Dutch ship Eendracht (1655)

The Eendracht or Eendragt ("Concord" - more precisely translated as "Unity") was the flagship of the confederate navy of the United Provinces (a precursor state of the Netherlands) between 1655 and 1665.

For reasons of cost and impracticality (Dutch home waters being very shallow) this was refused until the events of the First Anglo-Dutch War made it painfully clear that much heavier ships were needed.

At first it was intended to name the then 58-gun ship Prins Willem after the infant son of the late stadtholder William II of Orange, but Johan de Witt, Grand Pensionary with the States of Holland, decided to rename the project after the main ideal of his domestic policy: the concord between all provinces and citizens, also expressed in the official motto of the Republic: Concordia res parvae crescunt, "Small things grow through concord".

When he happened to be absent for a month the Orangist faction changed the name back, but the States hurriedly reverted this when De Witt after his return merely expressed his amazement.

The Maas Amiralty promptly ordered a replacement 76-gun ship (of 160 Amsterdam feet (45.3 m (149 ft)) in length) to carry the same name; she was built at Rotterdam by Salomon Janszoon van den Tempel, son of the previous builder, and completed in time to take part in the battles in the summer of 1666.