Anonymous (Pinto, Isaac de). Discours d'un bon Hollandois a ses compatriotes, Sur différents objets intéressants. [“Discourse of a Good Dutchman to his Compatriots, on Different Subjects of Interest.”]

Plea for Dutch Solidarity with the British in Their War Against the American Revolutionaries The pamphlet argues that Dutch and English interests coincide - for which the author was given a thorough thrashing by another anonymous pamphleteer, Antoine-Marie Cerisier (see next Lot). Isaac de Pinto (1717-1787), a Dutch Jew of Portuguese descent, an economist and director of the Dutch East India Company, was one of the wealthiest Jews in all Holland. In his work Apologie pour la Nation Juive (1762), he defended the Jewish people against the slanderous remarks of Voltaire. Voltaire was duly impressed by de Pinto, dubbing him "a philosopher and a Jew." Pinto, who has been hailed as one of the most brilliant economists of the age, was firmly opposed to the American Revolution, ostensibly on economic grounds, and gave vent to his thoughts in several works. (See Kestenbaum & Company, Sale 40, Lot 4 for another such work.) The memoirist of Dutch Jewry M.H. Gans writes that the rumor was spread that de Pinto was in the pay of the English. See JE, Vol. X, p. 54; EJ, Vol. XIII, cols. 553-554; M.H. Gans, Memorbook (1977), pp. 112-113