A brief essay, chiefly in narrative form,
by
Peter Ravn Rasmussen
Revised and reworked from what was originally a term paper written at the University of Copenhagen in spring 1996.
This is version 1.1, dated September 23, 1996.
This document is copyright © 1996 Peter Ravn Rasmussen.
Contents:
The founding of the first Danish East India Company was based chiefly on hopes and ambitions that had been aroused by the enormous revenues produced by the initial ventures of the British and Dutch companies. At the same time, there was a desire upon the part of the Danish monarch to play a dominant role in contemporary world trade, a desire that was apparently not always wholeheartedly endorsed by the Danish merchants of the period.
2. Narrative: Tranquebar and the Danish company
2.1.1. The British and Dutch companies
In the year 1600, Queen Elizabeth I of England took a decision that in
the long term would change the structure of world commerce. Responding
to the developing needs of British overseas trade, she issued a charter
for the creation of what was to become the British East India Company
(hereafter the EIC).
With the corresponding merger, in 1602, of the Dutch voor-compagnieën
into the Dutch United East India Company (hereafter the VOC), the groundwork
was laid for an expansion of European trade interests into the Asian
hemisphere, an expansion that would have a significant effect on both
hemispheres.
During the first decades of their existence, both companies made profits
that by contemporary European standards (and, one might add, by modern-day
standards, too) were enormous. For instance, the Seventh Voyage of the EIC,
in 1611-1615, garnered a profit of 214 percent on an original investment
of £15634 [1]. These levels of
profit could hardly help but enflame the desires of others. One person whose
interest was aroused was King Christian IV, monarch of the dual kingdom
of Denmark-Norway.
2.1.2. Christian IV and the founding of the Company
In 1615, two Dutch merchants, Jan de Willem of Amsterdam and Herman
Rosenkrantz of Rotterdam, brought before King Christian IV a proposal for
the foundation of a Danish trading company that might compete with the EIC
and VOC, and in the process enrich both king and shareholders. The king
was very receptive to the proposal, not least (one would assume) from a
desire to mark the role of Denmark-Norway as a major player in contemporary
European trade and politics.
On March 17th, 1616, Christian IV issued a charter
[2], giving the Danish East India Company a
monopoly on trade between Denmark and Asia for a period of 12 years. The
company structure was a partnership modelled on the Dutch company, and,
in fact, several of the Articles of the company charter were translated
directly from the Dutch. Proportional shares in the company capital might
be purchased by anyone, though a minimum share price of 150 rixdollars was
established. Several years were to pass, however, before the necessary
initial capital had been gathered
[3]. It would seem that there was a lack of confidence
in the prospects of the company, among potential Danish investors. It was
not until 1618 that sufficient funds had been collected to finance an
expedition.
Apparently, the original intention of the expedition planners had been
that the destination of the first venture would be the Coromandel coast
of India, a region suggested by one of the company's advisors, Roelant
Crappé [4], a Dutchman
formerly in the service of the VOC in Asia. About this time, however,
another Dutchman named Marselis de Boschouwer appeared, purporting to
be an emissary from the "Emperor of Ceylon", a potentate who offered
favourable trade conditions to any European nations capable of aiding
him against the portuguese, who were at the time making inroads into
his domain. In November 1617, Boschouwer was given audience with the
king, a meeting that resulted in a "Treaty of Aid and Trade" between
Denmark and the "Emperor", signed in March 1618
[5]. The plans were hastily redrawn, the
destination of the expedition now being Ceylon.
Whether or not Boschouwer was acting in good faith, or he was just a
skillful confidence man, is open to discussion. There is certainly a
lot of evidence to suggest that he deliberately exaggerated his own
importance on Ceylon, as well as that of the "Emperor" (in reality
the rajah, king, of Kandy).
2.1.3. The
first expedition and the colonization of Tranquebar
Long before the expeditionary fleet was ready to sail, the ship
Øresund was outfitted and ready. It was decided that she be sent
ahead to scout out the region, and on August 18, 1618, she sailed for the
East Indies under the command of Roelant Crappé. Later the same year, on
November 29, the main expeditionary fleet, consisting of 4 Danish ships
and 1 Dutch escort, sailed from the roadstead of Copenhagen. In command
was 24-year-old Ove Gjedde, later to become grand admiral of the Royal
Danish Navy.
The journey east was not without excitement; on Febuary 19, 1619, the
expedition encountered three French ships off Cape Verde. Taking them
for pirates (this may or may not have been the case), the Danish fleet
engaged them in a brief battle, which resulted in the sinking of one
hostile ship, and the capture of the other two as prize ships
[6]. Thus reinforced,
the fleet continued around Africa, arriving at Ceylon in May 1620.
In the intervening time, Øresund had arrived at Ceylon. After
negotiations with rajah Senarat of Kandy (the "Emperor"), Crappé
began to harass portuguese shipping in the area. The portuguese, however,
offered strong resistance, and sank Øresund and captured Crappé.
Upon his transfer to the portuguese trading post at Negapatnam, Crappé
was turned over to the nayak of Tanjore (or Tanjavur), the local
potentate under whose jurisdiction Negapatnam was.
While this was taking place, Ove Gjedde had arrived at Ceylon,
negotiating with rajah Senarat for the right to construct a
fortress at Trincomalee on the east coast of the island. Construction
of the fortress was begun, but little ever came of it.
Boschouwer had died on the long and arduous trip from Europe (high death
rates were common on East India ventures of the time), immediately before
the arrival at Ceylon. It was thus not possible to hold him responsible
for his more-or-less exaggerated description of the "Emperor's" power
and his own authority [7].
With the unsatisfactory developments on Ceylon, Gjedde now decided to sail
to the Coromandel coast, and in October 1620 he arrived at the court of the
nayak of Tanjore. By November 20, 1620, a treaty had been concluded
between the nayak and the King of Denmark, by which the Danes were
given permission to erect a fortress at the village of Tranquebar (or
Tarangambadi) [8].
Gjedde briefly returned to Ceylon, where the work on fortifying Trincomalee
was languishing. Ceylon did not show any great promise as a trading site, so
he decided to abandon any further efforts at establishing a presence on the
island. In 1622, Gjedde returned to Denmark, leaving Tranquebar in the
hands of Roelant Crappé.
The first couple of years seem to have been hard ones for the Danes at
Tranquebar; Dutch company documents
[9] indicate that the Danes had to sell off some of
their artillery pieces. The fledgling colony's trading efforts seem also
to have been hampered by shipwrecks (a misfortunate tendency that continues
to plague the Danish efforts in India for many years).
2.2. A trading venture, for good or bad (1620 - 1640)
During 1621, the Danes began what was to be their main occupation in
Tranquebar for years to come; the ship København was sent from
Tranquebar to Tenasserim (or Mergui) on the west coast of Thailand,
whence a load a malayan pepper was freighted to Tranquebar. Later,
in 1624, a route to and from Macassar (in present-day
Indonesia) was established, tending mostly to the trade in cloves. With
these two routes, the Danes, over the course of the following decades,
became part of the intra-Asian network of trade, the so-called
country trade, a role that was to prove of great significance to
the colony [10].
After 1625, the Danes ceased trading for themselves on the
Tranquebar-Tenasserim route; instead, portuguese goods was carried, and
the Danish ships thus functioned as neutral third parties in the
comprehensive trading network that criss-crossed the Bay of Bengal.
This procedure was also adopted on the trade route to Macassar
[11].
In 1625, a factory was also established at Masulipatnam, the most
important emporium in the region, and lesser trading offices were
established at Pipli and Balasore.
Despite all this activity, the colony was in poor financial straits. In
1627, only three ships were left to the Danes, and in the same year
Roelant Crappé was unable to pay the agreed-upon tribute to the
nayak. During 1628 and 1629, Crappé negotiated with the VOC,
proposing to hand over Tranquebar to the Dutch company, but the VOC was not
amenable to the proposal. An agreement was made, however, for Dutch support
in the garrisoning of the fort
[12].
In 1636, it was Crappé's turn to go home to Denmark, leaving the government
of the colony to the Dutchman Barent Pessart, an "intelligent, but most
unreliable man" [13] who
had formerly been a private merchant (vrijburger), licensed by the
VOC to trade within Asia. Pessart rapidly made a mess of the colony accounts,
and made several high-risk deals. By 1638, Pessart's personal debts in
Masulipatnam alone amounted to 35800 pagodas, at an interest of 2.5 to
3 percent per month, and Pessart and his family were being held hostage for
payment of the debts of the Danes
[14].
Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, the ailing financial state of the company led
to an effort, in 1638, by the major stockholders to persuade the king to
dissolve the company, a proposal that was rebuffed by Christian IV
[15].
In 1639, to ships sailed from Denmark for Tranquebar, Christianshavn
and Solen. These were to be the last ships from Denmark for the
next 29 years. Solen arrived at Tranquebar in 1640, but
Christianshavn suffered a prolonged and unwilling detention at the
Canary Islands [16], and did
not arrive before 1643. Aboard Christianshavn was Willem Leyel,
designated the new leader of the colony by the company directors in
Copenhagen.
Immediately subsequent to her arrival in 1640, Solen seized a ship
belonging to Mir Muhammad Sayyid Ardestani, a wealthy merchant of Golconda
[17], and Pessart and his
family were released in exchange for its return.
[18].
2.3. "No ship for Tranquebar" (1640 - 1669)
In September 1643, after many tribulations, Willem Leyel finally arrived
in India. Pessart, who must have felt the place getting too hot for him,
denied Leyel access to Dansborg, the fortress at Tranquebar, shutting the
gates and refusing to hand over his books. It was only when Leyel began
to besiege the citadel (with aid from the native community leaders of
Tranquebar), that Pessarts people allowed the gates to be opened. Pessart
himself had fled in a portuguese ship, taking with him the fort's best guns,
the money, and the books
[19].
Leyel's efforts to reestablish the credit-rating of the Danes (and pay off
the debts incurred under Pessart) in the region were hampered by the lack of
the books. The disordered state of affairs with regard to trade with Golconda
continued, and Leyel was forced to declare war. After a blockade of
Masulipatnam and privateering ventures leading to the capture of
golcondian ships, the parties agreed to a peaceful settlement
[20].
Golconda was not, however, the only regional power that fell afoul of Danish
privateers. Around 1640, som Danish ships had stranded on the coast near
Pipli in the Bengal. The local authorities (subjects of the Mogul empire)
refused to help the Danes, and confiscated the ships' cargoes. From the
point of view of the Danes, this was interpreted as common robbery, and
was to be the start of three decades of privateering warfare by the Danes
against Bengal shipping. Consequent to the Danish privateering, the other
European companies experienced certain diplomatic difficulties with the
Mogul empire, inasmuch as the latter decided to lump all "Christians"
together and made the Dutch and British responsible for the Danish attacks
[21].
Leyel was not, however, to be in charge of the colony for very long; in
1648, a number of his officers led a succesful mutiny against him. Their
grievance was apparently dissatisfaction with the peace treaty Leyel had
signed with the Moguls, a treaty that effectively put a stop to their
lucrative privateering activities. The leader of the mutiny was the
former head of the factory in Macassar, Poul Hansen Korsør; he had
Leyel imprisoned, and confiscated his treasury. After a while Leyel
was released, returning home to Denmark. Poul Hansen Korsør resumed
privateering, and did not seem particularly discerning, as far as the
precise nationality of the prizes taken. Thus, several ships were "assumed"
to be hostile ships from Bengal, albeit they were of obviously neutral
nationality [22].
In the same year as the mutiny, in 1648, King Christian IV died, and
Frederik III became king of Denmark. The Danish East India Company was at
the time more or less bankrupt, and there was no sign of a resumption of
contact with Tranquebar in the immediate future. The wars in Europe during
King Christian's time, and the ongoing warfare with Sweden, meant that the
Crown had better things to do with its ships than to send them on year-long
journeys to Asia. In 1650, the king, at the behest of the major
shareholders, dissolved the company. Some attempts were made to sell
Tranquebar to the Elector of Brandenburg, but payment was not made as
agreed, so the deal fell through
[23].
Simultaneously with this, Poul Hansen Korsør seems to have made attempts
at turning over Tranquebar to the Dutch, in return for a guarantee that
the fort would be restored to the King of Denmark at a later point in
time [24].
In the years after the arrival of the last ship from Denmark,
Christianshavn, the number of Danes in the colony shrank.
Conditions in India were unhealthy for Europeans, and some desertions
seem to have taken place. In order to bolster the dwindling Danish force,
portuguese and portuguese-indian natives were hired to help garrison the
fort, and they soon made up the majority of the colony's
military strength.
At the time of Poul Hansen Korsør's death, in 1655, the colony's
Danish population was very small, and the man chosen to succeed him
was a commoner, chief gunner Eskild Andersen Kongsbakke, a man of
commoner stock from Halland (in present-day Sweden). The choice of the
baseborn and almost illiterate Kongsbakke, across all contemporary
class barriers, was to prove a wise one, however. Shortly afterwards,
Kongsbakke became the last surviving Dane in Tranquebar.
The nayak of Tanjore had, by this time, had enough of the
continued failure of the Danes to provide tribute. In 1655, he sent
an armed force towards Tranquebar. With a defence carefully orchestrated
by Kongsbakke and supported by the local natives, the colony managed to
withstand the siege. After a while, the siege was lifted, although no
peace was made.
Over the following years, Tranquebar was several times besieged, but the
fort continued to hold out. In 1660, Kongsbakke let a wall be built
around the town of Tranquebar, the easier to protect it
[25].
In the years under Kongsbakke, the privateering activities in the Bay of
Bengal proceeded apace. Ships from Bengal continued to be seized as prizes
and their cargoes sold. The money was wisely invested by the canny
Kongsbakke, in repairing the fort, Dansborg, and in amassing a rather
large treasury (19000 pagodas in 1658)
[26].
Apparently, Kongsbakkes loyalty to Denmark was somewhat more heartfelt
than that of his predecessor, possibly because he was the sole remaining
Dane. At any rate, he initially sent several reports back to Denmark, by
ships of other European nations, although only one actually arrived in
Copenhagen (in 1656). Some time later, however, he managed to send more
regular reports (1662-1665). In Copenhagen, these (very optimistic)
reports were regarded with some skepticism.
Tranquebar was besieged again, this time for nine months, but at last
Kongsbakke managed to negotiate a settlement with the nayak.
Once again, the colony had survived. It was painfully evident to
Kongsbakke, though, that it could not continue doing so indefinitely.
Thus, in 1668, he sent an emissary to Copenhagen - Geert van Hagen, a
Dutch sergeant from the Dutch colony at Negapatnam. His verbal account,
and Kongsbakkes written report, made the difference: later that year,
the Danish governement sent the frigate Færø to India, commanded
by Capt. Sivardt Adelaer and carrying a group of soldiers under Henrik
Eggers.
The ship arrived at Trankebar in May 1669, and for Tranquebar, 29
years of isolation were at an end. Eskild Andersen Kongsbakke received
the King's notice of his formal appointment as colony leader, in
cooperation with Adelaer and Eggers
[27].
2.4 Epilogue: The fate of Eskild Andersen Kongsbakke,
and the second Danish East India Company (1670 - 1729)
In 1670, trade with Tranquebar had been resumed, and the economic
prospects of Denmark in Asia seemed to be in for a boom period. A
decision was made to found a new company, which received a royal
charter for a period of 40 years, on November 20, 1670. The Danish
expedition on the Færø had also carried an emissary to the
nayak of Tanjore, and the peace that Kongsbakke had agreed
upon was ratified in the form of a new decree, expanding the Danish
colony with three more villages in the environs of Trankebar. New trade
routes to Bantam and the Sunda Islands were set up, and in 1673 a
delegation was sent to Bengal to negotiate an end to the ongoing state
of war, concluding a peace treaty the following year.
In Tranquebar, Eskild Andersen Kongsbakke, who had done so much for the
colony, was gradually pushed aside. Henrik Eggers and his officers had
little use for the poorly-educated Kongsbakke, and his marriage to a
native woman was a further stumbling-block. Kongsbakke finally died,
in 1674, and was buried in Tranquebar (the precise whereabouts of his
grave are no longer known)
[28].
The second company enjoyed a reasonable success, and in connection with
the favourable conditions for overseas trade following the peace at
Rijswijk in 1698, Christian V extended the company's charter for
another 40 years. The Great Northern War, unfortunately, caused
serious losses to the company, and by the time peace was made in
1720, the company's economy was ailing. In 1726, Frederik IV chose
to refuse a request for aid, and the shareholders had to dissolve
the second company in April 1729
[29].
3. Concluding remarks
The many shipwrecks plagueing the Danes, the continuing strife
with the nayak of Tanjore and with the Moguls, and also
the leadership struggles, first with Leyel and Pessart, and later
with the mutiny - all these contributed to a disorderly and
uncoordinated decision-making process in the colony.
Also, it should not be forgotten that the fairly small capital of
the Danish company, compared to the huge sums invested in the other
companies, must have presented a very real limiting factor. As Ole
Feldbæk points out, the continued existence of Tranquebar is probably
largely due to the Danish colony's status as a direct possession
of the Danish monarch. Added to this is the fact that the Danish
presence in the region, after all, was of little significance. Throughout
the period 1618-1639, only 18 ships sailed from Copenhagen to Asia,
and only 7 ships returned, in 1622-1637, mostly carrying cloves,
pepper and cotton yarn [31].
Compare these 18 ships with the embarkations for Asia in approximately
the same period, from England (105 ships sailed from London, from
1621 to 1640) and the Netherlands (299 ships, from 1621 to 1640)
[32], and the
insignificance of the Danish company is underlined.
Thus, the Danes neither presented a military or mercantile
threat to the other European companies operating in Asia. While
the initial events surrounding the arrival of the first Danish
expedition did entail some clashes with portuguese ships, the
portuguese power in the region was greatly diminished by the time
of the long period of Tranquebar's isolation, when the colony might
reasonably be considered to have been weakened and vulnerable,
rendering the initial difficulties with the portuguese irrelevant. As
concerns the British and Dutch, these seem to have lacked the will to
evict the Danes from the region - presumably because the Danes were no
real threat. At no time in the existence of the first company did it show
reliable profit, and the company's debts accumulated steadily until
its dissolution.
The intra-Asiatic trade, the so-called country trade, in which
the company took part, trading pepper and cloves and freighting portuguese
goods to and from Tenasserim and Macassar, was a a different matter. That
the Danes acted as neutral third parties in local trading, and took
part in the regional trading structure on a par with local merchants,
was doubtless of great importance to the continued viability, such as it
was, of the Danish colony.
To modern readers, the privateering wars with Golconda and the Mogul
Empire are without a doubt the oddest part of Tranquebar's history.
That this diminutive Danish fortress (with only one Dane left, at the
end) could pursue an effective and profitable privateering "business"
in the Bay of Bengal may be taken as a sign of these Indian countries'
lack of expertise in naval warfare, when compared with a European nation.
One should, in this context, remember that prior to the European advent,
the Indian Ocean was effectively free of naval warfare. The Mogul
Empire's attempts to make the other European companies responsible
for the piratical Danes bears witness to the Moguls' own lack of
ability to remedy the problem.
In the final analysis, the Danish company is parenthetical to the
history of Asian-European interaction. The most significant aspect
of this historical parenthesis is to be found in the very durability
of an unsupported European colony, in the face of local hostility,
mutiny, disease and 29 years of isolation. This was and is a fascinating
and impressive achievement.
[1] FURBER, HOLDEN: Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient 1600-1800 (Minneapolis 1976), p. 41. (back)
[2] The complete text of the charter may be found (in Danish) in FELDBÆK, OLE: Danske Handelskompagnier 1616-1843. Oktrojer og interne ledelsesregler. (Copenhagen 1986). (back)
[3] LARSEN, KAY: De Dansk-Ostindiske Koloniers Historie. Trankebar. (Copenhagen 1907), pp. 13-14. Larsen also tells of King Christian IV's rather shameless "suggestion" to employees of the court that they invest a portion of their salaries in the enterprise. (back)
[4] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., p. 14. (back)
[5] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., pp. 14-15. See also: SUBRAHMANYAM, SANJAY: The Coromandel Trade of the Danish East India Company, 1618-1649. Scandinavian Economic History Review, Vol. XXXVII, No. 1, 1989, pp. 43-44. (back)
[6] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., pp. 16-17. Sanjay Subrahmanyam: Coromandel Trade, op.cit., p. 44. See also a letter from Andries Soury in Masulipatnam to the VOC directors, May 23, 1621, cited in PRAKASH, OM: The Dutch Factories in India 1617-1623 (New Delhi 1984), pp.162-163. (back)
[7] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., p. 17. (back)
[8] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., pp. 20. Sanjay Subrahmanyam: Coromandel Trade, op.cit., p. 45. The text of the firman (decree) issued by the nayak is quoted in extenso (in Danish), in an appendix to Larsen's book, pp. 167-169. (back)
[9] Om Prakash: Dutch Factories, op.cit., pp. 166-167. (back)
[10] Sanjay Subrahmanyam: Coromandel Trade, op. cit., pp. 45-47. See also: FOSTER, WILLIAM: The English Factories in India 1622-1623 (Oxford 1908; 2. bind af 13), p. 337. (back)
[11] Sanjay Subrahmanyam: Coromandel Trade, op. cit., p. 47. (back)
[12] Sanjay Subrahmanyam: Coromandel Trade, op. cit., p. 49. (back)
[13] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., p. 30. (back)
[14] Sanjay Subrahmanyam: Coromandel Trade, op. cit., pp. 52-53. Subrahmanyam points out that the Danish activity on the Coromandel coast at the time of Crappé's departure in 1636 is atypical for the great European trading companies of the time; he compares it to a private portuguese merchant house. (back)
[15] FELDBÆK, OLE: The Organization and Structure of the Danish East India, West India and Guinea Companies in the 17th and 18th Centuries. In: BLUSSÉ, L. & GAASTRA, F. (eds.): Companies and Trade. pp. 135-158 (Leiden 1981), p. 140. (back)
[16] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., p.30-31. See also: FELDBÆK, OLE: No Ship for Tranquebar for Twenty-nine Years. Or: The Art of Survival of a Mid-Seventeenth Century European Settlement in India. In: PTAK, RODERICH and ROTHERMUND, DIETMAR (red.): Emporia, Commodities and Entrepreneurs in Asian Maritime Trade, c. 1400-1750 (Stuttgart 1991), pp. 31-32. (back)
[17] Mir Muhammad Sayyid Ardestani, also known as Mir Jumla, is a key figure in 17th century India. See, among others: SARKAR, CH. JAGADISH NARAYAN: The Life of Mir Jumla, the General of Aurangzeb (New Delhi 1979) and SUBRAHMANYAM, SANJAY: Persians, Pilgrims and Portuguese: The Travails of Masulipatnam Shipping in the Western Indian Ocean, 1590-1665. Modern Asian Studies, Vol. XXII, No. 3, 1988. (back)
[18] Sanjay Subrahmanyam: Coromandel Trade, op. cit., p. 53. (back)
[19] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., pp. 32-34, and Ole Feldbæk: No Ship for Tranquebar, op.cit., pp. 31-32. Pessarts flight was not the end of his troubles. The unfortunate man let himself be enticed by the Dutch into making an expedition to Manila, where he was slain by the locals. On the whole, Pessart seems to have lacked common sense. (back)
[20] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., p. 36. (back)
[21] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., pp. 36-40, and Ole Feldbæk: No Ship for Tranquebar, op.cit., pp. 34-36. (back)
[22] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., pp. 37-38, and Ole Feldbæk: No Ship for Tranquebar, op.cit., pp. 34-35. (back)
[23] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., p. 38; Ole Feldbæk: No Ship for Tranquebar, op.cit., p.34-35; Sanjay Subrahmanyam: Coromandel Trade, op.cit., p. 55. (back)
[24] FOSTER, WILLIAM: The English Factories in India 1651-1654 (Oxford 1915; vol. 9 of 13), pp. 218-219. Letter from the factors at Bantam to the British Company, dated December 20, 1653: "Pawells Hanseene [Poul Hansen Korsør], the Danish chief at Tranquebar, has offered to deliver that fort to the Dutch, on condition that the latter pay the debts of the Danes on that coast, and should undertake to restore that place to the King of Denmark on demand". (back)
[25] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., pp. 38-39; Ole Feldbæk: No Ship for Tranquebar, op.cit., pp. 32-33. (back)
[26] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., p. 39. (back)
[27] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., pp. 39-40; Ole Feldbæk: No Ship for Tranquebar, op.cit., p. 36. (back)
[28] Kay Larsen: Trankebar, op.cit., p. 39. (back)
[29] Ole Feldbæk: Danske Handelskompagnier 1616-1843. Oktrojer og interne Ledelsesregler , op.cit. (back)
[30] Se note [14]. (back)
[31] FELDBÆK, OLE: Den danske Asienhandel 1616-1807; Værdi og Volumen. Historisk Tidsskrift, Bd. 90, Hft. 2. (København 1990), pp. 320-324. (back)
[32] STEENSGAARD, NIELS: The growth and composition of the long-distance trade of England and the Dutch Republic before 1750. In: TRACY, JAMES D.: The Rise of Merchant Empires. Cambridge University Press, U.S.A., 1990, p. 109. (back)