ACCOUNT OF JAVA AND BATAVIA.

189

The other Company’s fervants are alfo formed into two companies, one confifting inthe marines and others belonging to the admiralty wharf, with the commandant andupper comptroller of equipment at their head; the other of the workmen of the am-bagts kwartier, with the fabriek as their captain.

Independently of thefe, all the free inhabitants, or citizens, are likewife enrolled intwo companies of horfe and of foot, which are commanded by a counfellor of India ,as colonel, and mount guard every night at the town-hall.

All the practitioners of furgery are fubordinate to a chief, who has the controulover all the furgeons, and furgeon’s mates, as well on board of the fhips as in the hof-pitals ; and who has the rank of fenior merchant.

It will not be unfuitable in this place, to make fome mention of the dirt motions ofprecedency and rank, which are fo minutely attended to in all the Company’s poffeffionsin India , and which may, on no account, be neglected ; more efpecially in all publiccompanies and aflembties. Every individual is as ftiff and formal, and is as feelinglyalive to every infraction of his privileges, in this refpeCt, as if his happinefs or miferydepended wholly upon the due obfervance of them. Nothing is more particularlyattended to, at entertainments and in companies, by the mailer of the houfe, than thefeating of every gueil, and drinking their healths in the .exaCt order of precedency.The ladies are peculiarly prone to infill upon every prerogative attached to the ftationof their huibands 5 fome of them, if they conceive themfelves placed a jot lower thanthey are entitled to, will fit in fullen and proud filence for the whole time the enter-tainment lails. It does not unfrequently happen, that two ladies of equal rank, meet-ing each other in their carriages, one will not give way to the other, though theymay be forced to remain for hours in the ilreet. Not long before I left Batavia, thishappened between two clergymen’s wives, who chancing to meet in their carriages in anarrow place, neither would give way, but flopped the paffage for full a quarter of anhour, during which time, they abufed each other in the moll virulent manner, makingufe of the moil reproachful epithets, and whore and ilave’s brat were bandied aboutwithout mercy : the mother of one of thefe ladies, it feems, had been a Have, and theother, as I was told, was not a little fufpeCted of richly deferving the firil appellation:they, at laft, rode by one another, continuing their railing till they were out of fight;but this occurrence was the occafion of an action, which was brought before the council,and carried on with the greateil virulence and perfeverance.

To provide againil thefe difputes on the fubject of precedency, the refpective ranksof all the Company’s fervants were afcertained by a refolution of government, whichwas renewed in 1764 j and a regulation refpecting the pomp of funeral proceifions,was at the fame time added to it, which is Hill in force.

Regulations were likewife introduced with refpect to drefs, during the governmentof the governor-general Model; by which perfons of a certain condition were aloneallowed to wear embroidered or laced clothes; but this is but little attended to atprefent, for almoft every one who choofes now goes drelfed in this forbidden finery,and fumptuary laws foon grow into difufe here as well as in other places. Velvet coatsare, however, not common, and they are abfolutely prohibited to be worn by anyone under the rank of fenior merchant *.

When

* The aft by which thefe regulations were eftablifhed, is compofed, together with a fupplement, of ahundred and thirty-one articles, and relates to all the Dutch fettlements in India . It enters into the mo ft*ninute detail refpefling the carriages, horfes, chairs, fervants, drefs, &c. of the Company’s fervants, andexhibits a ftrange pifture of meannefs and illiberality in the midlt of affefted grandeur. By the 8th article,

little