Chapter 6 Disaster and Recovery: Advertising in 1672 and the Williamite Republic
The year 1672 should have been a time for celebration in the Dutch Republic. It was exactly one hundred years earlier, in 1572, that the Sea Beggars had taken Brielle, and that the rebellion against Spain took hold in Holland. To local patriots it was 1572, not the ‘wonder year’ of 1566, that marked the true start of Dutch liberation. On 29 March 1672, a few days before the centenary of the capture of Brielle, one Dordrecht bookseller placed an advertisement in the Oprechte Haerlemse Courant for a new book named Jubeljaer der vrye Ver- eenigde Nederlantse Provintien, zijnde ‘t jaer 1672. en ‘t hondertste jaer der Refor- matie en Vryheyt derselven [Year of Jubilation for the Free United Netherlandish Provinces, it being the year 1672, the 100th year of the Reformation and the Freedom of the same].1 Symon onder de Linde, the publisher responsible for the new book, should have read the newspapers with greater care. For several years the Dutch Republic had lived under gathering clouds. The sense of national pride gener- ated by the victories in the later part of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665– 1667) had been replaced by dread anticipation of renewed conflict. This time the enemy was France, whose king, Louis xiv, was openly courting the assis- tance of King Charles ii of England. Political rivalry and mercantilist competi- tion were fuelled by the personal desire of both monarchs to inflict humilia- tion on the bourgeois regents of the upstart Republic. The secret Treaty of Dover (1670) bound France and England together, whilst Louis also marshalled the support of two German neighbours of the Republic, the Prince-Bishops of Münster and Cologne. This diplomatic scheming would not have been on show in the weekly papers, but they contained enough news of military preparations and manoeuvres to warn citizens of impending conflict. Yet nobody could have foretold the disastrous course of events that would unfold during the summer of 1672. The centenary of liberation soon came to be known by a dif- ferent name: the Rampjaar, the Year of Disaster. In this chapter we will see what role newspaper advertising played during this turbulent time, and the enduring consequences of this existential trauma for both the book industry and the newspapers.
1 ohd 13, 29.03.1672.
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A Nation Stunned
In 1672, the Oprechte Haerlemse Courant contained just over 300 advertise- ments and announcements, or around two per issue. Statistically speaking, this was not a poor year. The character of the advertisements was, however, unlike those of any year before it. The cycle of advertising reflected political developments closely. The newspaper year began in familiar fashion: the Haar- lem newspaper advertised the usual miscellany of book auctions, newly pub- lished books, schoolmasters looking for pupils, changes in the barge schedules, notifications of thefts and lost property, and a high-profile murder. War erupted on 6 April 1672, with the French declaration of war, followed a day later by that of the English. The political consequences of these lightning strikes were echoed in the newspaper advertisements within a fortnight. On 19 April, Jacob Benjamin, an Amsterdam bookseller, advertised for the Neerlandts Vreugde Basuyn [The Netherlands’ Joyous Trumpet], a small octavo which celebrated the appointment of William iii as Captain-General of the army, an event which had taken place two months earlier, on 25 February. For good measure, Benjamin had added to this laudatory piece ‘a tract on military drill in the infantry forces of the Prince of Orange, with engravings’.2 Business, it seems from the advertisements, was flourishing as usual. The magistrates of Breda announced on 17 May that they had cancelled their Pen- tecost festival ‘for various [unspecified] reasons’, but the magistrates of Delft merrily advertised their horse market a week later.3 Estates were offered for sale on 2 June, and on 31 May an advertisement went out for the auction of the library of Christianus Schotanus, the recently deceased professor of theology at Franeker.4 The sale would take place at the start of July. In Maassluis, a long- awaited lottery was finally prepared, with the prizes exhibited for six weeks before the lots would be drawn.5 Yes, there was war, but war was good for commerce too. For decades the Dutch had supplied the armies of Europe with cannon, rifles and pikes. This time war was closer to home than preferable, but that should not have stopped many of its citizens from making a profit. On 24 May, a sergeant named Pieter van der Hage, living in Haarlem, advertised his skills to prepare ‘sulphur, and to multiply one’s supplies, at least doubling it if one makes a large enough
2 ohd 16, 19.04.1672. 3 ohd 21, 24.05.1672. 4 ohd 22, 31.05.1672. 5 ohs 23, 04.06.1672.