Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

along with the two powerful Amsterdam directors Johannes de Laet and Albert Coenraeds
Burgh—a well-informed and reliable supporter of free trade to Brazil. 77
The inclinations of the deputies at the States General in The Hague were rather different.
Once the resolution to close the trade had been finalized, both Zeeland and Amsterdam sent large
delegations to express their views. Zeeland, of course, congratulated the States General on its
decision, while some fifteen directors and hoofdparticipanten from Amsterdam complained
bitterly that the decision jeopardized both the company and the colony. 78 Their respective letters
were placed in the hands of a committee that was asked to submit a report, in consultation with
Van Arnhem and Jan Gijsbertsz. Pauw, a deputy from Alkmaar and the States General's junior
representative to the meetings of the Heren XIX. 79 This committee was disproportionately staffed
with noblemen who were either hostile to Spain or represented provinces whose chambers in the
company opposed free trade to Brazil. The matter was not simply that Amsterdam's numerical
strength was weaker in the States General—where, together with all the other cities in Holland, it
exercised only one vote of seven, as opposed to the eight votes it controlled in the Heren XIX—
but that it faced almost unanimous opposition on both ideological and political grounds.
The deputy from Zeeland, for example, was Johan de Knuyt, Heer van Oud en Nieuw
Vosmaera, later a fierce critic of peace with Spain and a close confidant of the Prince of
Orange. 80 While there is no record that Frederik Hendrik ever explicitly supported Zeeland's
position, he had written to the States General the previous year to ask that their case be heard,
77 From 1639 until his death in 1644, Van Arnhem served as one of two Commissarissen-Deciseurs appointed by the
States General to oversee appointments, law, and administration in the Maastricht, the Limburg city captured by
Frederik Hendrik in 1632. He first appears in the records of the WIC as a representative of the States General in
March 1630. See NA 1.01.04, inv.nr. 5752. His identification as an advocate of free trade is taken from Artichewski,
“Missive van den Kolonnel Artichofsky aan Graaf Maurits en de Hoogen Raad in Brazilië, 24 Juli 1637,” 231.
78 NA 1.01.04, inv.nr. 5754, fols. 288 and 301.
79 NA 1.05.01.01, inv.nr. 39, marginal note in the Credentiebrief van de Camer Amsterdam aen de Staten Generael,
dated January 27, 1637.
80 See Chapter Two.
194