The Malays and Chinese have judicial officers of their own, under the denominations of Captains and Lieutenants, who determine in civil cafes, subject to an appeal to the Dutch court.

The taxes paid by these people to the Company are very considerable; and that which is exacted of them for liberty to wear their hair, is by no means the least. They are paid monthly, and to save the trouble and charge of collecting them, a flag is hoisted upon the top of a house in the middle of the town when a payment is due, and the Chinese have experienced that it is their interest to repair thither with their money without delay.

The money current here consists of ducats, worth a hundred and thirty-two stivers; ducatoons, eighty stivers; imperial rixdollars, sixty; rupees of Batavia, thirty; schellings, six; double cheys, two stivers and a half; and doits, one fourth of a stiver. Spanish dollars, when we were here, were at five shillings and five pence; and we were told, that they were never lower than five shillings and four pence, even at the Company’s warehouse. For English guineas we could never get more than nineteen shillings upon an average; for though the Chinese would give twenty shillings for some of the brightest, they would give no more than seventeen shillings for those that were much worn.

Voyaging Accounts