Rotterdam ships in March 1653

This is an attempt to understand the March 1653 list published by J. C. de Jonge, in the appendix to Volume I of Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewezen. We must assume that this list was compiled after the Battle of Portland. The reason that we might believe this is because at the time this list was compiled, 8 Directors' ships had been sunk or captured.  We might be sceptical of de Jonge's list, but there is no other comprehensive listing, so the list needs to be examined. The main problem is that there doesn't seem to be "room" in the list for all the ships we know about.

 

 

Admiralty of the Maas (Rotterdam)

 

 

State's ship	Hired ship	Ship Name	Guns	Sailors	Soldiers
x		Brederode	54	200	50	Lt. Adm. Tromp
x		Gelderland	40	110	30	Michiel Franszoon van den Bergh
x		Prinses Louise	36	124	46	Abel Roelants
x		Dolphijn	32	95	30	Paulus van den Kerckhoff
x		Gorcum	30	95	30	Willem Adriaanszoon Warmont
x		Rotterdam	30	80	20	Jan Aertszoon Verhaeff
x		Gulden Beer	24	80	20	Jan de Haes
x		Utrecht	22	80	20	Leendert Haexwant
x		Overijssel	22	80	20	Dirck Vijch
x		Brander		14
x		Brander		14
x		Adviesjacht	6	15
	x	Hollandia	26	80	20	Ernest Adriaanszoon de Bertrij
	x	Roskam	26	80	20	Corstiaen Eldertszoon
	x	Maria	26	80	20	(Quirijn van den Kerckhoff killed at Portland)

 

Rotterdam Admiralty Losses to Date

 

 

State's ship	Hired ship	Ship Name	Guns	Sailors	Soldiers	Captain	Where Lost
x		Prinses Roijaal Marie	36				Taken in an English port on the outbreak of the war
x		Wapen van Holland	26			Hendrick de Munnich
x			26
x		Gelderland	30	131		Dirck Juynbol	Burnt at the Battle of Dungeness
x			26
x		Nijmegen	26			Paulus van den Kerckhoff	Sunk while returning from Brazil in June 1652

A more in depth look at the Sint Jeronimus

This ship was mentioned in Jan Glete's notes, although I do not have a copy of the document from the archives. This analysis is based on what seemed like the most likely identification. I had really hoped to find the original of this and several other documents, so that I could read for myself what was there. Sadly, Rick van Velden, at the Nationaal Archief, did not find pages.

 

St. Jeronimus

Length                   Beam                      Depth in Hold              [Directors]

116 feet                  28 feet                    11 feet

 

This was a Medemblik Directors' ship commanded by Jan Pieterszoon Renaren [1DW1, p.263]. As this was the only Medemblik Director's ship, at the beginning of the war, the St. Jeronimus seems to have been Captain Renaren's ship.  In mid-1652, the ship carried 30 guns and had a crew of 110 men [1DW1, p.263].  Captain Renaren's ship joined Witte de With's fleet, prior to the Battle of the Kentish Knock [1DW2, p.351]. The ship was paid off in November 1652.  The ship's crew mutinied and would not go to sea, again, in a ship they said was in such disrepair [Schetsen IV, p.27].  Tromp had the ship towed into port to be paid off [1DW3, p.47]. 

 

Sources

 

[Directors]  Jan Glete's notes about a document that he describes in his book, Navies and Nations, in note 10 on page 355, in Volume I.  We don't have the actual inventory number, but this in an archive that he does list: 

Eerste Afdeling, Directies, Oorlogschepen, Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague.

 

 

[Schetsen]  Elias, Johan E., Schetsen uit de Geschiedenis van ons Zeewezen, 6-vols., Martinus Nijhoff,

                's-Gravenhage, 1916-1930.

[1DW1] Ed. Gardiner, Dr. S.R., First Dutch War, Vol.I, Navy Records Society, London, 1898.

 

[1DW2] Ed. Gardiner, Dr. S.R., First Dutch War, Vol.II, Navy Records Society, London, 1899.

 

[1DW3] Ed. Gardiner, Dr. S.R., and Atkinson, C.T., First Dutch War, Vol.III, Navy Records Society,

                London, 1905.

 

 

Some references that would be interesting to see

I had the occasion to look in Vol.II of Schetsen uit de Geschiedenis van ons Zeewezen. I keep seeing sources referenced there, in footnotes, that I really would like find. For example, in notes on page 130:

Andries Soury, deputy of their High Majesties, in the Vlie and their High Majesties, Rotterdam, 17 Sept. 1652, list of ships come from the Shetlands

Tromp to their High Majesties, 20 Sept. 1652 with a list

List of ships of the Admiralty of Amsterdam, 20 Sept. 1652

List of ships of the Admiralty of Friesland, 13 Nov. 1652

Miss. Dagv. Amsterdam, 18 August 1652. It also says "Het zijn, zooals uit deze opgaven blijkt, vooral de--slecht toegeruste--directieschepen (waarvan er 9 verongelukten) en de grootendeels geheel onzeewaardige branders, die 't het zwaarst te verantwoorden hebben gehad."

The old Deventer (28 guns)

Many of the ship names used in the 1660's and 1670's were actually used much earlier. This ship, the Deventer, was at the Battle of the Downs, when Tromp defeated the last Spanish armada, in English waters.

 

Deventer

28 guns 

crew 110               

in 1639, commanded by Robbert Post

[Armada, p.67]

 

About 1636, commanded by Jacob Brouwer.  [List 1630's]

 

250 lasts.  32 guns. Crew 120: 100 sailors and 20 soldiers. From 1636 to June 1637,

commanded by Jacob Brouwer. From June 1637, commanded by Govert Gerritsz. Voorens.

Amsterdam Admiralty [Jaren, pp.154-155]

 

Sources

 

[Armada]                De Boer, Dr. M.G., Tromp en de Armada van 1639, Amsterdam, 1941.

 

[Jaren]                    Graefe, Dr. F.,     De Kapitensjaren van Maerten Harpertszoon Tromp,

                                                Amsterdam, 1938.

 

[List 1630's] 1.01.06 Inv. No. 5516 Ship List (Fragment) Undated but from 1630's

The jacht Heemskerck, the Utrecht, and Overijssel

The Heemskerck was built in 1638, the same year as the small ships, the Utrecht, and Overijssel, both carrying 22 guns. The latter two ships are usually credited with having dimensions of 100ft x 23ft x 8ft. As I have written elsewhere, these ships were actually larger, when measured in Amsterdam feet. The published dimensions were in Maas feet, which were divided into 12 inches. Amsterdam feet were 283mm and divided into 11 inches. I believe Maas feet to be 308.7mm, which is roughly equivalent to multiplying 208 x 12/11.

My note about the Utrecht and Overijssel is at Kentishknock.com. In any case, the Heemskerck was very similar in size to these two ships. Possibly, they were all the same dimensions, and the dimensions in Maas feet don't quite equate to the dimensions in Amsterdam feet. I theorize that might be the case. The Utrecht and Overijssel were probably about 100 lasts, as well.

More about the jacht Heemskerck

One other point that I wanted to make about the Heemskerck is that I saw a note saying that the Heemskerck was 60 lasts or 120 tons. I will explain why that does not seem reasonable. That well may be the stated size, but that does not match what I would calculate.

Lasts are a problematic measure, as I have written here and elsewhere. The formula is:

Lasts = Length x Beam x Hold / K

The main problem is that K is not fixed for all ships. The "patriarch" of the Dutch navy in the First Anglo-Dutch War was the Noorderkwartier ship, the Eenhoorn, built in 1625. The Eenhoorn was usually said to be measured at 200 lasts. Her dimensions were: 125ft x 29ft x 13ft (the hold is an estimate). That means that K, in this case, would be K=235.625.

The calculation for the Heemskerck would be: Lasts = 106 x 24 x 9 / K. If lasts were 100 then K would be 228.96, which is not unreasonable. If the the lasts were only 60, then the calculation would be 60 = 106 x 24 x 9 / K, where K=381.6, which is out of range. Ab Hoving, in his book about Nicolaes Witsen, has a table that lists dimensions, lasts, and the "factor" (what I am calling K). He gives the contemporary measurement for lasts, which is often just an estimation, not based on actual measurements. The range that he gives for K is from 178 to 350.

Why I believe that my estimate for K and the lasts is reasonable, is that there are examples that are very similar. The Zilver Ster (of 1601) had dimensions: 104ft x 25ft x 10ft, and measured 130 lasts. That would require a K=200.

The jacht Heemskerck

As I have been looking at jachts, it is worth looking at a good example of a moderate-sized, three-masted jacht, the Heemskerck. This was the ship in which Abel Tasman did his exploration. He was accompanied by a fluit, the Zeehaan.

The Heemskerck was built in 1638, with dimensions: 106ft x 24ft x 9ft (Amsterdam feet). Without being able to consult Ab Hoving's book, I would guess the armament to have been 14-18 guns.

Artitec, the fine model makers have a picture of their Heemskerck model:

Their VOC site can be found at VOC.Artitec.nl: 400 Jaar VOC 1602-2002

How small a jacht was ship rigged?

I know that 106-foot jachts were ship-rigged. The Heemskerck is an example. I also suspect that those that were in the 89-96foot range (I believe) were ship-rigged. How were the 70-foot jachts rigged? I had long assumed that they might be hoeker-rigged, or something like that. I recently thought that they might still be ships, possibly without topgallants.

Sailors, Marines, and Soldiers

It is very rare to see a complete listing of the crew of a Dutch ship. Normally, marines were lumped together with sailors, with land soldiers listed separately. An exception is the listing for the Zeeland frigate Delft, at the Four Days Battle. At that battle, the Delft carried 167 men. There were 102 sailors, 20 marines, and 45 land soldiers.

At the time of the Four Days Battle, the Delft was a fairly new ship, having been built in 1664. Here dimensions were: 116 x 28-1/2 x 11-1/2 (Amsterdam feet). She carried 36 guns: 2-brass 12pdr, 14-12pdr, 4-brass 6pdr, 8-6pdr, 6-4pdr and 2 smaller.

She was commanded by captain Dirk Jobsz. Kiela for the battle.

This information is all from H.A. van Foreest and R.E.J. Weber, De Vierdaagse Zeeslag 11-14 Juni 1666.

Converting between Dutch and English ship dimensions

I can see at least two different Dutch ship types. Larger ships, especially from prior to 1665, have more rake, similar to English ships. Small frigates seem to have more of a "vertical stem". That is, there is much less rake. This difference in rakes can be seen when looking at the relationship between English length on keel and the Dutch length from stem-to-sternpost. For ships, like the Huis te Zwieten, the ratio between the Dutch and English lengths is about 1.33 (146/110). For the Delft frigate, the ratio is only 1.18 ((111-3/ 11)/94). Many of the large, captured VOC ships have the larger ratio. For the few cases where there was a small ship with greater rake, the burden was radically lower (such as the St. Paulus). That was why the English eventually used the LGD (length on the gundeck) and used a normalized keel length, instead of a real keel length. An earlier move along these lines had been to use the normalized depth (Beam/2) rather than the measured depth, for burden calculations.

The indispensible book: De Vierdaagse Zeeslag 11-14 Juni 1666

Dr. Weber's book is exteremely useful to my research about 17th Century Dutch warships. For many of the Dutch prizes used by the English at the Four Days Battle, there are both the Dutch and the English dimensions. For that matter, he also has dimensions for almost all of the Dutch ships, as well. They are all in Amsterdam feet, so they resolve some of the lingering problems caused by Vreugdenhil's publication in Lists of Men of War.

Anyway, what this book points out is that something Frank Fox has told me, as well. The Dutch ships have very upright stems, while the English generally have a good deal of rake. Given that, I will need to give up and create a separate entry type for Dutch prizes, with different calculations, in my English ship spreadsheet.

A case in point is the Zealand (ex-Wapen van Zeeland). The Dutch dimensions were: 116ft x 28ft x 11-1/2ft. The English dimensions were: LK: 93ft, B: 28ft-6in, D: 9ft (LK=length of keel, B=beam outside the planking, and D=depth in hold measured English style). The ratio between the Dutch length from stem-to-sternpost to the English length on the keel is about 1.28. To put that into perspective, the Dutch length, in English units is 107ft-7.5in. Thus, the ratio between the length from stem-to-sternpost to the keel length is about 1.157:1. That means that there is a very small rake.

I have a disconcerting mismatch between my Dutch and English spreadsheets

I have my spreadsheet that has calculations for all the Dutch ships in the First Anglo-Dutch War, as well as those that participated in the Battle of the Sound, in 1658. I just started a comparable spreadsheet for the English, based on the Dutch spreadsheet. There are differences, of course, as my English spreadsheet has only the English gun types, plus those captured Dutch gun types as they used (12pdr, 8pdr, 6pdr, and 3pdr). For the English, I want to enter length of keel, beam outside the planking, and depth in hold, rather than length from stem to stern, beam inside the planking, and the Dutch hold measurement.

A big issue is that for one of the standard Dutch ship charters (116ft x 27ft x 11ft), my English burden calculation seems too large (326t). My new calculation (289t) seems much more plausible. The Anthony Bonaventure (36 guns) served in both navies, and my Dutch figures are suspect, as well.

Some notes about the Battle of the Kentish Knock

Even though it was not the policy, the Dutch were waiting for the English to close, running in a rough line, sailing close-hauled. They tacked as they neared the Kentish Knock, so the Dutch and English were sailing on opposite tacks, at the start of the battle. This was when the James (66 guns) and the Sovereign (90 guns) ran aground. Fortunately, they were able to get off, and then tacked to sail to the southeast.

The English were caught in a bad situation, as Witte de With concentrated against Blake, and the few ships with him. The majority of the Dutch fleet, including De Ruyter's squadron, concentrated against Bourne's squadron. Captain Badiley, brother of the Mediterranean commander, got in trouble, and was only rescued when the Speaker and her companions broke through the surrounding Dutch ships.

Then the tide turned against the Dutch, and they retreated after have Jan Noblet's ship, the Burgh van Alkmaar (24 guns) sunk and Claes Sael's ship, the Maria (30 guns) captured. The great East Indiaman, the three-year old Prins Willem first lost her mainmast, and then foremast. Witte de With moved back to his regular flagship, the Prinses Louise.

Witte de With had wanted to renew the battle the next day, but the council of war was opposed, so they headed home. Michiel De Ruyter was opposed, and that was that. This was the beginning, in the First Anglo-Dutch War of the relationship between Witte de With and Michiel De Ruyter. At Dungeness, when Witte de With went ashore, too ill for sea, Michiel De Ruyter commanded De With's squadron.

The start of the Battle of Portland

I am starting to get a better picture of the start of the Battle of Portland. The Dutch approached from the northwest. Apparently, west to east, the Dutch were De Ruyter, Florissen, Tromp, and Jan Evertsen, and their squadrons. Directly south of Tromp was Lawson with about a dozen ships. To the immediate west of Lawson was Blake and Deane, along with about a half-dozen ships. To the west of them was Penn and another dozen ships. Altogether, there were only 30 English ships, at the point of collision. The rest, including Monck and his squadron, were to the leeward.

Tromp headed for Blake, but was repulsed by a circle of ships protecting Blake, in the Triumph. During the fight, however, Blake was wounded by a bar shot. He never healed between and when he died in 1657.

Penn was in bigger trouble. De Ruyter's squadron sank the Dutch prize, the Sampson (26 guns) and took the Prosperous, Assistance, and Oak. De Ruyter had personally taken the Prosperous (42 guns).

Penn was rescued by the arrival of Lawson. Jan Evertsen had taken his squadron against Lawson, and was decimated. When Lawson arrived, he broke the Dutch attack on Blake and retook Penn's ships that had been captured.

The Dutch were forced to retreat to protect their merchant convoy from Lawson's frigates. That ended the first day of the Battle of Portland.

The Dutch had started in a very favorable position, and had actually taken one flagship, the Assistance, that of John Bourne, Rear-Admiral of the Blue. Penn and the Generals were hard pressed, and with a little luck, the Dutch could have taken them, as well, as the Dutch had about 80 warships to the 30 English ships, as first contact.

Some Dutch ship names from the Battle of Portland

There is this book by Jodocus Hondius, Onstelde-Zee, Oft Zee-Daden, published in Amsterdam in 1654. The book has many mistakes of fact, but it still is quite "interesting", since it is one of the few contemporary accounts of the First Ango-Dutch War. On page 82, two ships are mentioned: 1) Meerman, with 4 brass and 24 iron guns , and 2) Leeuwen, 4 brass and 28 iron guns. We might have some reason to doubt the numbers, because immediately before this, he mentions the Prins Willem, and says she has 4 brass and 30 iron guns. I would guess that this was the Admiralty of Amsterdam ship, that we usually list as having 28 guns. On page 83, Hondius mentions that ship, the Poort van Trojen. I wonder if this is a new ship name, or simply another name for the Amsterdam Director's ship, the Arche Troijane (28 guns). I suspect it is a new ship name, although my reading of this book is so poor, I have trouble telling the context in which it is mentioned. I think that Arche Troijane (captain Abraham van Campen) was sunk on the first day, so this must be a new ship. Hondius also mentions the Burgh (or Burcht), which I believe to be a Rotterdam Director's ship.

The French intelligence sources

Perhaps as long as twenty years ago, Jan Glete found several very interesting documents in France. They contained intelligence information about Dutch ships in the 1670's. The transcription and partial analysis of these is available on KentishKnock.com. The sources are:

1. Jan Glete's notes from Melanges de Colbert 84, fol. 533-538, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris: "the list prepared by the marquis de Seignelay (Colbert's son) during his visit to the Netherlands in 1671" ) as noted on p.334, note 23, from Jan Glete's book, Navies and Nations: Warships, Navies and State Building in Europe and America, 1500-1860, Vol. One, Stockholm, 1993. This document actually contains two lists, as some ships are duplicated between two parts.

2. Undated list, from copies supplied by Jan Glete, from around 1676, from the Archives Nationales, Paris, Marine B7 477, starting with folio 5.

The latter is probably from about 1676. Prof. Glete kindly supplied me with a copy of his notes and the manuscript pages. The pages are significant, because they have ship data that is not available from surviving Dutch sources. We are greatly the worse for the loss of information from the fire at the Netherlands Ministry of Marine in 1844. There is some of that information published in J.C. De Jonge's Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewezen, 5 Vols., Haarlem, 1858-1862. This was the second edition. The first edition had been compiled prior to the fire.

Dr. Weber's book: De Vierdaagse Zeeslag 11-14 Juni 1666

OK, so he actually co-authored the book. The primary authors were H.A. Van Foreest and R.E.J. Weber. Frank Fox was a consultant to Dr. Weber, and helped him resolve some issues with English ships. Why the book is so useful for me, are the Dutch and English ship lists for the Four Days Battle. Frank Fox has very good summary lists, but the lists in this book include much more detail than Frank could fit into his book on the Four Days Battle. the archival sources mentioned should be very helpful, if they can be found.

I put the statement that way, because just because someone found something in the archives 20 years ago does not mean it can be found today (sadly). I say that from experience with having someone else look for manuscripts for me in the archives.

An example of what can be found in the book is the listing for the Amsterdam frigate, the Asperen. The Asperen was built in 1656 at Amsterdam. Her dimensions were: 117ft x 29ft x 11ft. She carried 34 guns, at the Four Days Battle, which consisted of 6-12pdr and 12-8pdr on the lower tier and 12-6pdr on the upper tier. There were also 4-2pdr "voor de hut" (in the cabin), presumably on the quarterdeck, aft. Her intended crew was 120 sailors and 20 soldiers, but at the Four Days Battle, she only carried 110 sailors and 20 soldiers. She lost 1 killed and 5 wounded in the battle.

Dutch Ships in French Documents

I would greatly appreciate any help someone might be able to make with what I have on Kentishknock.com, what I got from Jan Glete's notes and copies. It is Dutch Ships in French Documents, and I took a shot at .trying match what is there to known Dutch ships. The problem is that there are more ships listed than we know about. If anyone, who is a French speaker, who might be able to help, I would be willing to supply copies of what Jan Glete sent. There are some pages written in a fine hand, all in French, that are copies of the oriiginals. Others are Jan Glete's notes. Over the last year, I have gotten quite good at reading what he wrote 20 years ago. They all seem to have been written in pencil, which makes sense to me, after my experience at the James Ford Bell Library, looking at old materials. You don't want to risk getting ink from a ballpoint pen on the old books.

Jan Glete has tracked down the truth about the Cogge and Waegh

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.

The Battle of Livorno (14 March 1653)

After rereading R.C. Anderson's article "The First Dutch War in the Mediterranean", I finally realized that Van Galen's squadron (or fleet) was anchored right outside the harbor of Livorno. I'm not sure where they were anchored, in relation to the harbor mouth. In my Privateers Bounty scenario, I placed them North of the harbor entrance.

Interestingly enough, when I ran the simulator, the Madonna della Vigna was disabled relatively near the shore. In the actual battle, she was the only Dutch loss, and had been run ashore.

New versions of the Privateers Bounty scenarios are available

I have added a scenario for the Battle of Livorno (14 May 1653) and have included the updated scenarios for the other battles. I don't have a convenient place to make it available for download, so I will just have to e-mail the zip file on request.

I hope to mine more of the various "Staet van Oorlogh te Water" documents

As I have written, previously, I have some early-to-mid 17th Century Dutch lists. These are all called "Staet van Oorlogh te Water" or some variation of that spelling. I have the lists for 1628, 1629, 1631, 1633, and 1654. I actually have two versions of the 1654 list. I had completely transcribed the ship data from a more incomplete version of the 1654 lists, a year ago. I have not attempted to go into the most complete version, as it is very time consuming. Even the more limited version had many gems of information. The most complete version has even more. Jan Glete had sent me his notes for the Rotterdam part of the list that was omitted from the other version.