When penning these words in the mid-1680s Amsterdam director Coenraed van Beuningen was engaged in a mission to reduce the costs and overheads of the VOC in Asia. Van Beuningen was a powerful man in Amsterdam. He had been a member of the urban council since 1660 and would be one of the city's four mayors seven times between 1669 and 1684. He was deputy to the States-General in 1673-1682 and would lead multiple diplomatic missions to France and Sweden. In the year of disasters of 1672, Van Beuningen chose to side with the Orangist faction in Amsterdam led by Gillis Valckenier. In 1681, Van Beuningen became a director of the Amsterdam chamber of the VOC. In this capacity, he displayed a remarkable knack for devising elaborate plans and calculations which would prove that the VOC in Asia could greatly reduce its costs, and in so doing become more profitable. Frequent targets of his cost-cutting enthusiasm were the size of the fleet in Asia and the garrisons and fortifications maintained by the Company. Van Beuningen was frequently too optimistic, and his paper exercises contained errors. But although he was perhaps the most strident of the directors in his wish to cut costs, he was by no means the only one. Though his plans were often far-fetched, he could also be acute and insightful. In the same document, Van Beuningen argued “that the Company's Fortifications and Garrisons can contribute nothing in this world to the security of the Company's affairs on Ceylon…” In doing so, Van Beuningen pointed to an important weakness in Van Goens's strategic vision.