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Sunday, August 26, 2007

I wondered one thing about Witte de With in 1652 and 1653

When Witte de With was restored to the service by 1651, he was given the Rotterdam ship Prinses Louise (36 guns) to use as his flagship. Except for the Battle of the Kentish Knock, when he temporarily used the big East Indiaman Prins Willem (56 guns) as his flagship, he continued to use the Prinses Louise. From 1645 until he returned from Brazil after the failed mission to restore the WIC control over Brazil, he had commanded the big Rotterdam ship Brederode (54 guns). From right before the Battle of Dungeness until after the Three Days Battle in 1653, he was ashore, sick, or at least emotionally drained. He was back by April 1653, but for the rest of 1653, he flew his flag on Amsterdam ships. He was originally using an admiralty jacht with 6pdr guns as the largest gun. But he moved to using the larger ship Leeuwarden (34 guns) as his flagship through April and into May 1653. The Leeuwarden was his flagship for the raid on Scarborough. He eventually moved to the much larger ship Vrijheid. He had also started to fit out and prepare the very large ship Huis te Swieten for use as his flagship, but was not ready by the Battle of Scheveningen, so he was in the Vrijheid. By September, he had the Huis te Swieten and used it for the rest of the year. By the spring of 1654, he was back in the Brederode, the Rotterdam ship. So why was he using Amsterdam ships for this period in 1653?

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