I had given copies of some manuscripts from 1658 to Jan Glete. He noticed that the names for the Amsterdam ships Cogge and Waegh didn't seem like warship names to him. He started to do some research in the literature, and finally from his notes.
A week ago, Jan Glete noticed "it looks very likely that Cogge and Waegh were armed merchantmen rather than state-owned warships." He pointed out that in the "lijste van Schepen van Oorlogh" that these two ships were listed separately from the admiralty ships and were called "Stadsschepen".
He finally looked in his notes and found that he had seen a list of ships sent to Denmark in 1658, in Den Doorluchtige Zeehelden deser Eeuwen, Vol.II, published in Amsterdam in 1676. He had found that volume in a library in the Netherlands, quite a long time ago. In that volume, under the heading of "Stads schepen van Amsterdam", were two ships called Boge and Waergh. They clearly were the same as the Cogge and Waegh. I have seen the name Boge used in placed of Cogge, and wondered whence it came. The handwritten manuscripts from 1658 clearly say "Cogge". In any case, we now know that these were merchant ships fitted out by Amsterdam, for this expedition, rather than warships, as I had guessed. We owe a debt to Jan Glete for his perserverence in researching this issue.
