Bastiaan Centen (or Centsen) and the capture of the Hercules

Bastiaan Centen (or Centsen), who Frank Fox had suggested was an ex-partriate Scot, was employed through the duration of the First Angl0-Dutch War, starting from just prior to the Battle of the Kentish Knock. He commanded a Vlissingen Directors' ship that Dr. Elias calls the Haes, but which may have been the ship Haes in 't Veld (30 guns), previously commanded by Leendert den Haen. Bastiaan Centen chased and took the English hired ship Hercules on 24 December 1652. The Hercules had been run ashore and had been deserted by her captain and crew in a most disreputable manner. Sources:

1. James C. Bender, unpublished manuscript "Dutch Ships 1600-1700", 2005
2. Johan E. Elias, Schetsen uit de Geschiedenis van ons Zeewezen, Vol.IV, 1927
3. Frank Fox, A Distant Storm: the Four Days' Battle of 1666, 1996
4. Dr. S.R. Gardiner, Ed., The First Dutch War, Vol.II, 1900