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Monday, September 25, 2006

To some extent, we can match the pages of the outline list from July 1653 with Witte de With's journal

Now that we have Witte de With's journal, with most captain's names in the lists, we can start to fill out the details contained in the outline document of ships at Vlissingen in early July 1653. The latter document essentially lists all ships at the Battle of the Gabbard, in June 1653, although it omits almost all captains' names and all but a few ship names. Since our analysis centers on matching captain's names to ships, we can deal relatively easily with the list. For example, the list from July 1653 has the four Rotterdam Directors' ships listed:
number 56  unready. small and unready
number 57  unready, as 56
number 57  unready. Fluit of war
number 58  ready. (the Dutch is something like "mit dat de Bark vermaekt werda")

From Witte de With's list, we see the captains, and we can add information that we know:
Adm   Ship          Guns  Crew   Captain
R-Dir Hollandia     26     95    Ruth Jacobsz Buys
R     Roskam        24     95    Corstiaen Elderszoon
R-Dir Sint Pieter                Sijmon Cornelisz van der Meer
R-Dir Prins         38    168    Jacob Cleijdijck

We believe that the Roskam was actually hired by the Admiralty of the Maze (Rotterdam). Sources:
  1. James C. Bender, unpublished manuscript "Dutch Ships 1600-1700", 2005
  2. Staten Generaal 1.01.04 Inv. Nr. 5556, "List of ships at Vlissingen on 2 July 1653", 1653
  3. Witte de With, journals from 1652 to 1658, Archive E8812 from the Riksarkivet, Stockholm

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