Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

fascination with national statistics and the more general application of mathematics to problems
of politics. 98
De Laet’s immediate model for this exercise appears to have been a remonstrance to the
States General composed in 1633 that argued against the Republic’s tentative moves to reach a
peace treaty with Spain. 99 The document was submitted by the directors of the Amsterdam
chamber and, although it is impossible to know whether De Laet had any hand in its
composition, he would certainly have known about it, since he was often in Amsterdam at this
time and among other responsibilities he previously had served on the committee within the
Heren XIX tasked with making recommendations to the States General concerning peace with
Spain. 100 The 1633 document set out to catalogue “the vast services this Company has, from its
inception until now, conferred on this state, and what it can further perform hereafter.” 101 The
sections then proceeded in roughly the same manner as those of the Kort Verhael. It listed,
sequentially, the company’s outfitting of ships, consumption of goods, and employment of
soldiers and seamen; the duties that were collected on re-exports of colonial goods the company
imported to the Netherlands; the company’s contribution to trade in precious metals and
manufactures; its construction of ships; the aid it had offered to the state, especially soldiers to
help protect the Veluwe in 1632; and, finally, the “damage [the company] had inflicted on the
98 McCormack writes that Petty was in Leiden in April and May of 1644 and that he met there with a “Mr. de Laet,”
among others. See pp. 32-35. He ascribes national accounting to Petty’s work in 1664. See McCormack, 157.
99 NA 1.01.04, inv. 5753, Remonstrance of the West India Company against a Peace with Spain, 1633. A
translation, originally printed in E. B. O'Callaghan's Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New
York, vol. 1, can be found in Goslinga. The author of this remonstrance is unknown, beyond the fact that it was
submitted on behalf of the Amsterdam chamber of the company. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and on the
Wild Coast 1580-1680, 500–506.
100 NA 1.01.04, inv.nr. 5752.
101 Remonstrance of the West India Company against a Peace with Spain, 1633. In Goslinga, The Dutch in the
Caribbean and on the Wild Coast 1580-1680, 500.
253