11
After 1633 Vlacq worked only as book-publisher and seller, and until his
death in 1667 he has never applied himself again to the art of mathematics (nor
astronomy), which proves again that he was not really a scientist. We know that
Briggs learned within a few months of the publication of Vlacq's Arithmetica
Logarithmica, Part II, because his reaction - disappointed but not angry - has
survived in a letter to John Pell, see [6a], Others were more explicit in blaming
Vlacq's "ill dealings", like Richard Norwood in the preface to his 1631
Trigonometrie, see [9].
It is not known if Vlacq has ever had direct contact with Briggs, but he
has certainly communicated with Henry Gellibrand (the successor of Gunter at
Gresham College since 1627) who assumed the responsibility to publish the
Trigonometria Britannica by Briggs after he died in 1630. This resulted in Vlacq
traveling to London, negotiating with Gellibrand and arranging for Rammaseyn
to print Briggs' last work in Gouda, together with his own Trigonometria
ArtificiaHs.
He stayed in London as bookseller until the conflict between King Charles I
and Parliament turned into civil war and forced him to leave England in 1642.
Being a dexterous businessman, and a foreigner too, he was not always popular
among his colleague booksellers, one of whom accused him of: "Lurking here,
observing what is most useful and vendible, and causes it forthwith to be printed
abroad", see [20]. He then went to Paris, again as bookseller in the Rue St.
Jacques. After another conflict in Paris, he returned to Holland after 1648. Around
1650 Vlacq established himself in The Hague as book-publisher and seller under
the name "Sumptibus Adr. Vlac", later "Ex Typografia Adr. Vlac". He also acquired
his own printshop, which he bought in 1653 from Johannes Rammazeyn (the son
of Vlacq's old printer Pieter Rammaseyn in Gouda!). This was his most productive
period during which he published and printed works of many authors, including
some famous scholars like Hugo Grotius, Christiaan Huygens, Gerardus Johannes
and Isaak Vossius.
He even published since 1653 The Hague's first newspaper, Het Wekeijcke
Nieus, the descendant of which became De Haagsche Post {today HP/De Tijd).
One of his conflicts, in 1654 with John Milton {Paradise Lost) while
publishing some of his polemic pamphlets, stimulated him to write a defence for
himself against Milton's and other accusations he had suffered during his
professional life, titled Typographus pro se ipso (the bookseller's defence). In this
short paper of 12 pages Vlacq cites Milton's defamations and stands up to the
accusations, adding a description of his bookseller's life from his own perspective,
see [24]. Again he carefully avoids in this text any mention of De Decker, who had
died already in 1647.
A most interesting part in Typographus pro se ipso might raise some
second thoughts on his presumed business talent at publishing logarithmic tables:
"What costly expenditures, what labor, how much time I spent on these three
books, besides others which I completed at that time, they can judge who know
them. This I can testify: I drew from them much more financial loss than gain.
