Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

to hang from the body [...] This short account of the company's achievements each year which is
presented to your Honors shall serve witness [to the fear now felt by this mighty power]. 64
It was a bellicose statement of the company’s contributions to the war effort and a call for
acknowledgement of this from the States of Holland. Year by year, in exhaustive and often dry
detail, De Laet’s book recounted each of the company’s many successful conquests at sea and on
land and catalogued the riches it had appropriated at the Spanish King’s expense. For men “to
guess how the King’s treasure and income had been reduced” was not sufficient: these were
spelled out ship-by-ship, sugar chest by sugar chest, and assigned precise monetary values. At
the end of the book, De Laet then abandoned narrative altogether and combined the subtotals
from each year to arrive at a precise reckoning of the company’s overall contribution to the
Dutch state. 65
De Laet’s unusual book—the first work published in the Netherlands to address the
history of a joint stock company, rather than of a city or a prince, and possibly the first history of
a mercantile company published anywhere in Europe—has received far less attention from
historians than it deserves. 66 While considered highly accurate, and thus often mined as a unique
64 De Laet, Iaerlyck Verhael van de Verrichtingen der Geoctroyeerde West-Indische Compagnie, vol. 1, 3. “De
meeste middelen waermede den Koningh van Haspagnien de gantsche Weerelt, ende insonderheyt Christenrijck, soo
vele Jaren in roeren heft ghehouden, ende dese Gheunieerde Provintien soo machtich bestreden, sijn voornementlick
hem toe-ghekommen uyt de over-rijcke Landen van America […] Naer dat de Geoctroyeerde West-Indsiche
Compagnie is opgericht, ende heeft begonnen to wercken, heeft men konnen speuren hoe des selves Koninghs
schatten en in-komsten hebben komen te minderen ende sijne vorige macht te verflauwen. De swacheyt van dat
groot Lichaem laet sich nu klaerlijck sien; door do swacken teghen-partije soo merckelijcken verminckt zijnde, dat
de armen beginnen te hanghen.” The States of Holland recognized the book with a payment of 300 guilders and
ordered that the copy he sent them “be displayed on the table of the High and Mighty [States of Holland].” Staten
van Holland and Westvriesland, Gedrukt Resoluties, entry for November 25, 1644. Two letters De Laet composed to
accompany copies of the book that he sent to the States General and the Amsterdam chamber of the WIC can be
found in the Special Collections of the Leiden University Library, PAP 2, Brieven van Johannes De Laet aan
Bestuurders der Geoctroyeerde West-Indische Compagnie Amsterdam, November 28, 1644.
65 De Laet, Iaerlyck Verhael van de Verrichtingen der Geoctroyeerde West-Indische Compagnie, vol. 4, 279.
66 A history of the VOC would be published two years later. Isaac Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh, van de
Vereenighde Nederlantsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie (Amsterdam: Johannes Janssonius, 1646).
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