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Jacques Colaert | |
|---|---|
| Died | 1600 |
| Piratical career | |
| Type | Dunkirker (privateer) |
| Allegiance | Habsburg |
| Base of operations | Dunkirk |
| Commands | six-gun vessel Crabbelcat |
| Battles/wars | Eighty Years' War |
Jacques Colaert or Jacob Collaart (died September 1600) was a Flemish privateer who during the Dutch Revolt sailed in royal service as one of the Dunkirkers.
A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. The commission, also known as a letter of marque, empowers the person to carry on all forms of hostility permissible at sea by the usages of war, including attacking foreign vessels during wartime and taking them as prizes. Historically, captured ships were subject to condemnation and sale under prize law, with the proceeds divided between the privateer sponsors, shipowners, captains and crew. A percentage share usually went to the issuer of the commission. Since robbery under arms was once common to seaborne trade, all merchant ships were already armed. During war, naval resources were auxiliary to operations on land so privateering was a way of subsidizing state power by mobilizing armed ships and sailors.
The Dutch Revolt (1568–1648) was the revolt of the northern, largely Protestant Seven Provinces of the Low Countries against the rule of the Roman Catholic Habsburg King Philip II of Spain, hereditary ruler of the provinces. The northern provinces (Netherlands) eventually separated from the southern provinces, which continued under Habsburg Spain until 1714.
During the Dutch Revolt (1568–1648), the Dunkirkers or Dunkirk Privateers were commerce raiders in the service of the Spanish monarchy. They were also part of the Dunkirk fleet, which consequently was a part of the Spanish monarchy's Flemish fleet(Armada de Flandes). The Dunkirkers operated from the ports of the Flemish coast: Nieuwpoort, Ostend, and Dunkirk. Throughout the Eighty Years' War, the fleet of the Dutch Republic repeatedly tried to destroy the Dunkirkers. The first Dunkirkers sailed a group of warships outfitted by the Spanish government, but non-government investment in privateering soon led to a more numerous fleet of privately owned and outfitted warships.
A privateer based in Dunkirk, Colaert in August 1600 sailed with a fleet under command of Vice Admiral Anton of Burgundy, Lord of Wacken. The fleet consisted of six Spanish royal ships and six independent privateers; Colaert commanded the six-gun vessel Crabbelcat with a crew of 43 sailors.
Leaving Dunkirk on the night of 9 or 10 August, the privateering expedition faced problems early on when two Flemish privateers, Sibrant Pietersen and Rippert Rippertsen, failed to rendezvous with the fleet on 11 August. Three days later, a fishing fleet under the protection of six warships was sighted off the coast of Scotland. Ordered to attack, the warships eventually fled after a cannonball hit the gunpowder room of the warship Den Dolphijn, the resulting explosion killing its crew and commander Captain Willem Dirkszoon Cloyer. After the death of Captain Mathieu Jacobsen of the warship Parel, the fishing fleet was defenceless against the privateers.
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Sharing a border with England to the southeast, Scotland is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, by the North Sea to the northeast and by the Irish Sea to the south. In addition to the mainland, situated on the northern third of the island of Great Britain, Scotland has over 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.
The fishermen, many of them Mennonites, were reportedly treated harshly in retribution for similar treatment of captured Dunkirkers (as described in 1661 by Van Meteren's Historiën ).
The Mennonites are members of certain Christian groups belonging to the church communities of Anabaptist denominations named after Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings, Simons articulated and formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders. The early teachings of the Mennonites were founded on the belief in both the mission and ministry of Jesus, which the original Anabaptist followers held to with great conviction despite persecution by the various Roman Catholic and Protestant states. An early set of Mennonite beliefs was codified in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith in 1632, but the various groups do not hold to a common confession or creed. Rather than fight, the majority of these followers survived by fleeing to neighboring states where ruling families were tolerant of their belief in believer's baptism. Over the years, Mennonites have become known as one of the historic peace churches because of their commitment to pacifism.
Over the next several days, other fishing fleets were targeted by the privateers including a fleet of thirteen vessels escorted by the Dutch warship De Victorie from Maassluis. During the attack, the warship was destroyed by a cannonball hitting the gunpowder room; two fishing boats were later sunk. The captured sailors were treated less severely, as privateers rescued six surviving crew members of the sunken De Victorie as well as allowing the fishermen to leave their boats as the privateers looted the remaining ships (although the first mates were held captive and later ransomed). During this time, several privateers left the expedition including Captain Willem Jansen who headed for Spain.
Maassluis is a city in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The municipality had a population of 32,493 in 2017 and covers 10.12 km2 (3.91 sq mi) of which 1.63 km2 (0.63 sq mi) water.
Several other fishing fleets were attacked and, on 19 August, the privateers captured one fishing vessel which had attempted to resist and sank it while the crew was still aboard. While three other vessels were sunk in the attack, their crews were saved.
Changing course the following day, the expedition sailed east in the hope of targeting merchants traveling on the trading routes of Eastern Europe. Only a day into their journey, the privateers soon captured nine Dutch merchants en route to Danzig with a cargo of salt. During the next several days, the privateers experienced stormy weather and, prevented from attacking a merchant fleet of thirty merchant ships on 22 August, Captains Michiel Jacobsen and Frans Pleite became separated from the fleet.
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of the European continent. There is no consensus on the precise area it covers, partly because the term has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, cultural, and socioeconomic connotations. There are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region". A related United Nations paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct".
Anthonie Sailly, an agent of the States-General of the Netherlands at Calais, informed the Dutch government regarding the attacks by the privateering expedition and, by 16 August, two fleets began to be organized to locate and take action against the privateers while all available vessels in Rotterdam were sent out in search of them.
The seven remaining privateers eventually encountered one of these Dutch fleets sent out against them, near the island of Vlieland, commanded by Captain Arie Corneliszoon Cruyck. The privateers fled from Cruyck's force reportedly dumping as much cargo overboard as possible in an attempt to outrun the Dutch naval fleet. Although chased all through the North Sea beyond their base Dunkirk, some of the privateers were able to escape to Dieppe or Spain.
Among those captured however, Colaert and his crew were forced to surrender after the Crabbelcat's masts were destroyed in an action off Dunkirk. Taken to the city of Flushing in Zeeland, he and thirty-seven of his crew (with the exception of six boys) were publicly hanged in September 1600.
