From the papers of Dr. Simon Hart

I have the papers of Dr. Simon Hart, from the Gemeentearchief Amsterdam in PDF form. Some of the most interesting pages are those from an Amsterdam notary, Jan Volckertszoon Oli. For the hired ship Jupiter, there is a contract and an inventory. The contracts often give the dimensions of ships, usually with the dimensions spelled out in words, rather than as numeric digits. The inventories, where they exist, are easier for me to read. The inventory for the Jupiter dates from October 1652 and gives the dimensions: 130ft x 30ft x 14ft, with a height between decks of 7ft. There is a list of guns carried, as well: 4-12pdr, 10-8pdr, 12-6pdr, and 2-4pdr guns. The Jupiter served in the Mediterranean Sea.

A missing piece: information about the Rotterdam Directors' ship Erasmus

At the beginning of the First Anglo-Dutch War, Sijmon Corneliszoon van der Meer commanded a Rotterdam Directors' ship named Erasmus. That is all we know about the ship, except that it was sunk on 17 June 1652, in a fight with English frigates. The Nationaal Archief has not yielded any information on the subject. Perhaps our only hope will be if something surfaces from a search of the notary records at the Gemeentearchief Rotterdam. Perhaps something will be found, as there were over 150 pages found by Dr. Hart, in the Gemeentearchief Amsterdam, about ships hired in Amsterdam in 1652 to 1653. These were all notary records that had been preserved and have provided information, such as dimensions and gun lists, for ships that might have remained a mystery. I have gradually accepted that I will not be the one who discovers a lot of this, since I am remote from the Netherlands, in the US. If anyone wants to dive into the GAR to find this information, I would welcome that, although I would certainly like to have copies of what is found.

A gun inventory from 1652

One of the pages in the papers of Dr. S. Hart, from the Gemeentearchief Amsterdam, includes a gun inventory. My copies are pretty bad, generally, and this page does not have the inventory number at the top. It seems to be with pages for a ship named Amsterdam, but the number of guns is only 24, not the 28 from the other page:

 4 pieces of  12 lbs   3100 lbs
                       3150 lbs
                       3120 lbs
                       3220 lbs

 8 pieces of   8 lbs   2849 lbs
                       2840 lbs
                       2770 lbs
                       2940 lbs
                       2732 lbs
                       2970 lbs
                       2990 lbs
                       2960 lbs

10 pieces of   6 lbs   1725 lbs
                       1690 lbs
                       1775 lbs
                       1740 lbs
                       1659 lbs
                       1800 lbs
                       2100 lbs
                       2020 lbs
                       2170 lbs
                       2200 lbs

 2 pieces of    3 lbs   848 lbs
                        842 lbs