Haasje (or Haas) was built at Amsterdam in 1788 as a packet for the Dutch East India Company (VOC). She made three or probably four voyages between Texel and Batavia. A British whaler captured her in August 1797 as she was on a secret mission from Batavia to arm Dutch farmers in the Cape Colony to stir up difficulties for the British. She sailed to Britain and a French privateer captured her shortly before she arrived. She was quickly recaptured. She became a merchantman sailing between London and Dartmouth, and then London and Africa. She was last listed in 1806.
Voyage #1: Captain Jan Andries Rugee sailed from the Texel on 18 November 1789, bound for Batavia. Haasje reached the Cape of Good Hope on 6 February 1790, and left on the 17th. She arrived at Batavia on 22 April. [4]
Homeward bound, Captain Rugee sailed from Batavia on 18 May. Between Batavia and the Cape slaves aboard Haasje revolted and killed Jan Andries Rugee and two other members. The rest of the crew shot the ringleaders and put down the revolt. Jan Wilting became master until she reached the Cape on 28 July. There Francois Johan van den Broek was appointed master. Haasje left the Cape on 23 August and arrived at Texel on 1 December. [5]
Voyage #2: Captain Jacom Zoetman sailed from Texel on 9 July 1791, bound for Batavia. Haasjereached the Cape on 16 September and left on 30 October. She arrived at Batavia on 15 December. [6]
Homeward bound, Captain Ditmar Smit (or Zoetman), sailed from Batavia on 28 January 1792. Haasje reached the Cape on 29 March and left on 11 April. She arrived back at the Texel on 28 June. [7]
Voyage #3: Captain Arie Smitskamp sailed from Texel on 20 September 1793, bound for Batavia. However he put into Plymouth on the 28th and Haasje did not proceed on her voyage until 24 November. She arrived at the Cape on 6 March 1794 and left on the 16th. She arrived at Batavia on 15 June 1794. [8] Unfortunately, the database of VOC voyages does not carry any more of her voyages.
The VOC fitted out Haasje at Batavia on 15 February 1797 to carry a cargo to Algoa Bay for the Dutch farmers at Graaff-Reinet. The cargo consisted of eight field guns, 600 barrels of gunpowder, each of 60 pounds, 50 bales of cotton cloth, and provisions, rice, beef, pork, sugar, and coffee, all for the farmers to use to mount an insurrection against the British at Cape Colony. [lower-alpha 2] She had a crew of 20 Europeans and 24 Malays, all under the command of Captain Jan de Freyn. [lower-alpha 3]
On 3 May Haasje, which had been severely damaged during a storm, anchored in Delagoa Bay at the mouth of the Delagoa River to repair. She was captured there on 27 May by an English whaler, assisted by a Portuguese ship. [8]
At Delagoa Bay De Freyn found a whaler flying an American flag. She was Hope, actually a British vessel. De Freyn became friendly with Hope's officers and confided to them that he planned to make contact with the farmers of Graaff-Reinet, but if he could not, he would sail to Algoa Bay and try there. Hope's officers wanted to capture Haatsje, but Hope had only two 3-pounder guns and a crew of 24 men. They were thus unable to do anything when Haasje sailed further up the river. [9]
However, two French frigates had destroyed the Portuguese fort at Lourenco Marques in October 1796, forcing its commander and 80 men to take refuge in the back country while they waited for a Portuguese vessel to come and get them. A few days after Haasje sailed up the river, a Portuguese vessel did arrive. The British were able to convince the Portuguese to contribute some men and cannons to an expedition to capture Haatje. [lower-alpha 4]
Hope proceeded up the river towards Haasje. On 28 May the Anglo-Portuguese force attacked the Dutch force, which had set up a battery on land, and which had the assistance of a local chief and his men. eventually the Anglo-Portuguese force prevailed and captured two field guns and 22,800 pounds of gunpowder. The local natives plundered the rest of Haasje's cargo while the skirmish was going on. [9]
De Freyn had scuttled Haasje but the British were able to refloat her. Hope's chief officer, Alexander Dixon, took four men as a prize crew and sailed Haasje to Simon's Bay, where they arrived on 11 August. De Freyn boarded some of the whalers at Lourenco Marques, some signing on as crew and some simply passengers, and reached Table Bay. [9]
One of the whalers at Delagoa Bay, Fonthill, carried de Freyn to the Cape of Good Hope. [10] She arrived there on 12 October 1797. [11] When De Freyn arrived at Table Bay he protested the seizure of his vessel by a vessel not possessing a letter of marque and occurring in a neutral port. [9]
Fonthill sailed two days later with de Freyn a prisoner. Governor Macartney, of the Cape Colony, sent him back to be detained in England for as long as possible. Macartney wrote to War Secretary Henry Dundas, advising him that the British government should delay releasing or exchanging de Freyn as he was a "very shrewd and dangerous fellow". [12] [13] Fonthill arrived back at London on 19 December 1797.
Hare, Buncher, master, was sailing from the Cape when a French privateer captured her in May 1798. The lugger Weymouth, of Jersey, recaptured Hare, which then arrived at Dartmouth. [14] [lower-alpha 5]
Hare, of 180 tons (bm) and Dutch origin, appeared in Lloyd's Register (LR) in 1798 with Muncheson, master, Robinson, owner, and trade Dartmouth–London. She had undergone a thorough repair in 1798. [2]
Year | Master | Owner | Trade | Source |
---|---|---|---|---|
1801 | J. Steward | Henderson | London–Africa | Register of Shipping (RS) [3] |
1806 | J. Steward | Henderson | London–Africa | RS |
Hope did not possess a letter of marque, and so the capture of Haase was by a non-commissioned vessel. Hence the prize became a Droits of Admiralty. The High Court of Admiralty ruled on 4 April 1799 that as Hope had faced resistance and that the capture had cost her the chief part of her voyage, the captors could retain the entire value of the prize (£2,900), with one-third to go to the owners and two-thirds to the master and crew. The money to captain and crew was to be divided according to the usual practices for private ships of war. [16]
Duyfken, also in the form Duifje or spelled Duifken or Duijfken, was a small ship built in the Dutch Republic. She was a fast, lightly armed ship probably intended for shallow water, small valuable cargoes, bringing messages, sending provisions, or privateering. The tonnage of Duyfken has been given as 25–30 lasten.
The Eendracht was an early 17th century Dutch wooden-hulled 700 tonne East Indiaman, launched in 1615 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Its Dutch name means "concord", "unity" or "union", and was a common name given to Dutch ships of the period, from the motto of the Republic: Concordia res parvae crescunt . The ship was captained by Dirk Hartog when he made the second recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil, in 1616.
Ridderschap van Holland was a large retourschip, the largest class of merchantmen built by the Dutch East India Company to trade with the East Indies. In 1694 the ship sailed for Batavia on her fifth voyage, but was never heard from again. She is now thought to have been shipwrecked off the west coast of Australia.
Hubert Hugo served as a merchant for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) from 1640 to 1654 in Gujarat. He later turned to privateering or piracy in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden around 1662. In 1664, he was acquitted by the States of Holland and returned to the service of the VOC. He served as commander of Mauritius until 1677. In 1674 he became one of the last people to document the presence of the dodo on Mauritius.
Vianen was a 17th-century Dutch East Indies Company sailing ship, used to transport cargo between Europe and the Indies. She was shipwrecked but refloated on her first voyage, and shipwrecked and sunk on her second. Built at Amsterdam in 1626, she had a gross tonnage of 400.
Thirteen ships of the Dutch East India Company and its pre-companies have been named Amsterdam.
HMS Calcutta was the East Indiaman Warley, converted to a Royal Navy 56-gun fourth rate. This ship of the line served for a time as an armed transport. She also transported convicts to Australia in a voyage that became a circumnavigation of the world. The French 74-gun Magnanime captured Calcutta in 1805. In 1809, after she ran aground during the Battle of the Basque Roads and her crew had abandoned her, a British boarding party burned her.
Experiment was launched in 1798 at Stockton-on-Tees, England. Between late 1800 and 1802 she made a voyage to India for the British East India Company (EIC). In 1803 she transported convicts to Port Jackson. In 1805, on her way home the French captured her, but the British recaptured her. In 1808 she became a West Indiaman. Still, in 1818 or so she sailed out to India. Experiment was condemned at Batavia in 1818 and sold there in 1819 for breaking up.
Francis and Eliza was a brig built in 1782 upon the River Thames, England. An American privateer captured her in 1815 while she was transporting convicts from Ireland to Port Jackson, New South Wales, and then released her. She was condemned in 1819 by a United States court for having violated U.S. law, and was sold in 1820.
Walter Boyd was the East Indiaman Oosthuizen of the Dutch East India Company. Oosthuizen was launched in 1789 and made one voyage to the Far East. She was on her second voyage in 1794 when the British seized her. In 1795 British interests purchased her and named her Walter Boyd. She made one voyage for the British East India Company. She then became a West Indiaman. On her last voyage, in 1801, Walter Boyd captured a Spanish schooner but then foundered on the way back to London from Martinique.
Lion was launched in the Netherlands in 1789. She was taken in prize c. 1795. On her first voyage under British ownership she was under contract to the British East India Company (EIC). She was lost in 1798 on the homeward-bound leg of her voyage to India.
Young Nicholas was built in Holland in 1790 under another name. The British captured her in 1798 and Prinsep & Saunders purchased her and named her Young Nicholas. She made one voyage under license from the British East India Company (EIC) that resulted in legal difficulties. Next, she had a short, unsuccessful cruise as a privateer that resulted in a French privateer capturing her in a single-ship action, but then releasing her. Lastly, she made a third cruise that resulted in a French privateer capturing her, the Royal Navy recapturing her, and her being wrecked in a hurricane. This cruise too resulted in legal difficulties culminating in a notable court case.
Loyalist was launched in 1793. Between 1796 and 1803 she made four voyages for the British East India Company (EIC). She then sailed as a West Indiaman until she was condemned in 1809 as unseaworthy.
Wilding was launched at Liverpool in 1788 and spent much of her career as a West Indiaman, sailing between Liverpool and Jamaica. During this time, in November 1794, she participated in a single-ship action during which her opponent, a French privateer, blew up. In 1798 after a series of captures and recaptures she briefly became a transport for the French Navy, but a final recapture returned her to British hands. Later, she made one voyage to the South Pacific as a whaler, and one voyage to the Cape of Good Hope as a victualler for the 1795-1796 invasion of the Cape. She traded with the West Indies, Africa, the United States, and Russia. Her crew abandoned her in September 1824, dismasted and in a sinking state.
Fonthill was a ship built in France in 1781 and was probably taken in prize in 1782. Fonthill sailed as a West Indiaman between 1783 and 1791, then became a whaler southern whale fishery and made four whaling voyages between 1791 and 1799. On her third voyage she took back from Cape Town a Dutch captain whose vessel had been captured bringing in arms and ammunition from Batavia to stir up unrest against the British at the Cape. After refitting, in 1800, Fonthill became a whaler in the northern whale fishery. Fonthill was last listed, with stale data, in 1810, but whose last reported whaling voyage took place in 1806.
Several ships have been named Haasje after the Dutch word for hare:
Hope was built at Liverpool in 1770, though it is not clear under what name. She first appeared in Lloyd's Register (LR) in 1786 as a Greenlandman, a whaler in the British northern whale fishery. From 1789 on she was a whaler in the British southern whale fishery. She then made five whaling voyages to Africa or the South Pacific. On the fifth she captured Haasje; this resulted in a court case over the distribution of prize money. Hope was last listed in 1798.
The Leeuwin was a 400-ton jacht of the Dutch East India Company that travelled to the East Indies twice starting 3 April 1653. It wrecked near Macassar on 24 December 1664.
Heemskerck was the flagship of Abel Janszoon Tasman's exploratory voyage of 1642. She and her consort Zeehaen were the first European ships to explore the south coast of Australia, including Tasmania, cross the Tasman Sea, and reach New Zealand among other achievements.
The siege of Mozambique of 1607 was an armed encounter between the forces of the Portuguese Empire and those of the Dutch East India Company or VOC, who attempted to capture the Portuguese Fort São Sebastião on Island of Mozambique. After a six-month campaign, the Dutch withdrew.