The Dutch Navy in 1700

In 1700 the United Provinces still dominated international trade. The Dutch navy was to protect this trade, and in 1674 the Dutch had proven to effectively have the strongest navy. This word 'effectively' is very important, because in comparing navies one has to look at the effective strength and the potential strength of a navy. The effective strength sees to the number of ships that were actually equipped, the potential strength sees to the number of serviceable (after repairs) ships a nation had. Nominal strength would include those ships that were on the list, but not reparable. In 1688 the Dutch navy would again have the largest effective strength for some time, but by 1700 its effective strength made it the third navy.

The Dutch navy in 1688

The invasion of England in 1688 was the last time the United Provinces manifested themselves as a great power at sea. On 'short' notice the Dutch were able to equip a fleet that was stronger than the English. It consisted of 39 ships of more than 30 guns, 9 smaller warships and 9 burners which escorted the landing force. It would be a mistake to think that the Dutch navy therefore counted 57 ships in 1688, the potential strength was much higher. The names of the ships on this list have been taken from a contemporary source.

1688: The Dutch Invasion Fleet

The Dutch Navy fighting in alliance with England

In 1688 a new era started for the Dutch, fighting as junior partners in a lasting alliance with England. The Dutch still had about 70 ships of the Line, but they would steadily man less of them. Let's have a look at the orders Admiral William III gave his fleet on 6 November 1689¹. The orders to go to the Mediterranean were not executed, but are there for reference. What is interesting is that in these order 30 ships of more than 30 guns are mentioned, but only about 10 can be tracked back to the 1688 list. This means that the potential strength of the Dutch navy was at least the 39 ships of the line in the invasion fleet plus 20 others mentioned in the 1689 orders making 59 ships. Supposing that another 10 were sailing around or being repaired somewhere, we come to a total of about 70 ships of the line for the Dutch at the end of 1689.

The Dutch Fleet in the Battle of Beachy Head

The role of the Dutch fleet in this battle is described in the battle of Beachy Head

The Dutch fleet at Barfleur

The Battle of Barfleur saw about 27 Dutch to about 56 English ships of the line. Particulars about this are in the battle of Barfleur

Decline of the Dutch fleet in the 1690's?

It's often supposed that though the Dutch built a reasonable number of good ships in the 1690's the strength of the fleet decreased in the 1690's. For this we have the below table of Dutch ships actually serving in 1696, taken from appendix XIX of the 'Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewezen'¹⁰. It was aggregated by the author from lists provided by Almonde, Van Zijl and archives of the admiralties. The list does make clear that an appraisal of Dutch navy is not only about the main battle fleet, but also about counting all the ships that were engaged in other duties.

This is followed by a table of those ships in actual service. This gives a number of ships of the line of 81 if one counts the ships with 30-38 guns. For getting the potential strength some have to be added for those ships that did not see service in 1696. When one also takes into account the modernization of the fleet towards bigger ships with heavier guns, one can only conclude that during the 1690's the Dutch navy significantly increased in strength.

The Dutch fleet in the War of the Spanish Succession

During the War of the Spanish Succession the Dutch still had a good navy, but its effective strength would drop far below that of the English. Based on countings I would put the effective strengh of the Dutch navy during the War of the Spanish Succession at about 50 mainly small ships of the line. Of these 10-15 of the largest would each year sail with the English in the Mediterranean, about 10 would be in the North Sea of before Dunkirk and perhaps two dozen others were on various convoy duties. The real significance of this is however not in the numbers, but in the fact that the Dutch opted to oppose the Guerre de Course and left the direct struggle for control of the seas to the English.

The matters of how strong the Dutch navy was and whether it was crippled by the War of the Spanish Succession could be answered by checking which of the above ships were serving in 1702 or later, what happened to them and which new ships were built. I've tried to do so here, but the list is rather incomplete.

Potential strength of the Dutch navy during and after the War of the Spanish Succession

One then has to try to work this over to get a view of how many ships could potentially be put to sea. During the War of the Spanish Succession most of the above ships did see some action, some ships were lost and some new ships were built. One could therefore be tempted to think that the potential strength of the Dutch navy did not dramatically decrease. Providing that few ships were lost the potential strength could only diminish as ships gradually became too old to be servicable. In potential strength the mainstay of the Dutch navy were the ships built during the Nine Years War. These reached the end of their life span after about 25-30 years, and so the potential strength of the Dutch navy was still quite high in 1713.

However, right after the war a rigorous cost-cutting programm set in. In stead of replacing a part of these aging ships they were simply broken up. It was even worse than this because even a lot of the newer ships were broken up or sold. This policy that kind of assumed that the United Provinces would not soon be engaged in a major war and therefore did not need a large navy in the short term. The real economic interest of the United Provinces however demanded a navy that could enforce the free trade of its citizens whatever the international circumstances. The much smaller navy after the war was a signal to all other powers that they could easily start to take measures to strengthen their own trade by restricting the Dutch trading.

Notes