Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

maintaining the company's solvency, expanding the colony by military means, and supplying
Brazil with labor, either free or un-free. Several of these conclusions would be seriously
challenged during the intense period of lobbying in the months that followed.
4. Compromise within the Heren XIX
When Colonel Artichewski returned home in early 1637 from several years commanding Dutch
forces in northeastern Brazil, he found a state of “perilous quarreling” among the WIC's five
chambers. 99 In a letter to Johan Maurits, who had just arrived in Brazil, Artichewski indicated
that he had read the “hundreds of pages” composed on the question of free trade, but had not
become involved personally. He had friends on each side and, though from his service he knew
far more than anyone else about the actual conditions in the colony, he didn't want to offend
them. Moreover, once delegates from Zeeland suspected that he might not support their side—
that, in other words, he supported free trade—they instructed him not to speak. 100 Artichewski
hoped that the States General or the Prince of Orange might seek his counsel, but even here he
had been foiled, as the chambers sent minders to ensure his silence. “This matter,” Artichewski
wrote, “which has become so bitter here, cannot be resolved in any way better than for your
Excellency to write from Brazil yourself.” 101
And this is precisely what Maurits did, borrowing liberally from arguments that
Artichewski provided. In Artichewski's view, the company's directors, who had never visited the
99 Artichewski, “Missive van den Kolonnel Artichofsky aan Graaf Maurits en de Hoogen Raad in Brazilië, 24 Juli
1637,” 222. “Int Vaderlant gearriveert sijnde, vant ick den staet vande West-Indische Comp. door inwendige twisten
heel pericleus onstelt.”
100 Ibid., 224.
101 Ibid., 225. “Altoos, dese saecken, die hier soo qualijck wtgevallen sijn, connen niet beter op nieu vervat worden,
als door V Extie. ende E. entremise wt Brasil selffs.”
200