Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

early modern science. 109 Just as in Petty’s case, the problems to which these methods were
applied first became visible in a colonial context, where the primary challenge was to organize
the spoils of conquest and to represent them in a meaningful way to central organs of the state. 110
De Laet and Specx used mathematics to quantify and divide the Atlantic, much as Petty would
do in the wake of Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland, and they presented their findings in a
synthetic form designed for consumption by the States of Holland and the States General.
However, whereas Petty both contributed to, and was able to ride, England’s growing power and
influence, Specx and De Laet’s work was overtaken by events. The collapse of the company and
its empire effectively relegated their work to the dustbin of history. 111
Despite their similarities, there were also important differences between De Laet and
Specx. A merchant by training, and a veteran of the VOC, the whole organization of Specx’s
calculations reflected his experience in Asia: rather than focusing on piracy or settlement, he
emphasized the potential for peacetime profits from trade and the circulation of goods between
the United Provinces and a stable set of conquests. This was a vision broadly shared by
Amsterdam’s merchant community, many of whom opposed the WIC’s monopolies in Brazil
and Angola, preferred that the Atlantic be opened entirely to private trade, and supported a
policy of peace with Spain. By contrast, De Laet was more deeply invested (literally as well as
metaphorically) in the WIC and its early ideological debates over the relative merits of conquest
109 See, for example, Ian Hacking, The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas about
Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). See also
Harold J. Cook, Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2007).
110 McCormick, William Petty and the Ambitions of Political Arithmetic.
111 There is no record of Specx’s effort other than the document itself. De Laet’s Iaerlyck Verhael was displayed in
the States of Holland and there are scattered references to the book in contemporary correspondence, as well as
Barlaeus’ work on Maurits, but none of these discuss the contents of the Kort Verhael. Neither author features in any
history of economic or political thought of which I am aware. See, for instance, the correspondence between Grotius
and his brother in law, Nickolaes van Reigerberch, H. C. Rogge, ed., Brieven van Nickolaes van Reigerberch aan
Hugo de Groot (Amsterdam: Johannes Muller, 1901).
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