Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

It occurred to me that these miraculous deeds of the West India Company, executed for the wellbeing
of our dear fatherland, should not to be kept silent from future generations, and that I, who
from the beginning have been in the service of the [company], having attended and assisted all
the deliberations, and having seen and read all the journals, letters, and papers, should not be
blamed for picking up these descriptions, and capturing only the naked truth (which I knew best)
by arranging the material in separate books in annalistic form, and preparing it to be easily
understood and exhibited to the world, just as another, with a better pen, might have done. 80
De Laet’s work was so thorough that Caspar Barlaeus, commissioned at roughly this time by
Johan Maurits to write a history of the latter’s tenure in Brazil, dismissed the need to review the
company's early history, since “the widely known and celebrated gentlemen Johannes de Laet, in
his historical work, has already told of these affairs, having articulated the truth directly, not on
the basis of hearsay or rumor, but following the documents and day-books of those who have
themselves been eyewitnesses to these events.” 81 Just as in his argument with Grotius over the
origins of the Native Americans, De Laet’s history was empirically well informed and supremely
sensitive to his sources. 82
From the perspective of the history of accountancy, the most important part of the
Iaerlyck Verhael is without question its final part, the Kort Verhael wt de voorgaende Boecken
ghetrocken van de diensten ende nuttigheden die desen Staet heeft genooten by de West-Indische
Compagnie, ende de schaden die deselve den Koningh van Spanien heeft ghedaen sedert haer
80 Ibid. “My docht daer benevens dat dese wonderlijcke daden by de West-Indische Compagnie tot welstandt van
onse lieve Vaderlandt uyt-ghewroght, de naerkomelinghen niet en konden offte behoordenversweghen te worden;
ende dat my, die van den beginne in bedieninge van de selve was gheweest, alle de ghewichtighe raetslagen hadde
bygewoont ende helpen bevorderen, ende alle de Journalen, Brieven ende Geschriften ghesien ende gelesen, niet
qualijck en konde af-ghenomen worden de Beschrijvinghe van de selve by der handt te nemen, ende de naeckte
waerheyt alleen (die my ten besten bekent was) in onderscheyden Boeken volgens de ordre der Jaren te vervatten,
ende alsoo de stoffe te bereyden voor beter verstanden, die de selve hier naer met een beter penne naer hun
verdiensten mochten ten thoone stellen voor de gantsche wereldt.”
81 Caspar van Baerle, in Nederlandsch Brazilië onder het bewind van Johan Maurits, Grave van Nassau, 1637-1644
(’s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1923), 23. “Die zaken heeft de zeer wijdluste en zeer vermaarde Heer Johannes
de Laet in zijne geschiedwerken verhaald, onomwonden de waarheid uitgesproken hebbende, niet van hooren
zeggen of op grond van losse praatjes, maar volgens de opgaven en de dagverhalen van hen die de feiten hebben
bijgewoond.”
82 Rubiés, “Hugo Grotius’s Dissertation on the Origin of the American Peoples and the Use of Comparative
Methods”; Schmidt, “Space, Time, Travel: Hugo de Groot, Johannes de Laet, and the ‘Advancement’ of Geographic
Learning”; De Laet, Suiker, Verfhout & Tabak.
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