Note 73 — Memoir (continued 2)

The General Paresse11 has been held upon my orders on the last of July. Three requests were made, two of which were so frivolous and unimportant that I need not mention them here. These were dropped. The third and more important one was that the duty on native cloth, which at present is 25 per cent., might be reduced. It was agreed that from the 31st December it would be only 20 per cent. I was in a position to settle this matter at once, because orders had been already received from Batavia that they could be reduced to 20 per cent., but no more. As shown in the annexed Memoir, the inhabitants are not so badly off as they try to make us believe. The further instructions in the annexed Memoir must be observed; and although I have verbally ordered the Onderkoopman De Bitter to have the Pattangatyns appear only twice instead of twelve times a year, as being an unbearable inconvenience, the Dessave must see that this order is obeyed. He must also make inquiries whether the work could be done by one Cannekappul, and, if so, Jeronimus must be discharged.