The Dutch custom during early to mid-Seventeenth Century was to hire suitable private ships for use as warships. Sometimes, they were even hired by other countries. We only have to look to Louis de Geer and Sweden for an example of that situation. There are several ships that served in the First Anglo-Dutch War and for which we do not have dimensions. One was the ship Prins. The ship was also called Prins te Paard and Prins Frederick. Our theory was that this ship might be the same one which served in 1641. We know the dimensions of that ship: 142ft x 32-1/2ft x 14ft x 7ft. We also know the armament of the Prins in 1653: 4-24pdr, 2-18pdr, 4-12pdr, 2-10pdr, 10-8pdr, 12-6pdr, and 4-3pdr. The crew in June 1653 consisted of 137 sailors and 29 soldiers.
Another ship that we might know something was the Sint Laurens, a Middelburg Directors' ship captured by the English at Dover on 29 May 1652. We think that this might be the same ship that served in the campaign leading up to the Battle of the Downs in 1639. Strangely, Lt-Admiral Tromp wrote the dimensions of the Sint Laurens in his journal. The dimensions given for the Sint Laurens were 137ft x 29ft x 14ft. We do not know the deck height. At Dover, we think that the Sint Laurens carried 30 guns and had a crew of 105 men. This is just an estimate, but the gun list seems plausible. This is the gun list for another 30-gun Middelburg Directors' ship: 4-bronze 24pdr, 4-bronze 12pdr, 14-iron 8pdr, 6-iron 6pdr, and 2-iron 4pdr guns. There were many ships armed with smaller guns, rather than a uniform lower tier of 12-pounder guns. We know that the Prins, another long and narrow ship, was armed in that manner. The sources for this information are Ron van Maanen's article about the Dutch fleet in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1641, my document "Dutch Ships Ordered By Captain", and "A Researcher’s Friend: An Archival Source Guide for Dutch Warships In the 17th and 18th Centuries". We also used the list from 23/06/1653 from the Sekrete Loketkas, Inv. Nr. 12561-26.
