Page 67 - Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters
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listed as ships of last. One Hollandia (ID:) was built specifically as a retourschip and first sailed to Asia in . Another ‘military’ Hollandia (ID:) sailed to Asia via South America in the Nassausche fleet in . When both ships sailed back in the return fleet of , the VOC’s retourschip Hollandia could transport double the cargo of the man-of-war Hollandia. The first, appropriately called the ‘big’ Hollandia, carried million pounds of spices (including pepper), sockels of mace, bundles of silk and . pounds of saltpetre as ballast. It is worth noting that the spices alone accounted for nearly last in th century terms. The other Hol- landia could only carry . pounds of pepper and spices, sockels of mace, bundles of silk and . pounds of saltpetre as ballast. Both ships can be considered to have been fully laden (NA .., VOC , fol. ). Drastic modifications were required to make the men- of-war suitable for cargo transport, such as sealing gun ports, which of course made them less suitable for military functions. Fig .: View of the bay of Cordes in the Straits of Magelhaen, expedition of Joris van Spilbergen , Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe INV nr b. This is the war fleet of Joris van Spilbergen in the Pacific Ocean in . This fleet depicts an example of the use of the Admiralty ships in the service (partially) of the VOC. The three largest ships are the Grote Maan (ID) and the Grote Zon (ID) of the Admiralty of Amsterdam, and the Morgenster (ID) of the Admiralty of Rotterdam, all classified as Men-of-War, rate . The two clearly less heavily armed ships are the De Grote or Zeeuwsche Aelosu of rate- (ID) of the Admiralty of Zeeland , and the de Jager of rate (ID ), which was bought by the VOC. All these vessels remained in the service of the VOC after their arrival at Ternate in and did not return to the Netherlands. The dimensions of the large men-of-war are comparable to those of the homeward-bounders. According to the accepted wisdom of the first half of the th century, ships of this size were too large to operate in the English Channel (Elias , pp. , , ). The Admiralties could only use them on long expeditions against the Iberians in the Atlantic. If such expeditions did Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters
