Talk:Jacob Andries van Braam

Red herrings
This is a sad story for the benefit of the unwary Wikipedian with biographical ambitions. Both sources I used for this article: Van der Aa and Blok/Molhuysen tell us that Van Braam left Batavia in early 1812 and was in London at the end of the year (which was a reasonable time for sailing craft of the time). Neither explains why this fact is deemed worthy of recording. So I had visions of dark conspiracies on the part of Van Braam and the future Sovereign Prince (who was about to desccend on his unwary future subjects in 1813), especially because Van der Aa actually gives a (slightly misleading) reference: appendix 22 of Part I of Daedels 1814 (not 1816, as I erroneously inferred) apologia with the title "Staat der Nederlandsche Oostindische bezittingen, onder het bestuur van den gouverneur-generaal Herman Willem Daendels, ridder, luitenant-generaal, enz. in de jaren 1808 tot 1811". Van der Aa does not mention the title, so I had to go to the catalog of the Library of Congress to exhume it. It turns out the several volumes of this tome are available in Google books. And it turns out that Volume I does not have appendices, as they are all in vols II and III. But in vol. II there is indeed an appendix 22. This is a letter, written by Van Braam, and dated 31 November 1812 (sic) in London to Daendels in Paris at the time (while there was a war on, but that didn't stay the mails, apparently), in which he tells Daendels that his share of the bird's nest harvest (apparently a steady source of income for the GG) had been diminished by a large sum, which Daendel's successor Janssens demanded be paid to him. So nothing shocking (or it must be the obvious avarice of the two GGs). No conspiracy in other words. So I put it down to experience. In any case, Van Braam was indeed in London (probably on November 30, not 31, for obvious reasons). But what the import of this is, remains a mystery. I have duly, and a bit shame-faced, deleted the footnote with Daendel's reference. Ereunetes (talk) 23:40, 19 April 2023 (UTC)