Page 68 - Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters

not take place, the ships could be handed over to the VOC. On the other hand: the VOC-built homeward-bounders used in the first Anglo-Dutch War (/) were the largest ships used by the Dutch. These ships could carry enough heavy weaponry for their military purposes, but they had great difficulty in getting in and out of the Dutch inlets in company with the rest of the fleet (Elias , p. ; Gardiner -a, p. ; Gardiner -b, p. ). On a few occasions, Admiralty ships came into VOC service in Asia as part of a fleet sent out by the State with specific military goals. After a number of years, they had to return to the Netherlands for maintenance and, unlike the homeward-bounders, were then seldom used again for the VOC. The Admiralty men-of-war remaining in Asia were often not seaworthy after a few years be- cause of damage sustained in the course of their military involvement. Sometimes their service was only temporary and they remained State property and the VOC only managed their opera- tion in Asia. Two State fleets sailing to South America came under VOC management in Asia after crossing the Great Ocean. The most important areas of military action were the waters around the Philippines, the Bay of Bengal and for a short period between  and  in the neighbourhood of the Sunda Strait. The men-of-war built or bought by the VOC between  and  had a much longer period of service with the VOC. Most of the eight ships called man-of-war in the VOC records made at least two return voyages. Where the homeward-bounders were used for return voyages and sometimes for action in the Arabian Sea, the men-of-war were normally used for military action, but also made one or two return-voyages (including for maintenance pur- poses). In Asia, their main theatre of operation was the Arabian Sea where the VOC’s military objectives gradually changed from patrolling for Portuguese ships at sea to the blockade of Goa. The Henriette Louise (ID:), the last ship built by the VOC specifically as a man-of war, in , had a very long career and made regular return trips in the period when the VOC was not at war with the Portuguese. After , during the period of peace with European nations, the VOC apparently did not require large warships. When new hostilities broke out with the English and the Portuguese in , the yachts developed to such dimensions that they became the largest vessels with speci- fic military functions sent out by the VOC. Ships \[Rate \] A third category of VOC vessels with the type name ‘ship’ includes those vessels in service in the initial stages of Dutch navigation to Asia, when no differentiation in ship- type was made. These vessels were clearly not specifically homeward-bounders, nor were they men-of-war. Each large vessel was simply termed ‘ship’ and used for multiple purposes: return-voyages, as men-of-war and cargo carriers within Asia. The difference between ships and yachts during this period is not very clear, mainly because of the lack of reliable primary sources with type names. A vessel of  last and more was nearly always designated as a ship, but up to  this term also included some smaller vessels. All vessels for which reliable data are available for a lastmaat of  last or more, but without a reliable type indication, are listed in Rate . About % of the  vessels listed in this rate are the undifferentiated ships of the early period. They sailed to nearly all the VOC destinations in Asia of that period. Other than yachts, there were very few policy guidelines in the early years about sending specific ships to specific destinations. Admiral van Neck, for instance, first or- dered the two smallest ships of his fleet to sail to China, because in his judgment the larger ones were not suitable for that area, but later, he himself sailed to that destination on the Amsterdam (ID:), one of the largest ships of this period (Foreest & Booy , pp. , ). After , most ships used by the VOC had specifications as homeward-bounders or men- of-war, but a few were simply called ‘ships’ and these are also included in Rate . They were larger cargo carriers, ships often already in service for many years in Europe and bought by the VOC for use when the Company needed to send large numbers of people and quantities of supplies to Asia but did not expect to use the ships there afterwards because they thought that crewmen, or the money to buy Asian goods, would not be available there (see next chapter). The development of the VOC fleet 