Bender James - Dutch warships in the age of sail, 1600-1714 : design, construction, careers and fates

The primary published source for Dutch ship data is Ships of the United Netherlands 1648-1702 by A Vreugdenhil, dating from 1938 (see , below). Vreugdenhils list has long been the primary source for the names and dimensions of Dutch warships in the latter half of the seventeenth century. There are many errors in this pioneering work, although it is still the best published source. His information about Zeeland ships that were discarded in 1648 to 1649 is accurate, although he did not have the details that are available from the Zeeuws Archief. As we learned more, the inaccuracies in Vreugdenhils list about ships that served in the First Anglo-Dutch War became obvious. For that period, Vreugdenhil had quite obviously depended heavily on the Staat van Oorlog te Water (a regular report on the state of naval forces) for the year 1654, and on published sources, such as the work of Dr Elias in Schetsen uit de Geschiedenis van Ons Zeewezen , the monthly Hollandsche Mercurius for 1652 and 1653, and the book Onstelde-Zee , published in 1654.

He also relied overmuch on Dr Ballhausens book for information. While Dr Ballhausen had made an extensive review of the published literature at the time he researched his book, his ship lists are so inaccurate that they should be ignored. Fortunately, Vreudenhils notes survive and have been corrected and annotated over time. They are preserved for study, and are useful despite their shortcomings. The best sources of information about details of the equipping of the Dutch navy in the First Anglo-Dutch War are two books by Dr Johan E Elias: Schetsen uit de Geschiedenis van ons Zeewezen and De Vlootbouw in Nederland . The old classic, Volume I of J C De Jonges Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewezen is too general and lacks specifics.

The best part of volume one are the two lists, one from March 1653, and the list of ships for 1654, based on theStaat van Oorlog te Water. Dr Elias apparently wrote Schetsen uit de Geschiedenis van Ons Zeewezen to provide a survey of archival sources that were not used by De Jonge. Because of the broad scope of Dr Eliass work, he omits most detail, but still manages to provide data about ships and captains in the First Anglo-Dutch War that have not been otherwise seen. From Dr Elias I learned that the list of ships of the Admiralty of Rotterdam for 26 February 1652 existed and that the dimensions were in Maas feet, not Amsterdam feet. One of the most disconcerting aspects of Dutch warships from the seventeenth century is the amount of uncertainty involved. To deal with that issue the approach taken here is to provide information with the dates it was recorded so that the informed reader can make their own decisions.

In the past it was often assumed that the Staat van Oorlog te Water for the year 1654 was the ultimate authority and to use the dimensions given there. The problem with that is that some of the figures quoted there are easily refuted, so which ones are correct and which are wrong? We are also confronted with the confusion with ship names caused by there being multiple ships of the same name in simultaneous service with different admiralties; there are even cases where ships of the same name served in the same admiralty at the same time. What follows is my best attempt to clarify these issues, based on a quarter of a century of research. James Bender June 2014