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Sunday, September 22, 2013

The list in Vol.I of The First Dutch War (Letters and Papers...)

If you are a First Anglo-Dutch War aficionado, you are probably familiar with the list of ships published in Vol.I of the Fist Dutch War. The real title is something like "Letters and Papers Relating to the First Anglo-Dutch War". The list is drawn from the Hollandsche Mercurius for 1652. The Hollandsche Mercurius was a paper published by Pieter Casteleyn. The publication was available in bound volumes, sometimes in irregular groupings of years. My volume that includes 1666 is very non-standard. I also have what seems to be a Seventeenth Century reprint without the illustrations for which the paper was known. One of the more notable ships that made an appearance in that list was the inland waters yacht Zeeuwsche Jager or Jaeger. The commander listed was Adriaan Janszoon den Oven (or den Goeyenden Oven). He commanded the ship Neptunus in the Battle of the Gabbard, where it was sunk, and he disappeared from view. I am unsure if he was killed or died in captivity, as so many Dutch captains did. The list gives the armament as 14 guns and the crew as 56 men. The contract for the Jager was dated in February 1643. The dimensions listed were 80ft x 19ft x 6-1/2ft. That later dimension seems to have been the hold, with no deck height given. The keel length was 70 feet. The dimensions are from an archive that is located at the Zeeuwse Archief in Middelburg.

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