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.

Periodiekviewer Koninklijke Vereniging van Archivarissen

Jaarboeken Stichting Archiefpublicaties | 2012 | | pagina 78