Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

phase of the company’s Groot Dessyn (Grand Design). 95 On each of these issues the Heren XIX
were dependent upon the States General, so that progress required frequent dispatch of delegates
to The Hague to clarify or argue in favor of a specific policy. But on many other issues the board
made its own resolutions and acted with self-conscious independence. The chamber of the Maas
was not silenced by Van Goch’s rejection of their request to send three delegates; a subsequent
request by the States General that the company explore terms for integrating with companies in
England and France was rejected outright. Thus there emerged a system wherein the States
General exercised an important procedural power, along with a lead role in coordinating the
company's military preparations, while its authority to achieve specific outcomes was
circumscribed.
This system required that the States General assign a number of people to handle the
business the WIC, not only in the meetings of the Heren XIX, but also in The Hague. This
process was already well underway by 1619, when ordinary deputies from the States of Holland
and Zeeland helped to push through agreement on the WIC charter. Key figures included Hugo
Muys, Albert Joachimi (1560-1654), Albert Bruynings, Schaffer, Magnus, and Feyt, along with
Van der Meer and Van Goch, all of whom drafted reports and briefed the full meetings of the
States General in advance of visits by delegations from the individual chambers or the Heren
XIX. 96 This group never exercised the executive authority over the company that Usselincx had
imagined, but in many cases specific individuals remained involved with its affairs over a fairly
long period of time and played a critical role in determining which policies would receive the
sanction and support of the States General. Among them Van Goch was clearly a leading figure
in the early days of the company, and his influence no doubt would have grown had he not been
95 NA 1.05.01.01 inv.nr. 39, entry for August 12, 1623.
96 Resolutien der Staten Generaal, multiple entries, 1617-1624.
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