Cornelis Schrijver

Cornelis Schrijver (31 January 1687 –16 May 1768)[1] was a Dutch States Navy officer and diplomat who attained the rank of lieutenant admiral.

After having been passed over for promotion to admiral several times (despite having had a stellar career during the War of the Spanish Succession in the battles of Cadiz, Vigo Bay, Malaga, and Gibraltar) he resigned his commission in protest in 1710.

At the same time, the Dutch government was hard pressed for money, since the service of the national debt consumed almost all tax revenues, and taxation was already at a level that was considered "unsupportable."

The European powers had two major options: station naval patrols in the area to protect their shipping from these depredations, or come to an accommodation with the local rulers the Dey of Algiers, and the Beys of Tunis and Tripoli, or the Emperor of Morocco.

[7] In 1729, he was captain-commodore of a cruising squadron of six frigates that first managed to liberate two ships of the Dutch East India Company, that had been captured in peacetime by Algerian privateers.

These ships, the Purmerlust and Ter Horst of the Amsterdam Chamber of the VOC, did not possess passes provided by an Algerian Consul, and were therefore initially declared lawful prizes.

Schrijver (whose squadron lay in the roadstead of Algiers at the time they were brought in) managed to convince the Dey that these ships were the property of the Dutch state and therefore did not need passes.

He negotiated an agreement under which the ships were released in exchange for half of the bullion they were transporting to the Dutch East Indies: a value of 137,000 guilders.

This mission was very successful: he managed to obtain a few concessions on the existing peace treaty with Algiers, safeguarding the position of VOC ships.

[Note 1] Those that still belonged to the Algerian state, and therefore could be ransomed directly, brought 1,828 guilders for officers, surgeons, mates, and carpenters.

Schrijver was the first captain assigned the command of this ship and he sailed her on her maiden voyage in 1729 to Plymouth, where it became part of a joint Anglo-Dutch squadron.

But during the voyage to Plymouth Schrijver discovered signs of sabotage: the scuppers were blocked with shipyard debris, apparently in an attempt to make the ship founder during a storm.

Davis was soon driven out by the criticism of Dutch rivals and succeeded as superintendent of the Amsterdam shipyard by Bentam, who immediately was championed in future conflicts by Schrijver.

As the Dutch still needed to construct big ships of the line to compete with foreign navies, they had to use broad and flat-bottomed designs, and these were hydro-dynamically penalized.