the "secret of appeltern" was thus very carefully kept. it is suspected that, besides van der kemp, pieter vreede and court lambertus van beyma knew about the secret; in his letters to vreede and van beyma, van der capellen referred to the pamphlet using the abbreviation bahvvn, which according to biographer m. de jong hzn meant: "b(rief) a(an) h(et) v(olk) v(an) n(ederland)" ("l[etter] t[o] t[he] p[eople] o[f] t[he] n[etherlands]"). joan derk's cousin and successor robert jasper van der capellen tot de marsch would have known as well.