17th century

[Franconicus]

Legio, thanks a lot for the chapter, esp. the naval stregth. One question: the counted ships are all warships, right?

[Rodion Romanovich]

@Franc: yes

@Kage: oops, I answered your PM twice, it seems. Ignore the last reply

[Kagemusha]

No probs Legio!

[Franconicus]

Orders to the trade marine and trade companies:

As France has peaceful relations to every nation, French ships are allowed to trade with every foreign country. However, they have to fulfill these orders:

1) The supply of the French colonies has priority!
2) Trade with weapons or transport of troops has to be admitted by the authorities.

According to the current war situation the government expects that the Dutch government and the Dutch trade companies will soon run out of money. We advice all French traders to request advanced payment, if possible in solid Louis D`Or!


The French government guarantees all soldiers in the army or navy a retirement fund after a duty of at least 15 years. Invalids also receive a pension. All worker in the Royal Manufactories receive a pension as soon as they reach the age of 65.

[Kagemusha]

May we ask the French government what they mean by Dutch government and Dutch trading companies running out of money? On what does France base these claims?

Embassador of Netherlands

[Franconicus]

My dear embassador,

You know as well as We do that the Dutch economy depends on overseas trade more than the economy of any other nation. Lately we saw that the Dutch trade companies lost market shares on some important markets, maybe due to the new focus on the integration of Belgium and the war against the HRE.

Now the Netherlands are at war again, they increase the expenses for the army and navy. What is more severe is the fact that the Dutch trade with its possessions in India and Far East is actually cut off. Same situation on the Mediterranean market. Although We see the successful operation of Dutch troops in the Phillipines, We cannot see that the trade situation will improve in short time. However, We would be glad if you could show us that we are wrong and that the Dutch have a huge gold reserve.

France is willing to support the Dutch like every other nation by transporting and trading goods. Due to the reflections described above we ask our traders to insist on advanced payment.

French Trade Minister

[Kagemusha]

We appreciate the concerns of French trade ministry about our economy,but according to our own sources,we have only lost few individual shipments and talking about our East Indian trade beeing cut off would sound as exaggeration. Our and the forces of our allies in the East Indias and other theathres of operations are in process of eliminating the hostile forces on those waters and soon the flow of trade should be normal once again. We should also remind that our trade fleets doesnt only carry items from East Indias as for example Baltic sea routes are completely safe currently. So again,we appreciate the French concerns,but we can assure that those worries shouldnt be over estimated.

The Dutch Embassador