“As to other possibilities, once the colony is established, I can take a yacht upriver, to look for the gold which Suriname is reputed to possess.” He was referring to the legend of El Dorado, and the Lake of Manoa. “Or I can take my squadron privateering; that can be very lucrative.”
David finished off by discussing how much money he was trying to raise, and what it would be spent on. “There is a—” He looked blank for a moment.
“Handout,” whispered Kaspar.
“—handout by the door. Thank you for listening to me.” He sat down.
“Are there any questions for the captain?” said Hugh.
David Bartley stood up. “Aren’t you worried that the Spanish will wipe out your colony?”
David de Vries was surprised that a youngster would ask questions in such a gathering, but answered his question politely. “There are already Dutch, French and English settlements on the Wild Coast, and the Spanish have simply ignored them. Well, most of them.”
“And where are you going to get your colonists? I don’t think you’re going to find many here in Grantville.”
“There are many displaced peasants in Germany and Flanders, thanks to the wars. This would be their big chance to own land of their own.”
Chad Jenkins, one of the major landowners in Grantville, stood up. “Captain De Vries, you are going to have to find a suitable site for this colony of yours. Do you have experience as an explorer?
“Yes, in the Barents Sea, in my youth, and more recently in the Americas, between the Zuidt and Noord Rivers.”
“The South and North.” Kaspar Heesters explained. “What up-timers would call the Delaware and Hudson Rivers.”
Chad wasn’t finished. “And have you been in more tropical climes?”
“I spent several years with Coen in the East Indies, and I also visited several islands of the West Indies on my last voyage.”
Claus Junker raised a newspaper. “Joe Buckley says here that you were involved in the Zwaanandael disaster. The attempt to found a colony in Delaware.”
David’s face reddened. “That was hardly my fault. I had sought the command of the first expedition, but it was denied. Indeed, I had to stay at home, trusting to the leaders picked by my partners. And on the second trip, it was the so-called whaling expert who failed, not me.”
Endres Ritter chimed in. “You know all about financial disasters caused by picking the wrong partners, don’t you, Claus?” It was a reference to Claus’ ill-fated investment in microwave ovens. The two men glared at each other.
Claus returned to his original target. “But even if it weren’t your fault, your . . . association with a failed venture has made it difficult for you to raise money for your latest enterprise, hasn’t it?”
David folded his arms. “It made it difficult for me to fund it myself. But I do have prospective investors. Jan Bicker of Amsterdam, for one. And two of his friends.” There was an answering murmur from the financiers in the room. “Coming here was not a necessity. I was hoping to raise more money, to be able to give the colony a more secure foundation.
“And I hoped that there might be some Germans here who had a yen to own their own farm in the New World.”
An up-timer stood up. “And I imagine your colonists are going to steal their new farmland from the natives. And then either force them into labor, or kill them outright.”
“That’s Andrew Yost,” Kaspar whispered to David. “He’s manager of the Grantville Freedom Arches, and one of the leaders in the local Committee of Correspondence. I told you about that.”
“Herr Yost, if you examine the history of what someone earlier referred to as the ‘Zwaanandael disaster,’ you will find that despite great provocation—the murder of thirty settlers in America while I was still in the Netherlands—I did not retaliate in kind. I was able to trade for furs, with the Lenape. And I kept all of my crew alive, without having to kill any Indians.”
A gentleman with a moustache and a goatee stood up. He was dressed in a staggering variety of colors, leaving David with the impression of a somewhat cadaverous peacock. “Captain, I am Doctor Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz. You mentioned mining for gold. But there is a mineral, prolific in Suriname, which is a necessary precursor to the preparation of the ‘Quinta Essentia of the Human Humors.’ This mineral is called bauxite. Perhaps—”
“No,” Tracy Kubiak moaned. “Not aluminum, again.” Bauxite was the principal ore of aluminum, an up-time metal that fascinated the alchemists because of its silvery appearance and extraordinary lightness.