A list of Noorderkwartier ships that I had heard about

In the last few days, I received pages from this list of Noorderkwartier ships from 1652 that were obviously what Carl Stapel had seen. A feature of this document is that fours are formed like they were nines. In fact, the list shows the correct armaments as well as lists actual crew numbers, from some date. The list has entries like:

Capt. Jan Heck            the ship the Eenhoorn        90 men  28 guns
Capt. Thijs Pereboom      the ship the Pereboom        81 men  24 guns
Capt. Theunis Vechtersz   the ship the Schel           75 men  24 guns
Capt. Claes Allertsz      the ship the Nieuwe Casteel  65 men  14 guns

Fishery ships taken by the English

Capt. Jan Heck            the ship the Adam en Eva       70 men  24 guns
Capt. Herman Munnekes     the ship the Wapen van Hollant 90 men  28 guns
Capt. Jan Noblet          the ship the Lant van Beloften 70 men  24 guns

The Amsterdam Directors' ship Sint Pieter

The list of Amsterdam Directors' ships from March 1653 is significant in that it shows the details of the ship Sint Pieter, commanded through 1653 by Gerrit Schuyt. The page does not list his name, but from other sources, such as Witte de With's journal, we know that the Sint Pieter was Gerrit Schuyt's ship. He had previously commanded the called Rooseboom (28 guns) in this list. These are the details:

The ship Sint Pieter, kapitein Gerrit Schuyt

Length:  123ft
Beam:     28ft-7in
Hold:     12-1/2ft
Height:    6-1/2ft

28 guns:  10-12pdr, 8-8pdr, 8-6pdr, and 2-3pdr

Crew: 110 men

Four unnamed Amsterdam Directors' ships

I have a photograph of this page, dating from about March 1653, that includes the dimensions and gun lists for four unnamed Amsterdam Directors' ships:

                                  Guns
The first:  Length  137 feet       20 of 12 lbs
             Beam   31 feet       12 of  6 lbs
             Hold   13-1/2 feet    2 of  3 lbs
           Height    7 feet       34 guns

The second: Length  125 feet       10 of 12 lbs
             Beam   29 feet        8 of  8 lbs
             Hold   12-3/4 feet    8 of  6 lbs
           Height    7 feet        2 of  3 lbs
                                  28 guns

The third:  Length  130 feet       10 of 12 lbs
             Beam   29 feet        8 of  8 lbs
             Hold   13-1/2 feet    8 of  6 lbs
           Height    6-3/4 feet    2 of  3 lbs
                                  28 guns

The fourth: Length  125 feet       10 of 12 lbs
             Beam   29 feet        8 of  8 lbs
             Hold   12-1/2 feet    8 of  6 lbs
           Height    7 feet        2 of  3 lbs
                                  28 guns

The first is easy. That is the ship the Moor, commanded by Adriaan van Ackersloot.
The second seems to be the ship the Moorin, commanded by Cornelis Jol.
the third ship appears to be the Hollandsche Tuin, commanded by Harman Walman.
The armament listed here was augmented by 4-18pdr guns.
The fourth might be the Walvisch, although the length is different from what I would expect.

Sources:

1. James C. Bender, unpublished manuscript "Dutch Directors' Ship Information 1652-1653", 2004

The Amsterdam ship Phesant

The modern spelling is Fazant, but the document that I have from 1652 spells the name Phesant. Jan Jansz Lapper, the shoemaker, commanded the Amsterdam ship Phesant during the First Anglo-Dutch War. Ron van Maanen has information about the Phesant:

The ship Phesant, built in 1646

Dimensions: 120ft x 29ft x 12ft, height between decks: 6-3/4ft

16 Nov 1652   28 guns: 18-12pdr, 10-6pdr
1 April 1653  32 guns: 18-12pdr, 14-6pdr
1 April 1665  38 guns: 18-12pdr, 16-6pdr, 4-3pdr


Crew: 120 men

Sources:

1. Ron van Maanen, unpublished manuscript "Dutch Warships 1600-1800", undated but circa 1992

Drawing of the VOC ship Mercurius

On the Maritieme Digitaal website, you can view the entry for the VOC ship Mercurius commanded by Pieter de Bitter in 1653. I found it by using the search term 1652 and then paging through the results (not a very great way to get there). This was record 241 of 359 entries. They have links to the Willem van de Velde de Oude drawing from 1649. I believe that this is one of these odd drawings that simultaneously show a ship from two different angles. Sadly, the image seems to be pretty low resolution. The entry gives the ship's dimensions as 123ft x 30ft x 12ft. They give the armament as 40 guns, but Witte de With's journal from May 1653 gives the armament as 36 guns and the crew as 110 men.

Kroum Batchvarov's Masters Thesis

There is an abstract of Kroum Batchvarov's MA thesis on the Texas A&M Nautical Archaeology web site. The subject was the framing of 17th Century ships. You can download the PDF file of his thesis from this page.

Wendy van Duivenvoorde's page about the Batavia

Oddly enough, there is an important nautical archaeology program at Texas A&M University. On that site, there is a page, written by Wendy van Duivenvoorde, about the Dutch East Indiaman Batavia that was wrecked on Australia in 1629.

The common error in the summer of 1653

There is a remote possibility that this is not an error, and that there had been some change in assignment of ships, as the error is very widespread. What seems to be an error is that Jacob Claesz Duijm's ship, the Vergulde Zon, is listed as being hired by the Edam Directors, not the Enkhuizen Directors, and Hendrick Pieterszoon's ship, the Vergulde Halve Maan, is listed as being hired by the Monnikendam Directors, not the Edam Directors. This error is present in the information used by Dr. Elias for Vol.V of Schetsen uit de Geschiedenis van ons Zeewezen, the July 1653 Vlissingen list, and Witte de With's journal. I can only account for it by assuming that some common source, such as a list prepared by Lt-Admiraal Tromp had the error, or else it was not an error, but there was some change. Aitzema, however, assigns the ships as we would expect, in Saken van Staet in Oorlogh in ende omtrent de Vereenigte Nederlanden.

No. 65 in the list of ships at Vlissingen in early July 1653

A feature of a number of documents dating from the spring and summer of 1653 that they assign some ships to different Directors than we think had hired them. A prominent case in point is the Vergulde Halve Maan, usually called the Halve Maan. The Halve Maan was captured by the English at the Battle of the Gabbard and served in the English navy up past the Restoration as the Half Moon. I believe that Dr. Elias, in Schetsen uit de Geschiedenis van ons Zeewezen, in a note in Vol.V, says that the ship was hired by the Monnikendam Directors. In actuality, the Monnikendam Directors hired the ship Zwarte Beer.

The fireship St. Maria

Have I written about this before? The Amsterdam fireship Sint Maria (or just Maria) was in service in the summer of 1652. I actually have the dimensions for the ship, which is rather nice:

A  Maria or Sint Maria  1652

Dimensions:  117ft x 24ft x 13ft x 6ft

1652  fireship  schipper Jan Claes. The ship was built in 1649.
      crew: 15 men

None of the published sources that I have seen list the crew size for Dutch fireships in the First Anglo-Dutch War. I see quite a few crew sizes, along with some armaments, for fireships. In some cases, we actually have dimensions, as well, as is the case for the Sint Maria.

Ron van Maanen seems to have misunderstood the Jozua

The Noorderkwartier ship Jozua (or Josua) is well-known to have been built in 1654. There is an oblique mention of the ship in the Staet van Oorlog te Water for the year 1654, prepared in July. The Jozua was built as Pieter Florissen's flagship and that was the ship on which he flew his flag at the Battle of the Sound, in 1658, when he was killed. The only thing useful that Ron van Maanen has is that the height between decks was 7-1/2ft. Otherwise, his information is misleading, as he gives the dates for the ship as 1665 to 1672. I believe that the Jozua was sunk at the Battle of Solebay, in 1672, so I would agree with that date. The 1665 is so wrong as to not be understandable.

Jan Olivierszoon's ship

As I have written about in the past, Jan Olivierszoon's Veere Directors' ship was named the Wapen van der Vere. That has been repeatedly shown to be the case in a number of documents. That was a revelation to me when I found out when I received copies from the Zeeuws Archief. In the photographs that I have received in the last few weeks, there were two sets of guns listed for the Wapen van der Vere. The first list claimed to sum to 38 guns, but actually had 34 guns. More recently, I received a page with a full 38 guns listed. I had wondered what the difference was between them, and the answer is that the first had only 4-iron 6pdr guns while the second had 8. This was a ship with a main battery of 8pdr guns and a length of 123-1/2ft. The ship could carry as many as 38 guns on that length because they were relatively small. 30 guns were 8pdr or less.

Again, Amsterdam ships with the fleet in early August 1652

Based on Hendrik de Raedt's pamphlet, these were the Amsterdam ships with the fleet in early August 1652:

Adm   Ship name             Guns Crew Commander
A     Vrede                 42   160  commandeur Gidion de Wildt
A     unknown ship name     26   100  kapitein Abraham van der Hulst
A     Dolphijn              26    95  kapitein Gerbrandt Schatter
A     Star                  28    95  kapitein Jacob Paulusz Cort
A     Leeuwarden            36   140  kapitein Govert Reael
A     Hoop                  28   100  kapitein Joris Collerij
A     Campen                38   130  kapitein Joris van der Zaan
A     Zeelandia             36   120  commandeur Nicolaes Marrevelt
A     Amsterdam             34   125  kapitein Barent Pietersz Dorrevelt
A     Leiden                28   100  kapitein Cornelis Hola

In Witte de With's squadron with the fleet

Adm   Ship name             Guns Crew Commander
A     Vrijheid              46   160  kapitein Augustijn Balck
A     Prins Willem          28   100  kapitein Jan Jansz Boerman
A     Hollandia             32   110  kapitein Albert de Graeff
A     Gouden Leeuw          24    75  kapitein Gillis Thijssen Campen
A     Edam                  28   100  kapitein Barent Cramer

Sources:

1. C. T. Atkinson, Ed., The First Dutch War, Vol.IV, 1910
2. list of Amsterdam hired ships from the Wrangell Collection, Riksarkivet, Stockholm
3. Hendrik de Raedt, Lyste van de schepen van Oorloge onder het beleyt Admirael Marten Harpersz. Tromp, 1652

Is this the ship that Barent Dorrevelt commanded?

Barent Dorrevelt commanded a ship named Amsterdam that foundered in the storm in the Shetlands in early August 1652. Ron van Maanen says that the information that he has about a ship named Amsterdam may be for that ship. He has the dimensions 120ft x 29ft x 11ft. The armament was 18-12pdr, 10-6pdr, and 2-4pdr guns. Sources:

1. Ron van Maanen, unpublished manuscript "Dutch Warships 1600-1800", undated but circa 1992

I was interested to see that Ron van Maanen knew about the Zeeland ship Sint Joris

In Ron van Maanen's lists, he includes the Zeeland hired ship, the Sint Joris, which Jacob Wolphertszoon commanded in 1652 and 1653. This is the ship that I have seen called a "Scots frigate". Ron shows no sign of having seen the page that has dimensions and the gun list, but he does indicate that the owners were Paulus de Molter and Andries Rennij. By the way, the Sint Joris had a main battery of 6pdr guns.

A Dutch bomb galliot, the Geweld

The navies all built or purchased vessels suitable for carrying mortars, to fire "bombs". The Dutch were no exception. The bomb galliot Geweld was built by Hendrick Cardinaal at Amsterdam in 1695. The Geweld was broken up in a navy yard in September 1719. The Geweld had dimensions of 90ft x 24ft x 10-1/2ft and was armed with 8-4pdr guns and two mortars. The Geweld typically had a crew of between 23 and 26 men. 24 years was a long service life for a small vessel. Sources:

1. Ron van Maanen, unpublished manuscript "ZEELAND", undated

Hendrick de Raedt's pamphlet

I have a copy of Hendrick de Raedt's list from his pamphlet, a list of Tromp's fleet dating from early August 1652, and the only mystery ship remaining is the name of Abraham van Hulst's 26 gun ship. The ship seems to have been a purpose-built warship, not a hired ship. I have seen a list dating from before this date, and the 26 gun ship is not a mistake. After returning from the disastrous voyage to the Shetland, when the fleet was severely damaged by a severe storm, Abraham van der Hulst was given command of a larger ship, the 40-gun Groningen. But what ship did he command in July 1652? The answer is that I don't know and haven't been able to make a good guess. I now know the name of every other ship on the list, including those which are only referenced by the captain's name, with no guns or crew listed.

Tromp's crew size recommendations

In a letter dated 22 February 1653, Lt-Admiraal Tromp recommended crew sizes for the ships to be built in the wartime building program. For the 140ft ships, he recommended a crew of 150 sailors and 25 soldiers. The Amsterdam was a ship built to the 140ft length. The Amsterdam was in service by September 1653 and was commanded by Jan Gideonsz Verburgh. In September, the Amsterdam carried 50 guns and had a crew of 210 men, larger than the crew recommended by Tromp. By 11 June 1666, the Amsterdam had a planned crew of 250 sailors and 40 soldiers.

Yesterday, I received a photograph of the page about Cornelis Rocusz Fincen's ship

Yesterday, I received the photograph of the page that talks about Cornelis Rocusz (or Rocussen) Fincen, his ship, the Wapen van Zierikzee, and his replacement by Crijn Cornelisz Mangelaer as captain. The page shows that the main battery of the Wapen van Zierikzee consisted of 8pdr guns, with a few larger and the rest being smaller, but totalling 34 guns. The crew consisted of 90 sailors and 25 soldiers. We still do not know the dimensions of the Wapen van Zierikzee. We did learn the name of the ship from this page, as Dr. Ballhausen had erroneously called the ship the Liefde.

Gmail is misbehaving today

I am not sure if the problem is with Gmail, or just my access to it from work, but I cannot get to Gmail. If you need to reach me, use the same email address, but with Yahoo.com as the domain (I have the same email address across multiple domains).

I received an interesting page yesterday

This is just the first page of a multi-page document, but the first page is interesting. The page is dated 14 January 1653 and still mentions the proposal from 27 November 1653 to build six large ships of 150ft, 12 of 140ft, and 12 of 134ft. The Netherlands would have been much better served if they had implemented that proposal rather than what they actually built, which was just one 150ft ship, some 136ft ships, and many 130ft ships. Dr. Elias, in De Vlootbouw in Nederland tells the story, if you have access to the book and can read Dutch.

I have an abstract submitted for a symposium in London on 23 June 2007

I had submitted an abstract for a Williamite Universe event: "Anglo-Dutch Relations c.1650-1720", London, Saturday, 23 June 2007. I am still waiting to hear the result, but I will be ready, if it is accepted. My paper is about the reaction of the Dutch to English provocations in 1651 up to the start of the war, and about Dutch naval strengthening from 1651 to 1653, in response, including the attempt to strengthen the navy before and during the war.

The Amsterdam ship Gelderland, built in 1683

Ron van Maanen has the details about the Amsterdam ship Geldeland, built in 1683. Ron saw an indication that the Gelderland was still in existence as late as 1711, but more likely, the ship was broken up in 1708. The Gelderland was built by Jan van Rheenen at Amsterdam. There is conflicting information about the ship and perhaps that reflects another ship built later. Anyway, this is what Ron has:

The ship Gelderland, built in 1683

Dimensions:  156ft x 40ft x 15ft

72-74 guns:  26-18pdr, 26-12pdr, 18-6pdr, and 4-3pdr

Crew: 375 to 400 men

Sources:

1. Ron van Maanen, unpublished manuscript "Dutch Warships 1600-1800", undated, but circa 1992

Bastiaen Centen's ship the Haes

Bastiaen Centen commanded the Vlissingen Directors' ship, the Haes (26 guns), from the summer of 1652 until late 1653. After the Battle of Dungeness, he chased and captured the English ship Hercules (36 guns) whose crew had panicked and run the ship ashore. The ship was refloated, as the ship was relatively undamaged. The situation was obviously brought about by the poor state of English morale, following the battle, as the Haes was a rather small ship, not very heavily armed. The Haes had four bronze 18pdr guns, a couple of iron 12pdr guns, and the rest were split between iron 8pdr and 6pdr guns.

Ron van Maanen says that the Tholen of 1654 was rigged as a brig

I had seen the Zeeland ship Tholen mentioned in the Staet van Oorlog te Water for the year 1654, dating from July. The only information was the length (106ft) and a little more. Ron van Maanen says that the Tholen was rigged as a brig and was of 150 lasts measurement. He also says that the Tholen was last mentioned in 1655. Ron says that the Tholen carried from between 10 and 20 guns and had a crew of 60 men. He says that the Tholen was built in 1653 to 1654. He also had seen a reference that said the length was 108ft and that the Tholen had 10 guns. Sources:

1. Ron van Maanen, unpublished manuscript "Dutch Warships 1600-1800", undated but circa 1992

The captain of the Zeeland ship Sint Jan

I am increasingly confused about the correct last name for the captain of the Zeeland ship Sint Jan, which served during 1652. There is a list in The First Dutch War, Vol.VI, that calls the captain Laurens Pensier. That is the name I have been using for a long time. The index for The First Dutch War, however, indicates that Laurens Dispensier is the preferred name. I am looking at a list where his name looks like Plensier. There is another Zeeland list where his name looks like Lispessier. I have not seen anything that resembles "Dispensier". Dr. Elias does not mention the man in Schetsen uit de Geschiedenis van ons Zeewezen, so I don't know what to think.

David de Wildt's list

I have to admit that Carl Stapel is correct, that I should not assume that just because a ship with a recognizable name appears in David de Wildt's list, dated 22 February 1652, that the name refers to a ship that we know was hired for service in the First Anglo-Dutch War. Still, I would hazard a guess that many of the ships with recognizable names, such as the Sint Matheeus and Croon Imperiael, were the ships hired by the Amsterdam Directors. The entry for the Sint Matheeus seems to confirm that the more expansive set of dimensions, listed in Dr. Weber's book better reflect those of the Sint Matheeus that was captured by the English in the Battle of the Gabbard than the smaller ones listed in various documents from 1652. These dimensions are: 144ft x 36ft x 15ft, with a height between decks of 7ft. These dimensions are in Amsterdam feet, of course. Dr. Weber did not know the hold dimension, but we can see here that the hold was 15ft.

Some "real numbers" from 30 September 1652

I have a page that lists captains, guns, and crew size, dated 30 September 1652. There are some surprises, as these are largely real numbers, not nominal. I have supplied ship names, and in at least one instance, the captain's name:

Adm    Ship               Guns Crew Captain
R      Brederode          54   193  Abel Roelantsz Verboom
A-Dir  Sint Maria         31   102  Sipke Fockes
Me-Dir Sint Jeronimus     28    90  Jan Pietersz Een arm
R-Dir  Sint Pieter        28   119  Jan Janssen van der Valck
A      Graaf Willem       38   125  Jan Gideonsz Verburgh
A-VOC  Vrede              26   192  Pieter Salmonszoon
A-VOC  Vogelstruijs       43   180  Douwe Auckes
A      Drie Coningen      38   113  Lucas Albertszoon
A      Aartsengel Michiel 38   111  Emanuel Salingen

The document from the Wrangell Collection

One thing that I discovered while photographing original copies is that Jan Glete had marked the document reference on the back of the first page of the list from the Wrangell Collection. The writing is Jan Glete's, in pencil and says: "Skoklostersamlingen Riksarchivet Vol. E 8564". Having that information would enable you to order a copy from the Riksarchivet in Stockholm.

I've reached the conclusion that David de Wildt's list contains more ships that we can identify

I had several hours this morning, where I had nothing else to do but study copies from the Nationaal Archief, from the Collection Johan de Witt. I looked more closely at David de Wildt's list of ships, dating from 22 February 1652, and suspect that there are more ships from the list that we can identify. I wondered if the Sint Joris listed is the same as Jacob Wolphertszoon's ship that served the Admiralty of Zeeland in the First Anglo-Dutch War. This is the rather small vessel described as a "Scots frigate". The Adam en Eva, St. Jan Battista, and Roode Leeuw are among the ships listed.

The Delmenhorst in 1658

The Dutch had taken a Swedish ship in the Baltic in 1658 and used the ship in service as the Delmenhorst. The Delmenhorst was about the size of directors' ships from the First Anglo-Dutch War. There are conflicting dimensions. The smaller is 125ft x 28ft x 11ft-9in, although this might be in Danish feet. The larger is 138-1/2ft x 31ft x 13ft. The ship carried 36 guns. This is based on information from Ron van Maanen's comprehensive list.

I have a page that shows Jan Pietersz Deucht een Arm

I received a sharper image of a page that listed ships from 1652, with some guns. The Jeronimus did not have guns, but the striking feature was that the captain was called "Jan Pieterszoon Deucht een Arm" (one arm). That would lead you to believe that his name was Jan Pieterszoon Deucht, with his nickname being "Een Arm", similar to how Cornelis Jol was called "Houtebeen" (wooden leg).

Some more amazing hired ships from 1652

The list of Amsterdam ships dating from 21 September 1652 is really enlightening. There are these amazing ships listed as being hired:

Adm  Ship              Guns Crew Captain
A    Campen            40   130  Joris van der Zaan
A    Hollandia         32   100  Albert Graeff
A    Star              28    90  Jacob Paulusz Cort
A    Achilles          30   100  Dirck Scheij
A    Goude Leeuw       24    80  Gillis Tijsz Campen
A    Hollandse Tuijn   24    80  Hillebrant Jeroensz

Three of these are not unexpected, in that the Hollandia, Goude Leeuw, and Hollandsche Tuin were legtimately hired, as far as we know. The other were apparently involved an artifice, so that the Admiralty of Amsterdam could fund their service under the hundred ships appropriation.

I have not seen any reference, other than Dr. Elias, for the Prinses Louise carrying 46 guns in late 1652

I have seen a note in Dr. Elias's book, Schetsen uit de geschiedenis van ons zeewezen, that says there was a time in late 1652, when Witte de With's ship Prinses Louise had been upgunned to 46 guns. In all the documents from that period that I have seen to date, I have not seen any evidence of any armament other than 36 guns. As the Prinses Louise was a 120ft ship, even a 12pdr-heavy 36 gun armament must have heavily loaded the ship. I can only imagine the effect of 46 guns on such a small ship, although I know that sort of thing was done in 1665 and 1666.

The Prins te Paard was another small jacht with Abraham Crijnssen in 1667

The jacht Prins te Paard was much smaller than the Visschers Harder. Ron van Maanen says that the Prins te Paard was just 90ft long. He does not have the other dimensions. Ron credits the Prins te Paard with 16 guns and a crew that varied between 40 and 85 men. The Prins te Paard sailed from teh Veersche Gaat with Abraham Crijnssen's small squadron on 30 December 1666, heading for the West Indies. Capt. Warnsinck credits the Prins te Paard with 14 guns and a crew of 75 men. Her captain was Salomon le Sage. A similar small frigate was 89ft x 23ft x 9-3/4ft (taking some liberties with rounding) and was armed mainly with 6pdr guns, with 2-4pdr. Sources:

1. H.A. van Foreest and R.E.J. Weber, De Vierdaagse Zeeslag 11-14 Juni 1666, 1984
2. Ron van Maanen, unpublished manuscript "Dutch Warships 1600-1800", undated, but circa 1992
3. J. C. M. Warnsinck, Abraham Crijnssen de verovering van Suriname en zijn zeeslag op Virginië, 1936

The small Zeeland frigate Visschers Harder

The small frigate Visschers Harder was built in 1664 by the Admiralty of Zeeland. The Visschers Harder continued in service until 1672, according to Ron van Maanen. Ron has the dimensions, which were 100ft x 26ft x 10ft, with a height between decks of 5ft. A similar, but some longer Zeeland frigate, the Schakerlo, carried 8-8pdr, 17-6pdr, 3-4pdr, and 2-3pdr in 1666. Ron van Maanen gives the Visschers Harder's armament as 26 guns and the crew as 105 men. The Visschers Harder took part in the capture of Suriname , under the command of Abraham Crijnssen, in 1667. The Visschers Harder's captain was Boudewijn Keuvelaar, during this period. Sources:

1. H.A. van Foreest and R.E.J. Weber, De Vierdaagse Zeeslag 11-14 Juni 1666, 1984
2. Ron van Maanen, unpublished manuscript "Dutch Warships 1600-1800", undated, but circa 1992
3. J. C. M. Warnsinck, Abraham Crijnssen de verovering van Suriname en zijn zeeslag op Virginië, 1936

I have a list with ship names, guns, crew, captains, and weeks of victuals

I have a document that I received today of Amsterdam ships, seemingly in August 1652 that has groups of ships, saying if they were landsschepen or hired, how they were employed, the ship names, the captains, guns, crews, and weeks of victuals. Maarten Schaeff and his son, Boetius Schaeff both appear in the list. Boetius Schaeff commanded the landsschip Omlandia, which was armed with 28 guns and had a crew of 80 men. His father, Maarten Schaeff, commanded the hired ship Engel, which was armed with 28 guns and had a crew of 80 men. I believe that the Engel is the same as the 28-gun ship named Engel Gabriel that we see in notary records from the Gemeentearchief Amsterdam.

I keep seeing cases where the writers did not know the exact list of guns carried by ships

I received a photograph, in the last day, which explained part of a fuzzy photograph from several weeks ago. The out of focus photograph had gun lists for the Noorderkwartier hired ships Vergulde Schel and Peereboom, and the Enkhuizen Directors' ship Maecht van Enkhuizen. For the Vergulde Schel, there were 10-3 or 4pdr guns, while the Maecht van Enkhuizen had "4 small, bronze klokwijs guns", with no shot size specified.

Dutch ship data in the period of 1628 to 1633

I was amazed when I first saw the Staeten van Oorlog te Water for the years 1628, 1629, 1631, and 1633. For Rotterdam and Amsterdam ships, in many cases, they included lists of guns carried. For the Admiralty of the Noorderkwartier, at best, you had the number of guns, crew, and the size of the ship in lasts. Jan Glete treats lasts as being equivalent to two tons of gross tonnage (volume). That is probably too simplistic, but for his analysis, he needed some measure that would give his burdens in tons for all ships. For "steenstukken", usually just the number are mentioned, perhaps with the number of chambers. Since steenstukken (stone guns) were breach loaders, they could have multiple chambers that could be loaded while one was fired in the gun. The Amsterdam and Rotterdam ships would often specify iron or "metalen" for guns. Many authors, Frank Fox included, assume that these were brass, but Nico Brinck, the Dutch authority on guns, says that they were bronze. You might also see Dutch guns called "kopere", which Nico says were composite guns of copper, iron, and lead, beaten into shape with hammers. Nico says that "klokwijs" guns had a bell-shaped chamber for the powder, which allowed for a smaller powder charge and thinner walls for the gun. Guns might also be just referred to as "chambered", which are similar in concept, with a reduced size chamber for the powder charge. "Drakes" (Draecken) were lightweight guns, which were disliked, as they tended to be more affected by recoil, as they lacked the weight of normal guns.