With favouring breeze—or dull and slow
Against the heady current go...."
H. H. Wilson, in Bengal Annual, 29.
BUDGROOK, s. Port. bazarucco. A coin of low denomination, and of varying value and metal (copper, tin, lead, and tutenague), formerly current at Goa and elsewhere on the Western Coast, as well as at some other places on the Indian seas. It was also adopted from the Portuguese in the earliest English coinage at Bombay. In the earliest Goa coinage, that of Albuquerque (1510), the leal or bazarucco was equal to 2 reis, of which reis there went 420 to the gold cruzado (Gerson da Cunha). The name appears to have been a native one in use in Goa at the time of the conquest, but its etymology is uncertain. In Van Noort's Voyage (1648) the word is derived from bāzār, and said to mean 'market-money' (perhaps bāzār-rūka, the last word being used for a copper coin in Canarese). [This view is accepted by Gray in his notes on Pyrard (Hak. Soc. ii. 68), and by Burnell (Linschoten, Hak. Soc. ii. 143). The Madras. Admin. Man. Gloss. (s.v.) gives the Can. form as bajāra-rokkha, 'market-money.'] C. P. Brown (MS. notes) makes the word = baḍaga-rūka, which he says would in Canarese be 'base-penny,' and he ingeniously quotes Shakspeare's "beggarly denier," and Horace's "vilem assem." This is adopted in substance by Mr. E. Thomas, who points out that rukā or rukkā is in Mahratti (see Molesworth, s.v.) one-twelfth of an anna. But the words of Khāfi Khān below suggest that the word may be a corruption of the P. buzurg, 'big,' and according to Wilson, budrūkh (s.v.) is used in Mahratti as a dialectic corruption of buzūrg. This derivation may be partially corroborated by the fact that at Mocha there is, or was formerly, a coin (which had become a money of account only, 80 to the dollar) called kabīr, i.e. 'big' (see Ovington, 463, and Milburn, i. 98). If we could attach any value to Pyrard's spelling—bousuruques—this would be in favour of the same etymology; as is also the form besorg given by Mandelslo. [For a full examination of the value of the budgrook based on the most recent authorities, see Whiteway, Rise of the Port. Power, p. 68.]
1554.—Bazarucos at Maluco (Moluccas) 50 = 1 tanga, at 60 reis to the tanga, 5 tangas = 1 pardao. "Os quaes bazarucos se faz comta de 200 caixas" (i.e. to the tanga).—A. Nunes, 41.
[1584.—Basaruchies, Barret, in Hakl. See [SHROFF].]
1598.—"They pay two Basarukes, which is as much as a Hollander's Doit.... It is molten money of badde Tinne."—Linschoten, 52, 69; [Hak. Soc. i. 180, 242].
1609.—"Le plus bas argent, sont Basarucos ... et sont fait de mauvais Estain."—Houtmann, in Navigation des Hollandois, i. 53v.
c. 1610.—"Il y en a de plusieurs sortes. La premiere est appellée Bousuruques, dont il en faut 75 pour une Tangue. Il y a d'autre Bousuruques vieilles, dont il en faut 105 pour le Tangue.... Il y a de cette monnoye qui est de fer; et d'autre de callin, metal de Chine" (see [CALAY]).—Pyrard, ii. 39; see also 21; [Hak. Soc. ii. 33, 68].
1611.—"Or a Viceroy coins false money; for so I may call it, as the people lose by it. For copper is worth 40 xerafims (see [XERAFINE]) the hundred weight, but they coin the basaruccos at the rate of 60 and 70. The Moors on the other hand, keeping a keen eye on our affairs, and seeing what a huge profit there is, coin there on the mainland a great quantity of basarucos, and gradually smuggle them into Goa, making a pitful of gold."—Couto, Dialogo do Soldado Pratico, 138.