your factory, from which proceeds great loss to your Highness. ' ' These were acknowledged abuses. But apart from such abuses, the system led to a perpetual conflict of interest between the royal trade and the officials as private traders. The commanders in charge of the king's ships sold their private cargo first, and secured a return freight for themselves, before disturbing the market by transactions on his Majesty's account. In 1530 the Bengal voyage from Malabar yielded the cap- tain 2450 and only 78 to the king a flagrant case reported to Lisbon. The royal trade to Ormuz on the west and to Malacca on the east suffered from the same cause, as " the captains buy and sell their own goods and not for the king." The " gift of a voyage " became a recognized quittance for pay withheld or embezzled by the treasury officers, and with good luck in prizes might mean a fortune. It also formed a provision for a clamorous kinsman or a cast-off mistress, and one governor was reported to have appointed forty of his relatives to charges and voyages. This system, from the first disastrous to the royal trade, soon proved also a source of political weakness. As early as 1524 complaints arose that the captains " do not want war, as it is too expensive and bad to endure, and of small gain and little advantage." In 1542 a new governor found the royal service in great straits, owing to the number of officers who had left it to turn merchants a business which " offered greater chance of profit and less danger to life and limb."
