: 1) when it arrived (yet not very detailed)
2) when it was sold the EIC received a commission on it, which was noted in the books 3) Often, it
was even indicated when something was sold. As the Company only wanted its share, this is not a
standardised procedure. The information various from very detailed to only indicating the amount
due to the Company. This requires a lot of work. Again, this strongly resembles what I have found for
the Private trade with the Chamber of Amsterdam, but here I have not had time to work on these
sources extensively.
Most of the Dutch sources I have discussed with you during our conversation at the end of term, I
have simply kept on working on them. The English stuff looks new, and I am excited to start working
on them more extensively. As you know, I will go to France next month, and I have good hope (after
having found useful similar material in the English and Dutch archives) that I will find similar things
there. But archival work is archival work, there are no guarantees. If you are in London at the end of
May, I will show you what we have found.