Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

and Philips Serooskerken. 58 The recognition fees that the company collected on goods shipped
by private traders were welcome, the letter argued, but they were tiny in comparison to the
profits of the trade itself. The only way to secure a greater portion of these profits would be to
close the trade. In his separate letter, Serooskerken, a Zeelander, expressed the frustration and
indignation aroused by the activities of the private traders. While the company was obliged to
maintain the army and its own servants—as well the forts, warehouses, and living quarters—the
private traders were making a fortune on the trade in sugar and provisions. Not only did this give
them an unfair advantage, Serooskerken reasoned, but it led to price inflation, since the private
traders simply added to the price of the goods they sold the recognition fees they paid to the
company, plus 100-200% in profits. In Recife the price for houses, many of which were still
dilapidated as a result of the war, had increased as much as sevenfold. As a result, many in the
colony—and especially the company's soldiers and menial servants—had fallen deeply in debt.
The private trade, Serooskerken concluded, was “eating the company like a worm.” 59
Jan Robberts, another company official, qualified his remarks as based solely on “my
personal sentiments,” but the recommendations he offered were almost exactly the same. 60 The
private traders, he wrote, were “no friends of the company,” but rather men who in every
instance placed their own particular interests above those of either company or fatherland. 61 He
echoed Serooskerken's reports on the poor state of the company's warehouses and the rapid rise
in prices, which he blamed for the “thousands” of company soldiers that could be found
58 NA 1.01.07, inv.nr. 12564.5. Extracts from the letter of the Politique Raad, June 11, 1636.
59 Ibid. Extracts from a letter from Philips Serooskerken, June 11, 1636. “Den handel van particulieren compt hierin
zoodanigen consideratie, dat noch militaire noch maritime, noch politycque, noch Ecclesiastique haer met genouch
daerover verwonderen en commen, Oordelen geen beter middel gevonden te commen worden, om de Comp te
gronde te helpen, ende de particuliere in corten tyt schatryck te maecken, dan dat den oorloch ende de oncosten daer
aen dependerende de Comp. als een verterende Worm behoude”
60 Ibid. Extracts from a letter from Jan Robberts, August 12, 1636. “Doch ick schrijve met myn particulier gevoelen,
u E. sullen misschien beter tot voordeel van. Comp. onderrecht syn, Dat ick van haerten wensche.”
61 Ibid.
189