Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

was published in Leiden in November 1644. 105 In a short section at the end of the book, De Laet
offered almost thirty pages of calculations to establish the total monetary value of the damage the
company had done to the Republic’s greatest rival, the King of Spain. By closely examining
these two documents, and placing them within the context of the company’s lobbying campaign,
the chapter exposes competing theories of value and shows the growing importance of
quantitative analysis in mercantile rhetoric. Against the backdrop of the Tulip Bubble in 1637, it
also shows the interaction between fact and fantasy in arguments over colonial finance. At the
end of December, and thanks in part to De Laet and Specx’s efforts, the States General approved
funding for a relief fleet to sail to Brazil.
A brief conclusion draws these threads together to re-evaluate explanations for the
eventual failure of the company and its most important colony. As an alternative to the theory
that the company was torn apart by the divergent interests of Amsterdam and Zeeland, it suggests
that tensions between merchants and noblemen—already visible in the early 1610s—grew during
the 1640s. Noblemen bridled at the prospect of working “in the service of merchants” and
merchants, especially in Holland, opposed ceding power either to noblemen or to the States
General. Efforts to centralize control over the company and its colonies, coincident with Frederik
Hendrik's efforts to centralize foreign policy more generally, were ultimately unsuccessful. 106
This proved decisive in the period 1644-45, when Brazil lost an able administrator and was left
without senior leadership to prevent or at least stem the Portuguese revolt. Amsterdam's
merchant elite did indeed thwart efforts to save Dutch Brazil, but this only followed a more
fundamental failure to align social and political interests in favor of what was in fact a broadly
popular imperial effort.
105 Johannes de Laet, Iaerlyck Verhael‚ 4 vols. (’s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931-1937).
106 Geyl, The Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century, 121-150; Israel, The Dutch Republic, 537-546.
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