Admiralty of Friesland
The entire archive on the admiralty was destroyed in the large fire of 12 and 13 February 1771 in Harlingen, and many maps and documents relating to the history of Friesland were also lost.
On 5 May 1597, Hoitze Aisma, Feijcke Tetmans, Sicke van Dijckstra, and Frans Jansz were entrusted with creating the Frisian Admiralty board.
On 14 June 1597 the States-General of the Netherlands, the highest confederal executive power of the Republic, approved a proposal in which the foundation of a Generaliteitscollege was decided upon; this replaced an earlier navy board, the Collegie Superintendent, of which Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange (Admiral-General since 1588) had been the head, but which had been dissolved in 1593 as a result of disputes between the provinces.
The Frisian Admiralty was initially housed in the old raadhuis (town hall) on the corner of Hoogstraat on the Lange Oosterstraat in the city of Dokkum.
It appears from a fleet list that at the Battle of Gibraltar Captain Teunis Woltersz was present in command of De Friesche Pinas, though her number of crew and of guns are both unknown.
A few were sent out on scouting duties in the actions that would lead up to the Battle of the Downs, including a roeifregat (galley) from the Frisian Admiralty, the Rotterdam, under command of Captain Joris Pieters van den Broeck.
An objection against a move had always been that the connection between the port of Harlingen and the North Sea, the Vlie estuary, lay in the area under control of the Admiralty of Amsterdam.
However, during the 17th century the Dokkumer Ee began to silt up very seriously; the commission feared that in future the river bed could only be kept deep enough at prohibitive costs, concluding that a relocation was inevitable.
At the Battle of Plymouth in 1652, the Frisian Admiralty ships Westergo, Albertina, Schaapherder, Sara, Hector van Troye, and Gelderlandt were present, under command of Commodore Michiel de Ruyter, as well as the Frisian captain Douwe Aukes on board the Dutch East India Company warship De Vogelstruys, which had been added to the national fleet on the outbreak of war, with a crew of 200 heads and 40 guns.
Frisian captains Schelte Tjerks Wiglema and Adriaan Brunsveldt had not yet received the funds to feed the crew when Tromp required them to join his fleet.
Near the end of the war, in 1653, the States-General decided, on instigation of the Grand Pensionary of the States of Holland Johan de Witt, to keep a large standing navy during peacetime.
When in the Northern Wars Sweden tried to conquer Denmark in an attempt to gain control of the Baltic Sea, the Swedes threatened to inflict great damage on Dutch trade.
The Dutch Republic thus began to fear for her trade on the Baltic Sea and sent a fleet led by Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam to help the Danes in what became known as the Dutch-Swedish War.
Five Frisian ships took part in this battle, including the Albertina under Captain Auke Stellingwerf and the troop transport Judith under master Tjerk Hiddes de Vries.
Stellingwerf, acting on behalf of the admiralty, wintered in Denmark from 1658 to 1659 as did Tjerk Hiddes de Vries, defending Copenhagen against the Swedish attack.
The ships Zevenwolden, Groeningen, Prinses Albertine, d'Elf Steden, Westergo, Omlandia, Frisia, De Postillon van Smirna, Hollandia, and Oostergo finally sailed, with a combined crew of 2279 sailors and 700 cannon.
In June, however, the combined Dutch fleet engaged the English in the Battle of Lowestoft and suffered a heavy defeat, Stellingwerf being among the admirals killed.
In 1666, while Lieutenant-Admiral Michiel de Ruyter was supreme commander of the rebuilt and expanded Dutch fleet, Frisian ships were present at the Four Days Battle near Dunkirk.
As a result, after the initial Battle of Solebay, in which nine Frisian ships were present, the entire Dutch fleet was rather small, despite having to fight the combined Anglo-French force.
The Admiralty of Friesland nevertheless provided the following ships and captains for the 1673 Battle of Texel, the last great sea battle of this war: Ships of the line: d'Elf Steden 50 (Witzo Johannes Beima) Prins Hendrik Casimir 70 (Rear-Admiral Hendrik Bruynsvelt) Groningen 70 (Vice-Admiral Enno Doedes Star) Oostergo 58 (Jan Janszoon Vijselaer) Frigate: Windhond 30 (Jan Pieterszoon Vinckelbos) Scouting vessels: Hoop 6 (Cornelis Reindertszoon Eenarm) Liefde (Jochem Jansen) "Brander": Welkomst (IJsbrand Albertszoon) In the years after 1673, the Frisian fleet never recovered.
Although the national Dutch fleet continued to grow in strength during the wars between William III of Orange and Louis XIV of France, the Frisians were unable to keep up with developments.
Even the rich province of Holland decided to temporarily discontinue warship construction; for much poorer Friesland this situation would basically last well into the second half of the 18th century.
To end this situation, between 1728 and 1730 the English shipwright Thomas Davis in Harlingen built the Prins Friso of 52 cannon, to provide the admiralty with a flagship.
Under the command of Tjerk Hiddes de Vries, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Frisian Admiralty's fleet was at its largest, with no less than forty vessels, large and small.
In an advertisement in the Haerlemse Courant a year later the same ship came up for sale: The council members of the Frisian Admiralty present to be publicly sold to the highest bidder a capital and distinguished Warship named the Nagelboom, captured by Vice-Admiral Coenders in the latest Battle against the English, complete with Shrouds, Rigging, Sails, Anchors and Ropework, and also a large quantity of Cannon and all further accessories, more broadly specified in the Inventory kept by our Sales Master, that any whom it pleases may there see and inspect.
Who has interest may come, on the next 31 July Old Style, in the College of their Noble Mightinesses within Harlingen, at ten o'clock before Noon, and buy according to the Conditions and Articles that can be read in advance by any Bystander from the prescribed Day.
In 1781, during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, the Frisian Admiralty in Harlingen began building the two largest ships of the line in its history, the 74 gun Vriesland and Stadt en Lande (named after the provinces of Friesland and Groningen respectively), but construction was halted when it was realized, after new soundings, that they were too large to leave port, having too deep a draught to pass the Buitenhaven, the silted exit channel.
[7] At the end of the eighteenth century the Frisian Admiralty hit hard times, with Friesland suffering major financial problems.
In 1795, during the Batavian Republic, the different admiralties of Netherlands were merged into a central committee to fulfil the wishes of the Patriot, in the context of transforming the Dutch confederation into a unitary state.
Due to the small initial size of the fleet of the Frisian Admiralty, in its first period no flag officers were appointed, though Van den Broeck functioned as an acting rear-admiral in 1652.
