MDMD(5): Cookworthy? And who's de Bosch?

[John Bailey]

Dixon favours a portable soup by a Mr Cookworthy, whose name would lead one 
to assume that he is the ship's cook. But is he? The portable soup makes it 
sound like a ration possibly brought from home, or picked up in Tenerife. 
There was a famous William Cookworthy living at this time in Cornwall, who 
soon after discovered and patented china clay, and hence founded a ceramic 
industry. He was a chemist, however. Maybe Dixon reads the label wrongly. 
Maybe he's drinking potter's grease.

Any thoughts on the town quidnunc, Mrs. de Bosch? Popular Dutch name? I 
think it is, but maybe there's something Heironymous in there. Town 
busy-body as harbinger of chaos, sort of thing.

>From: Michel Ryckx <michel.ryckx at freebel.net>
>To: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: MDMD(5): The V.O.C. - general overview
>Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2001 20:32:35 +0200
>
>The Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie: some general history
>
>Those who want to understand what the V.O.C. really was, let's dive into
>politics, religion and thus ideology; we have to take look at Holland in
>the 17th century first.  I could not help but see some parallells with
>our times.  Again, I agree with John Bailey: this novel is about many
>times.
>
>Two problems lie at the origin of the V.O.C.:
>- The merchantmen from the provinces of Holland and Zeeland, trading
>with the Indies (which were all regions east of the Cape of Good Hope),
>were concurring each other to death; and
>- They had to compete with other countries (Britain, France, . . .)
>which caused tremendous safety problems, ranging from semi-clandestine
>piracy to open war.
>
>This had to stop, according to the 'Staten-Generaal' of the Seven
>Provinces, the highest political authority of the young Republic. On
>March, 20, 1602 (some say 30th), representatives of the Provinces
>granted the V.O.C. a monopoly on the trade with the Indies.  The State
>also granted the V.O.C. the right to conduct war in those areas in order
>to (1) prevent other European countries to trade in the East and (2)
>fight the enemies of the Republic --which was, in fact, the same.
>Imagine: this is the 17th century and a state gave its right to fight
>wars, conduct political negociations and the right to conclude treaties
>to a private company.  They were ahead of their time.
>
>The firm went broke in 1799, but during nearly two centuries they were
>the largest firm of their time, not only bringing enormous wealth to the
>Republic (the 17th century is their 'Golden Century'; see their art: Jan
>Steen, Vermeer, Rembrandt, . . .), but also war, destruction and slavery
>to other parts of the world. At the same time Holland was the most
>hospitable country of the Western world, offering freedom to jews
>(Spinoza), radical thinkers (Descartes wrote in Holland), French
>Huguenots --many of these fled France for the Cape), and many, many
>others.  If you'd ask me, quite a schizophrenic situation: freedom and
>wealth based on slavery and war; a situation a rich Calvinist, being
>Elect, could easily cope with.
>
>Holland was, in many ways, the US of its time.
>
>The V.O.C. was structured around six regional chambers in Amsterdam,
>Middelburg, Rotterdam, Delft, Hoorn and Enkhuizen.  Those chambers sent
>17 representatives to Amsterdam, so they were called 'Heren XVII', the
>17 Sires.  ('Herren' (58.15) is clearly a misprint for it is German, not
>Dutch). The main headquarters in the East were in Batavia (before that:
>Jayacarta, and now again Jakarta), named for the 'Batavi', the name of
>the inhabitants in nowadays Netherlands during Roman time.  They had
>outposts in Japan (Desjima), Yemen (Mokka), Persia (Surat) and many
>other places.  One of these was the Cape, since ships had to take in
>refreshments.
>
>There were about 30 expeditions annually.  In sum, they had had 1,772
>ships built; those ships in turn travelled 4,789 times to the East and
>back.  One safe return meant usually a profit up to 800 percent.  The
>main products were nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and pepper, and other
>consumer products like tea, silk and china.
>
>See:
>J.R. Bruijn, F.S. Gaastra, I. Schöffer, 'Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the
>17th and 18th centuries', Vol. 1 The Hague, 1987.
>
>Some documents concerning the V.O.C. are in the official Dutch Archive
>at:
>
>www.archief.nl/rad/thema/voc1/htm (in Dutch, but rather disappointng)
>www.indonesiaheritage.com offers information in English, from an
>Indonesian point of view.
>
>


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