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provides an intimate look at the rhetoric used to encourage potential candidates, and, along with Alexander van der Capellen’s memoires, some of the factors candidates may have considered, Trouwers’ case gives a sense of what the company was hoping to achieve. Trouwers left behind no diary and records of his life are scarce, but a document in the collection of the States General from this period shows exactly the skills the company thought he might bring to bear in Brazil. 74 In 1642, after a separate, and equally long, set of deliberations, the WIC had created a Generaal Rekenkamer (General Accounting Office) to coordinate the activities of the chambers' individual accountants and to advise the company on matters of finance and trade. 75 This office had, among other responsibilities, the difficult task of reconciling the company's books at the end of each year. According to the WIC charter, the chambers were to participate in the company in a set proportion—Amsterdam 4/9, Zeeland 2/9, and the other three chambers each 1/9—but every chamber remained responsible for provisioning its own ships and auctioning the goods that returned from abroad. In the abstract this meant that the company would operate like a modern cartel consisting of five independent companies, with the important exception that at the end of each period the total expenses and profits were to be redistributed consistent with the proportions laid out in the charter. 76 This required a Herculean effort in bookkeeping and coordination between the company's ever-suspicious chambers. The new Generaal Rekenkamer was designed to simplify this process, both practically and politically, by centralizing the company's financial work in one office. Its first director was Abraham Trouwers.                                                          74 NA 1.01.07 inv.nr. 12564.17, Consideratien van de generale Reeckencamer aende Ed. vergaderinge der xix van t' gene alhier te Lande mitsgaders in Brasil ende andere conquesten van die Comp. souden kennen Jaerlyx gemenageert worden, overgegeven den 22 Juny 1645. 75 NA 1.01.05 inv.nr. 9410. 76 See Eli F. Heckscher, Mercantilism, trans. Mendel Shapiro (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1955), vol. 1, 364. For a review of the history of financial institutions in the Netherlands, see Jacobus Thomas de Smidt, Van Tresorier tot Thesaurier-Generaal: zes Eeuwen Financieel Beleid in Handen van een Hoge Nederlandse Ambtsdrager (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 1996).   159
On June 22, 1645—just a week before the Heren XIX decided to supplement its list of candidates for the council in Brazil—Trouwers and a colleague, Gerrit Janssen de Vry, submitted a set of considerations on how the WIC could save money in Brazil and its other conquests. The twelve points in this document shed some light on both Trouwer's approach to the company's finances and on the specific problems the company confronted as it tried to manage and integrate the flow of commodities between the disparate parts of its empire. The first three recommendations all related to cutting costs associated with personnel and physical infrastructure in Brazil: according to the Rekenkamer's calculations, by reducing the number of support staff in the army, requiring soldiers to cover additional aspects of their own upkeep, and reducing the number of warehouses in Brazil, the company could save 350,000 guilders a year. Two other recommendations addressed the trade to West Africa: 55,000 guilders could be saved by better coordinating shipping to Arguin, Senegal, and Cape Verde, and by using ships bound for Guinea to provision the recently-captured island of São Tomé. Then followed recommendations for trimming the company's expenses at home: taken together, Trouwers and De Vry believed that 250,000 guilders could be saved by making procurement more efficient, selling off unnecessary armaments and the ship-building yard in Amsterdam, and restricting the meetings of the Heren XIX to twice yearly. 77 But by far the most significant savings could be made by reducing the number of ships the company owned and leasing ships instead. Straightforward in itself, this recommendation led Trouwers and De Vry to calculate the number of ships that were needed to carry supplies and trade goods within each of the conquests on an annual basis. The result provides a stark, if                                                          77 NA 1.01.07 inv.nr. 12564.17, Consideratien van de generale Reeckencamer aende Ed. vergaderinge der xix van t' gene alhier te Lande mitsgaders in Brasil ende andere conquesten van die Comp. souden kennen Jaerlyx gemenageert worden, overgegeven den 22 Juny 1645.   160
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GOVERNING THE FREE SEA: THE DUTCH W
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Abstract This dissertation takes a
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IV. “In the Service of Merchants
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for making the archive such an enjo
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Institute for International and Reg
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List of Tables 1. Delegates to the
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Illustration 1. Het West-Indische H
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eported to have said; any money sen
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nexus of commerce and power for whi
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Europe the Dutch Republic is emblem
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Although the VOC frequently used vi
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Van Dillen argued that over time th
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the Western Hemisphere.” 46 Far f
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anxieties it generated, and what pl
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capital from Zeeland in the south a
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number of document series within th
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character of Dutch political instit
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Illustration 2. Vergaderzaal van he
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ecords must be traced backwards—a
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of note.” 93 But it is clear that
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formative periods in the company’
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enhance the role of central authori
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trade in which the company had only
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5. A Note on Sources This dissertat
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1645. 110 The manuscript is found i
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period 1620-1636. 115 For the remai
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at São Salvador da Bahia de Todos
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the revolt pushed the colony’s fa
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Amsterdam newspapers did publish st
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year by the Hoge ende Secrete Raad
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the Portuguese, had crossed the Rio
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ead aloud, two resolutions were pas
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On Wednesday, the same day the ship
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with subtle differences of fact and
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The group consisted of Henderick Sc
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XIX. Each chamber selected delegate
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Inden naeme den heeren amen Saturn.
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Middelburg’s decidedly incestuous
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Illustration 6. Portrait of Johanne
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crucial role that he played in its
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When the meeting resumed on Monday
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and to steer the discussion towards
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were chosen from among the ranks of
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emphasized the considerable sums in
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4. Johannes de Laet as “Informati
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devote myself to my books.” 129 A
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interests were adequately represent
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De Laet's substantive work in the A
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that, even at the beginning, De Lae
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De Laet’s presence at the meeting
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confessions under interrogation and
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Brazil this meant the Heren XIX, wh
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Illustration 7. Portrait of Willem
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peaceful settlement along the fring
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By analyzing the successive changes
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convene in Amsterdam; the following
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This formulation, which must previo
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Amsterdam or Middelburg. 29 In this
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(1566-1626), later burgemeester of
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Page 121 and 122: That these two provisions remained
Page 123 and 124: provinces. The creation of the WIC
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Page 127 and 128: to the original charter gave the ch
Page 129 and 130: thus shows the political—as oppos
Page 131 and 132: 1/10 of the equipagie and two direc
Page 133 and 134: taken place. Once the draft letter
Page 135 and 136: Table 5. Seating for the delegation
Page 137 and 138: phase of the company’s Groot Dess
Page 139 and 140: to be understood the sending over o
Page 141 and 142: But by far the most important trans
Page 143 and 144: Illustration 8. Map of Mauritstad a
Page 145 and 146: geographers whose works remain a tr
Page 147 and 148: important military, administrative,
Page 149 and 150: noblemen played in overseas adminis
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Page 153 and 154: the council's size and authority, d
Page 155 and 156: servants. These individuals may not
Page 157 and 158: At this point the election was comp
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Page 161 and 162: Why did these candidates all refuse
Page 163 and 164: Alexander's name was almost certain
Page 165 and 166: None of the remaining records indic
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Page 169: Haecxs thanked them for the honor t
Page 173 and 174: 5. Wolter Schonenborch and the Ritu
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Page 177 and 178: Haecx recorded in his diary that on
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Page 183 and 184: 1. Introduction Chapter Five Free T
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Page 187 and 188: community saw greater profits in pr
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Page 191 and 192: trouble paying its bills, especiall
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Page 197 and 198: With the verhoging stalled, and ani
Page 199 and 200: e handled without gloves.” 55 In
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Page 203 and 204: While the resolution as a whole sho
Page 205 and 206: along with the two powerful Amsterd
Page 207 and 208: Cornelis Melijn, of a patroonschap
Page 209 and 210: this measure, he said, “no one in
Page 211 and 212: maintaining the company's solvency,
Page 213 and 214: colony, overestimated the number of
Page 215 and 216: And Maurits offered another argumen
Page 217 and 218: Stellingwerf, who sat in the States
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exclude private merchants from the
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clamoring for slaves. 136 The probl
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expedition's success, along with de
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trading locations on the Gold Coast
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directly from New Netherland, and s
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over trade was simply the projectio
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the area in which the company was b
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had not yet been renewed. 4 As the
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to the Dutch state, and that this d
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ookkeeping from late-fifteenth cent
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ambitions. 21 Although neither Spec
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expenses at each of the company's c
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included. 34 In Specx’s estimatio
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calculations yielded a profit of 41
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notes on these documents, suggest t
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It was, of course, a fiction. With
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to hang from the body [...] This sh
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van West-Indien (New World, or a De
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title page of the revised edition a
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It occurred to me that these miracu
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third in the Kort Verhael. This rep
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This extraordinary conclusion might
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enemy” and the positive effects o
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appeared in the late 1630s in the c
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versus settlement. He was also more
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An exceptionally cold winter delaye
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failure of Dutch imperialism from t
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that focuses on political and imper
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support to the WIC, but they also i
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Maurits predicted and which was not
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British Library Additional Manuscri
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Burke, Peter. A Social History of K
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Goffman, Erving. Frame Analysis: An
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Jonge, J. K. J. De Oorsprong van Ne
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Noorlander, Danny L. “Serving God
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Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Na
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1624-1654, edited by Marianne L. Wi
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