Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

was present at twenty-seven of these meetings and in 1636 he was present at thirty-three. 141
Given that Leiden was half a day's journey from Amsterdam, this is an impressive record of
involvement. Equally important, by the mid-1630s, De Laet was in his mid-fifties, making him
one of the more senior directors in the chamber. The significance of this is borne out by his
selection to serve on the committee of rekenmeesters (accountants), one of eleven standing
committees that were modeled on similar committees in the VOC. 142 Each committee had a
specialized area of responsibility, such as handling trade goods, outfitting ships, procuring “dry”
and “wet” provisions and medicines, recruiting soldiers, and overseeing the colonies of Curaçao
and New Netherland, which together were administered by the Amsterdam chamber on behalf of
the company as a whole. 143 The committee of rekenmeesters was responsible for keeping track of
all the chamber's finances, including invested capital, obligations, operating expenses, and
profits. This was challenging in its own right, and would have required both trust and
considerable skills in mathematics and accounting. 144 But it also required diplomatic skills, since
in order for the company to calculate profit and loss in general, the individual chambers needed
to reconcile all their accounts with one another at the end of each year. The status associated with
these activities is confirmed by two pieces of evidence: first, all five members of the committee
of rekenmeesters were senior directors in the chamber. Second, the committee formed to manage
the difficult problem of populating Brazil included all of its members, plus Albert Coenraeds
Burgh, later burgemeester of Amsterdam and, together with De Laet, probably the most powerful
person in the chamber.
141
Ibid. De Laet's attendance does not include days on which he attended meetings of the Heren XIX on the
chamber's behalf. He also wrote many letters to the chamber while he was in Leiden.
142
NA 1.05.01.01, inv.nr. 14, entry for June 30, 1636. Den Heijer, De Geoctrooieerde Compagnie.
143
Den Heijer, De Geschiedenis van de WIC; Jacobs, The Colony of New Netherland; Venema, Kiliaen van
Rensselaer (1586-1643): Designing a New World.
144
See Donna Merwick, “A Genre of Their Own: Kiliaen van Rensselaer as Guide to the Reading and Writing
Practices of Early Modern Businessmen,” The William and Mary Quarterly 65, no. 4, Third Series (October 2008):
669–712.
83