Quicksilver

I decided to strike. No one knew who I was, and even if they found out, my status and my reputation (thanks to you!) could scarcely sink lower. “So gloomy are we because of this news from abroad,” I exclaimed, “and yet what is news but words, and what are words but air?”

Now this produced only a few titters because everyone was assuming that I was just another empty-headed Duchess who had read too much Pascal. But I had their attention (if you could see my gown, Monseigneur, you would know I had their attention; my face was hidden, everything else was getting a good airing-out).

I continued, “Why should we not conjure up some news more to our liking, and throw our enemies the Dutchmen into a gloomy mood, so that we may be infused with gaiety and joy?”

Now most of them were nonplussed, but several took an interest-including one chap who was dressed up as Orion after he had been blinded by Oenopion, so that his mask had blood ru

“Since you appear to know so much about it, tell us what would be the worst news they could hear,” said blind Orion.

“Why, the fall of Batavia-for that is the linch-pin of their overseas empire.”

By now Orion had come face-to-face with me and we were in the middle of a ring of costumed nobles who were all leaning forward to listen. For it was obvious to everyone that the man dressed as Orion was none other than the King himself. He said, “The doings of the cheese-mongers are a vulgar muddle to us-trying to understand them is like watching muddy English peasants at one of their shin-kicking contests. If it is so easy to bring about a crash in the Amsterdam market, why doesn’t it crash all the time? For anyone could spread such a rumor.”

“And many do-it is very common for a few investors to get together and form a cabal, which is a sort of secret society that manipulates the market for profit. The machinations of these cabals have grown exceedingly complex, with as many moves and variations as dance steps. But at some point they all rely upon spreading false news into the ears of credulous investors. Now these cabals form and join, split and vanish like clouds in the summer sky, and so the market has become resistant to news, especially bad news; for most investors now assume that any bad news from abroad is false information put out by a cabal.”

“Then what hope have we of convincing these skeptical hereticks that Batavia has fallen?” asked Orion.

“My answering your question is complicated somewhat by the fact that everyone here is wearing a disguise,” I said, “but it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the Grand Admiral of the French Navy (the duc d’Arcachon) and the Controleur of the French East India Company (the Marquis d’Ozoir) are present, and able to hear my words. For men of such eminence, it would be no great thing to make it believed and understood, from the top to the bottom of the French naval and merchant fleets, and in every port from Spain to Flanders, that a French expeditionary force had rounded the Cape of Good Hope and fallen suddenly upon Batavia and seized it from the V.O.C. The news would spread north up the coast like fire along a powder-trail, and when it reached the Damplatz-”

“The Damplatz is the powder-keg,” Orion concluded. “This plan has beauty, for it would require little risk or expenditure from us, yet would cause more damage to William of Orange than an invasion by fifty thousand of our dragoons.”

“While at the same time bringing profit to anyone who knew in advance, and who took the right positions in the market,” I added.

Now, Monseigneur, I know for a fact that on the next morning Louis XIV went on a trip to his lodge at Marly, and invited the Marquis d’Ozoir and the duc d’Arcachon to join him.

Speaking for myself, I have spent all the time since talking to French nobles who are desperate to know what “the right position” is. I have lost track of the number of times I have had to explain the concept of selling short, and that when V.O.C. stock falls it tends to bring about a rise in commodity prices as capital flies from one to the other. Above all, I’ve had to make it clear that if a lot of Frenchmen, new to the markets, suddenly sell the V.O.C. short while investing in commodities futures, it will make it obvious to the Dutch that a cabal has formed at the court of the Sun King. That (in other words) the ground-work must be laid with great care and subtlety-which amounts to saying that I must do it.

In any event, a lot of French gold is going to be making its way north in the next week. I will send details in another letter.

The diligent Dutch seeing the Easiness of the managing and curing the Berry, and how that Part had no Dependence, either upon the Earth, the Air, the Water, or anything else more there, than in another Place, took the Hint, and planted the Coffee Tree in the Island of Java, near their City of Batavia, there it thrives, bears, and ripens every jot as well as at Mocha; and now they begin to leave off the Red Sea, and bring 20 to 30 Tons of Coffee, at a time, from Batavia, in the Latitude of 5 Deg. S.

-DANIELDEFOE,A Plan of the English Commerce

To Leibniz, August1687

Doctor,

Increase is the order of the day here;*the gardens, orchards, and vineyards are buried in their own produce and the country roads crowded with wagons bringing it to market. France is at peace, her soldiers at home, mending and building and getting maidens pregnant out of wedlock so that there will be a next generation of soldiers. New construction is going on all over Versailles, and many here have become modestly wealthy or at least paid off part of their gambling debts in the wake of the stock market crash in Amsterdam.

I am sorry not to have written in so many weeks. This cypher is extremely time-consuming and I have been too busy with all of the machinations surrounding the “fall of Batavia.”

Mme. la duchesse d’Oyo