The Konkani Brahmin Babba Prabhu served the Dutch in Kerala as a merchant, broker and envoy for many years. Nevertheless, the Dutch were divided in their opinion of him. Rijcklof van Goens trusted him in 1663 as a competent merchant, but a year later Hustaert called him a roguish Brahmin. He was alternately praised and blamed, until in 1691, when Hendrik Adriaan van Reede visited Malabar as a commissioner, he was charged with several difficult tasks and was granted rather exceptional privileges. However, after Van Reede's departure pressure was put on him to repay his debts to the Company. Admittedly we can only trace the changing Dutch opinions of Babba and not his opinion of them. No sources other than the Dutch archives are available to us. But they contain a mass of factual information. From these we will reconstruct Babba's relations with the Dutch.