In the middle of the seventeenth century, the relief and sustenance of the needy Jews of Amsterdam was obtained by a communal tax on the Jewish shareholders in the East India Company, which formed a principal source of income of the community in that period and for many years afterwards. Although a Jew did not become a director of the Company nor one of the Council of Seventeen until 1748, it is not unreasonable to assume
PAGE 20that many minor posts were filled long before that date by relatives and friends of the principal shareholders.
By 1609, the interests of the East India Company had grown to such an extent that it appointed Captain Both as Governor-General in Batavia. On his way home five years later he died, the Company appointing Jan Pieterszoon Coen to replace him. Brought up as a strict Calvinist, Coen was descended from Italian Marrano-Jewish parents who had converted to Protestantism.