JAMES C. BENDER:

"It is information that has not been previously published anywhere. I am indebted to Prof. Jan Glete, in Stockholm, for sending me his notes and copies of some of the documents. The information was based on French intelligence reports prepared by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis De Seignelay, prior to the outbreak of the war that began in 1672 that Prof. Glete found in France, during his research for his book, Navies and Nations (1993)."

Warships

Dutch Ships in French Documents

We are willing to establish the constant connection with our clients. Please do not hesitate to e-mail us your comments and suggestions. To make the correspondence convenient and fast, we propose several e-mail addresses below:

In his book, Navies and Nations, Jan Glete refers to two French documents from the 1670's. He has kindly provided copies of one and copies of his notes for the other. The copies of the original are done in a very fine hand, although there are some obvious mistakes, primarily misspellings. In one case, 196 was written as the length of the Heron Bleu, when 156 would have been a more obvious possibility. Information from reference 1 is noted as [1] and that from 2 is noted as [2]. In some cases there are two entries from source 1, from different places in the document. The Dutch information is derived from published sources, primarily Vreugdenhil.

READ ABOUT:

Directors Ship Information
Dutch Ships
English Ships
Jacobean and Carolean
Witte de With's fleet
Smyrna Fleet
Admiralty of Amsterdam Ships
Dutch Fleet

The significance of these two French sources is that they provide dimensions for ships that are not available from Dutch sources. There also seem to be some ships that are not present in published Dutch sources, such as the ship that I would call Ooievaar (Stork) that is named La Sigongne by the French. One challenge is matching the French names with Dutch ships. For anyone who has seen the English translation of a Dutch letter and list, from 1673, the English rendering of Dutch names is similar to what is seen here, in the French. In some cases, the Dutch ship is obvious, such as the Komeetstar for the French La Comete. In other cases, such as Les armes de dergau, the possibilities are less obvious.

1. Jan Glete's notes from Melanges de Colbert 84, fol. 533-538, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris: "the list prepared by the marquis de Seignelay (Colbert's son) during his visit to the Netherlands in 1671") as noted on p.334, note 23, from Jan Glete's book, Navies and Nations: Warships, Navies and State Building in Europe and America, 1500-1860, Vol. One, Stockholm, 1993. This document actually contains two lists, as some ships are duplicated between two parts.

2. Undated list, from copies supplied by Jan Glete, from around 1676, from the Archives Nationales, Paris, Marine B7 477, starting with folio 5.