Coui missiouers on the Redress of the declining affairs of the West India Company, have reported in virtue of, and pursuant to your High Mightinesses' resolution of the SS* March 1647, adopted before granting the Charter of the West India Company, and made on your High Mightinesses' letters to the respective Chambers dated W December 1647, to send their respective deputies to the Hague by the 7"" January, in order to make a beginning of the aforesaid Redress ;

HOLLAND DOCUMENTS : III. 217 commenced the conference on the of January with the Directors, and demanded of their 9"^

deputies the condition of the Company, as well in receipts as disbursements, with their respective opinions upon the reparation of the decline experienced therein and thereupon the five ;

Chambers of Amsterdam, Zealand, Maaze, North Quarter and Groeningen delivered in their respective opinions, but they said that the pertinent statement of the receipts and expenditure of the Company, both domestic and foreign, was not ready. And thereupon we requested the deputed Accountants Bloemert and Altingh to make up the Company's aforesaid statement, and, meanwhile, the said opinions of the respective Chambers were read. On the 4"" February the Accountant Altingh delivered in a statement of the Company's expenditures and income in Brazil from January 1647 to January 1648, from which it appears that the Company's expenses for that year were Eleven to Twelve Tons of Gold,^ and the income, on the other hand, from an uncertain source is provisionally estimated at four tons of Gold N" 1 ; from which the total ruin and decline of the Company is to be expected, if prompt provision be not immediately made against it. And whereas the present statement was made up at the time of the Portuguese rebellion in Brazil, in the lowest condition of that conquest, your High Mightinesses' Commissioners also requested of the Accountants the statement of the Company's receipts and expenditure in Brazil, previous to the rebellion, in order to ascertain whether, in case of the re-establishment of Brazil, means are to be found for the support of the Military, which are needed for the preservation of that conquest, and the annexed statement No. 2, was delivered in by the Accountants.