[TWELVE YEARS' TRUCE].

Discours van Pieter en Pauwels, op de Handelinghe vanden Vreede. Anno 1608.[Amsterdam?], [1608]. Small 4to. A discussion of the pamphlet war concerning the peace negotiations with Spain, with special reference to Spanish atrocities in America, written in the form of a dialogue between Peter and Paul. Modern wrappers.

      (3) pp. Alden & Landis 608/51; Asher 26, 27 and 28/26; Knuttel 1456; Simoni D-63; Tiele 666; OCLC WorldCat (1 copy). First and only edition of a political pamphlet in the form of a dialogue between Peter and Paul (an implicit allusion to the Saints). Peter asks Paul what he is doing reading all those "drucxkens" (clearly meaning pamphlets) and what is in them. Paul notes that they are all the remonstrances, discourses, conversations, dreams and riddles that have been published about the peace negotiations, a clear allusion to several pamphlets later issued collectively with the present one under the title Nederlandtsche Bye-Korf (following the Asher numbering, probably Bye-Korf pamphlets 5, 27, 30, and at least some in each of the groups 3, 34 & 35 and 25, 28 & 29). He notes that they also give examples from "living histories," and when Peter asks him to tell some, he notes that the King of Spain had made friends (so he pretended) with the kings of the West Indies (a term at this date still encompassing Brazil and other parts of continental America), only to then murder (their people) by the hundreds of thousands. He then goes on to note Spain's "tyranny" in the kingdoms of Mexico, Peru and Florida, and on the islands of Cuba, Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico. Few of the pamphlets from this period make such specific reference to individual regions in North and South America and the West Indies.With its allusions to many other Bye-Korf pamphlets, this must be one of the latest pamphlets to have been issued with all three editions of the Bye-Korf, all of which came out between Easter (6 April) and 27 August 1608, the present pamphlet being banned with most of the others on the latter date. This and the fact that a single edition appears to have been issued with all three editions of the Bye-Korf , makes the present pamphlet an important key to the chronology of the others. While most Bye-Korf pamphlets went through three and some even more editions, only one edition of the present pamphlet is known. It must therefore have been issued just before the first edition of the Bye-Korf .A very good copy of a political pamphlet interesting for its dialogue form, its reference to other pamphlets, and its references to several regions in the Americas.