Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

to the Dutch state, and that this determination was inspired by the company’s work to
convincingly articulate that value. The first effort, an internal memorandum drafted by Specx in
the summer of 1645, carried the simple title, “State of the Income and Expenses of the Chartered
West India Company.” 10 In ten folio pages of calculations, Specx defined value in the familiar
language of pure monetary gain: by estimating the company's sources of income and expenditure
in each of its five most important conquests, he arrived at a single, positive sum for the
company's projected annual profits. Doing so required him to distill revenues from dozens of
trades that had rarely if ever been considered as part of a single economic system, many of
which—as the term “conquest” implies—had only quite recently fallen into Dutch hands. The
second effort was by De Laet. Published in November 1644, his Iaerlyck Verhael (History of the
Chartered West India Company) chronicled the company's first thirteen years and, as a coda,
provided detailed calculations demonstrating the total monetary value of the damage the
company had inflicted on Iberian America. 11 Using history, rather than accountancy, De Laet
offered the company’s accumulated achievements as a proxy for the economic and political
value of continued investment in the New World.
Although their approaches—and their conclusions—were quite different, Specx and De
Laet both assembled and analyzed vast amounts of company statistics. In the absence of all but a
few financial records, their work is nearly all that remains for contemporary scholars interested
10 NA 1.10.78, inv.nr. 8, Collectie Sweers, fols 115-120. Staat van het Incomen, ende de Lasten van de
Geoctoyeerde Westindsiche Comp. soo als deselve in haer Hant heeft, ’t een en ’t andere, na haer Believen te
Stellen, 1645.
11 Johannes de Laet, Historie Ofte Iaerlijck Verhael van de Verrichtinghen der Geoctroyeerde West-Indische
Compagnie, zedert haer Begin, tot het Eynde van ’t Jaer Sesthien-hondert ses-en-dertich; Begrepen in Derthien
Boecken, ende met verscheyden Koperen Platen Verciert (Leyden: Bonaventura ende Abraham Elsevier, 1644); The
modern Dutch edition is De Laet, Iaerlyck Verhael van de Verrichtingen der Geoctroyeerde West-Indische
Compagnie; A Portuguese edition was published in Brazil between 1916 and 1925. Johannes de Laet, Historia ou
Annaes dos Feitos da Companhia Privilegiada das Indias Occidentaes desde o seu Começo até ao fim do Anno de
1636, trans. José Hygino Duarte Pereira and Pedro Souto Maior (Rio de Janeiro: Officinas Graphicas da Bibliotheca
Nacional, 1925).
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