Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

princes, if not to learn the vulgar practice of accountancy, then at least to surround themselves
with experts who had. 19
Despite this vanguard role, almost nothing has been written about the ways that
quantitative analysis shaped specific debates over policy in the Dutch Republic in the
seventeenth century. 20 Building on the preceding narrative and analysis, this chapter examines
the WIC's efforts to lobby the States General, the States of Holland, and the Prince of Orange
during the critical period 1644-1645. It asks how arguments concerning colonial politics were
communicated to a largely mercantile elite, taking De Laet and Specx’s texts as a comparative
case study. It looks at how their calculations were organized, what assumptions they made, and
how each author aimed to frame and defend the WIC's imperial project for specific groups of
decision-makers. The first section of the paper explores Specx's calculations and the manner in
which he clothed a number of dubious assumptions about the value of the company’s trade
within the simple and elegant format of double-entry bookkeeping. The second traces the origins
of De Laet’s unusual history and places it within the context of the debate over renewal of the
company's charter. By parsing De Laet’s calculations, it demonstrates the growing salience of
numeracy in company politics after the late-1630s and suggests ways in which arguments based
on the logic of “reason of state” could gain support from, and in turn empower, a quantitatively
precise—if still rudimentary—method of calculating national wealth.
Crucial to both texts was an element of imagination. Throughout, the chapter interprets
the figures themselves as a means of articulating and even fueling imperial fantasies and
19 Ibid., 216.
20 For a recent history of financial management, see Smidt, Van Tresorier tot Thesaurier-Generaal; On debates in
political economy generally, see Gelderblom, The Political Economy of the Dutch Republic.
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