over the years. While fourteen clerks worked for the office in 1666, the staff grew
to forty-one in 1726, forty-eight in 1730, about fifty in 1762, and fifty-seven
(excluding advocaten) in 1790.31
In the archive of the Heeren XVII and Kamer Amsterdam, some documents can
be found which clarify the organization of the schrijfcomptoir. Johannes Adami,
first clerk at the writers' office in the second half of the eighteenth century,
probably included these documents. The working day of the staff started at
9:00, year-round, "without enjoying their breakfast there." In the afternoon,
they were expected to stay at the office until 16:00, and they could only leave
the office with permission. During busy times, the clerks had to work overtime.
Furthermore, they were not allowed to accept other part-time jobs. They had to
maintain secrecy, and documents were allowed out of the building only after
proper registration.32 One of the busiest times was the arrival of the return fleet
in autumn. After all Chambers of the VOC were notified of this arrival, the
office opened and sorted out the packages of documents "with permission". The
letters meant for the specific departments of Kamer Amsterdam, for example the
pakhuis (storehouse) or soldijcomptoir (salary administration), were immediately
forwarded. The other letters were collected per area, bound together, and
provided with page numbers. After that, a 'general register' was created, as well
as separated indexes for every single book. "To be able to find them easily", the
backs of the books were marked. As mentioned, a distinction was made between
the correspondence directly sent from the outposts to the Dutch Republic, and
the correspondence coming from Batavia. The latter was held together as one
entity. This method was followed annually. Kamer Zeeland followed a different
method, however, as they split up "Batavia's incoming letters" per area. In the
archive of Kamer Zeeland, therefore, all the letters from Bantam out of this
collection can be found in chronological order, as one series.
The registration system of the Generale Secretarye
The registration system used by the Hoge Regering is still identifiable in the
archive. This does not mean, however, that the material is well preserved. Over
the years, pests, deliberate destruction and the effects of storage in a tropical
climate caused the loss of large parts of the archive. The most important
inventory of the archive was completed in 1882 by the future landsarchivaris
(state archivist) Van der Chijs. As usual at the time, he organised the archive
according to the subjects of the archival documents. So categories like 'navy,'
'travel' and 'Chinese' were created and documents were put together based on
their geographical coherence. Even now, after a new inventory of the archive was
completed in 2002, this ordering is for the most part the basis of the archive.
Some of the categories introduced by Van der Chijs can still be found under the
76
COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA -
THE DUTCH ARCHIVES
31 Gaastra, Bewind en beleid, 70-71. The administrative staff of the Kamer Zeeland consisted of about twenty
men. The staffs of the Tittle' Chambers also grow in the eighteenth century, as Hans Bonke and Katja
Bossaers point out for the Chambers of Enkhuizen and Hoorn. Bonke and Bossaers, Heren investeren,
34-35, and 39. Heijer, De geoctrooieerde compagnie, 139. Meilink-Roelofsz et al., De archieven van de Verenigde
Oostindische Compagnie, 30.
32 NA, VOC, Documents of the schrijfcomptoir, inv. numbers 7227-7231. The rules for the clerks (25 April
1763) are found under inventory number 7229. Documents about the activities of the clerks at the schrijf
comptoir, probably written by Adami in the sixties of the eighteenth century, are found under inventory
numbers 7227 and 7230.