From Phaeloses of Newharbour, regarding the establishment of the first trade posts of the South Oceans Company of Larn.
Good my lord,
I pray that you are in fine health, standing in good regard with our blessed king, and so on and so forth. I am short of parchment, so please assume that the usual greetings are intended, even if I omit them here.
I thank you for the copy of the Charter which you have supplied. It is well that the king has blessed our venture. No doubt there will be criticisms. But with royal patronage these will be muted.
First, allow me to clarify the situation with regarding rare woods and herbs. There is no shortage of resources in this new land. But there is also no shortage of danger as the locals feud constantly with one and other in this lawless place, while there is a shortage in expertise for gathering such resources. So such goods are present, but hard to gather.
By contrast, life is cheap here, and so people are cheap. Slaves can be had at a low price. Either we can use these to work plantations here, or we can send them back to Larn. No doubt the royal court will benefit from the cheap labour, and mine owners are always happy for cheap and expendable workers.
I have noted that the royal Charter allows us only to buy slaves who are convicted felons. I have no doubt that when we buy slaves the seller will vouch that their captives have been convicted of something or other.
I was unsure what we could do about the youngest child slaves. We can say that we are saving them from penury and civilising them, but then what do we do when they are grown? But I have a solution to this.
The Charter stipulates that we must mourn for the loss of freedom of our slaves. The usual mourning rituals take some time, of course, and frankly I have a great deal to do. So, I intend that we should establish temples here which can adopt young child slaves. We can use them for these rituals, and to maintain the temples, so that they will become useful servants to us here. It is not ideal, but it will do until we can persuade our wise King to accept that we can trade in slaves beyond criminals; no doubt this change will come when the advantages become evident, as doctrine habitually follows the pragmatic course, just as rivers follow valleys, but this may take some time.
Beyond slaving, I am not certain what we will be able to secure here. Territorial conquest for the Kingdom of Larn seems unlikely, given the violent nature of these lands. But there may be more trade to do when we are better established.
To this end we now have two trade posts, unassailable due to their locations, and with further ancient fortifications which we can rebuild. Beyond these locations I do not advise that we expand. We will set up markets in both locations, and will see if those can grow, as the locals currently lack secure trade centres amidst the jungles. The tax revenue may allow us to become self-sustaining, and in time might allow us to impose our will upon the region if we so desire.