• ...shows a page from Albert Kesselkaul's notebook, on which he lists his expenses and claims against the trading company for the year 1785.
• The Aachen native traveled to East Asia from 1779 and recorded his impressions in letters and notebooks.
• His son Johann Heinrich Kesselkaul later founded the cloth factory and spinning mill "van Gülpen & Kesselkaul" together with his business partner Joseph van Gülpen

"The environs of Malacca especially deserve the attention of visitors from abroad: [...] On the side of the palace or citadel one enters beautiful avenues, and on either side one sees gardens and an abundance of fruit and vegetables, and at regular intervals pleasure palaces; the air is very healthful, and is always refreshed by the winds of the open sea. The sea is rich in fish, which, however, like all the fish of India, are inferior to those of Europe. Besides, there is as great a difference between this place and the Portuguese settlement from which we came as between heaven and hell; their customs are diametrically opposed to those of the Portuguese." This is how Albert Kesselkaul from Aachen recorded his impressions of Malacca in a letter in 1780. Malacca was a city on the west coast of Malaysia, at the time an important hub for the international spice trade due to its location. In November 1779, Kesselkaul boarded the ship that took him and his companions first to Macau in China and later to the Indian Malabar coast. He was employed as a resident by the Société impériale asiatique de Trieste et Anvers, a still very young trading company of the Habsburg monarchy.

Subjective impressions of the population
He described other cities he visited on his journey in similar detail. In Macau, also an important city for trade between Europe and Asia, he described the population in particular detail: in addition to the Chinese businessmen, whom he described as the most respected people in Macau, he recorded his impressions of the Portuguese colonial rulers, of whom he did not have a good opinion. He had also seen refugees from Europe and Goa, who made up the common people there. Their livelihood was murder and stealing. Finally, there were also a large number of monks there, whose reputation Kesselkaul could not understand: "[They] are the most appreciated there, although it seems that their only duty is to eliminate the mind."

A costly journey
In his letters, Kesselkaul also described in detail how contact with the locals went. Sometimes the representatives of the trading company were welcomed with open arms and accommodated in splendid houses, sometimes the locals met them with suspicion and attacked them as soon as they left the ship. In the back of his notebook, in which Kesselkaul listed his expenses, it becomes clear how costly the journey was. For the year 1785, Kesselkaul invoiced the company not only for the costs of the ship voyages between India and France, but also for his living expenses during his stay in India as well as the costs of stagecoaches and luggage storage. In total, Kesselkaul earned around 8,500 rupees for his work in the service of the trading company in 1785. By comparison, an unskilled worker in India at the time earned around 25 rupees a year, and a high-ranking civil servant around 200-600 rupees a year.

A few years later, Kesselkaul turned his back on East Asia: in 1788, he married Anna Elisabeth Schmitz from Aachen and shortly afterwards took over her father's "St. Martin" wine trade. The son born of this marriage was no stranger to Aachen: Johann Heinrich Kesselkaul later founded the cloth factory and spinning mill "van Gülpen & Kesselkaul" together with his business partner Joseph van Gülpen.

Sources: Aachen City Archives, FOTO 61-530; NLS 10-178