Dunkirk Corsair

The Corsaire S Dunkirk profit from an ideal site for their activity, Dunkirk being a natural trap located near important trade route. They gain their noble letters at the 16th century, under the Spanish domination. They sail then for the Holland and finally for the France. Jean Bart is the emblematic figure. They operate mainly in the North Sea, but can on the occasion travel until in the Baltic or on the barbaresque coasts. On the other hand, they are not very present in the activity flibustière off Americas, this activity at the beginning being directed against Spain. Their relations with the Plain Provinces ambiguous, are made at the same time proximity and of hostility. Their activity ceases in 1713 with the disarmament of the wearing of Dunkirk envisaged by the Traité of Utrecht.

Between history and legend, naufrageurs

Located at narrowest of the the North Sea, not of required passage for the rich person English or Dutch ships, Dunkirk was intended for the race by its geography. It is about a natural trap: one can enter there only by very precise ways (indicated today by the beacons), otherwise one runs up against frightening fossil sand banks, hardened by time, completely able to break a ship.

The history or the legend wants that Dunkirk was also a city of naufrageurs. It is told that the tower of the Leughenaer (in French: turn of the liar ) would have carried fires which attracted the ships with their loss. The arguments do not fail to grant a certain credit to this account. When it can, it is less be likely (and not more immoral, though not less) to attract a boat in a trap to take it with the boarding; however, from its configuration, Dunkirk is a trap.

The existence of scummers trying to prevail itself of patriotic reasons is very old, as this edict to it to the December 7th 1400 taken by the king of France Charles V testifies:

If no, of some estat that it is, known no ship put at its own costs to carry the war to our ennemys, it will be by the leave and assent of nostre admiral or its lieutenant, which has, or will have, with the droict of sound dict office, the cognoissance, jurisdiction, and punishment of all the faicts in dictates sea and its dependences, criminally and civilly.

To be authorized before the attack (" leave and consentement"), to return account after (" cognoissance, jurisdiction and punition") : the criteria which separate the race from the piracy are already there, at least in the spirit of the king, because to make them respect on the ground is differently more complex than to write an edict.

Dunkirk corsairs under letter of Spanish mark

Spanish domination in some dates

At the end of the Middle Ages, the Netherlands, and Dunkirk in particular, belong to the Burgundy of Charles Bold the. At the 16th century, its remote heiress is Spain.

The Netherlands will conquer their independence following the Guerre Eighty Year old (1568 - 1648). This period leads to a separation in the Dutch-speaking populations: the Protestants of North create the United Provinces, from where the modern Netherlands result. On the other hand, in the south of the country, the catholic Flanders, to which belonged Dunkirk, remains attached to Spain.

At the time of the War Eighty Year old, Dunkirk falls to the hands from the Dutch rebels in 1577. It is taken again in 1583, on behalf of Spain, by Alexandre Farnese, duke of Parma.

Advanced station of the catholic world in contact with the Protestant grounds, traps with boats naturalness located on the maritime main roads, Dunkirk attracts all covetousnesses and constitutes a military stake always disputed between Spain, the United Provinces, England and France.

In 1600 the Netherlands send an army to conquer the town of Dunkirk and to finish some once and for all with these " pirates". Whereas it goes along the coast, the Dutch army ordered by Maurice de Nassau meets the Spanish army of Albert de Habsbourg. Although the Dutchmen gain the Bataille of Nieuport, Maurice de Nassau makes half turn. For this blow, Dunkirk is saved.

In 1621, the Trève twelve years finishes, the Dunkirkers (thus call them the English) become a true threat for all forwardings towards the Netherlands, capturing each year on average 229 fishing vessels and trading vessels, including approximately 60 British. Among them Jacob Collaert prevails.

In October 1646, the French make the Siège of Dunkirk and take the city with the support of the Dutch navy. The corsairs cease their activities then.

The year 1648 sees at the same time the end the end of the Guerre Eighty Year old (war of independence of the United Provinces against Spain) and of the Guerre Thirty Year old (Pan-European war tending to weaken the empire of Habsbourg), two wars which, at the end, did only one of them. The Traités of Westphalia devote in particular the independence of the United Provinces.

Dunkirk cease definitively to be Spanish in 1658; after one chaotic period, it becomes definitively French in 1662.

Involved forces: Protestant United Provinces

One cannot present Dunkirk under the Spanish domination without speaking about these enemy brothers who are the sailors of the United Provinces; enemies by the policy options and monks, sources of a constant danger, they are also parents, and sometimes teachers, because one could better learn the trade only in these sailors who sail in all the seas of the world.

The United Provinces contituent the northern and Protestant part Spanish Netherlands of then, called to become the Netherlands within the meaning of aujourd' today; they tear off their independence in Spain during the Guerre Eighty Year old (1568-1648), also called Révolte of Gueux. This independence is recognized internationally in 1648 by the Traités of Westphalia.

This term of Gueux should not mislead. It is an ironic reference to one their adversaries, Charles de Berlaymont which had treated them the gueux one. Actually, there were also rich person and the noble ones among the Protestants. Most important is Guillaume Ier of Orange-Nassau, considered as the founding father of the United Provinces. Even if it should not be confused with its descendant and homonymous Guillaume III which will become king d' Angleterre, it is not, undoubtedly, a beggar.

The Révolte of Gueux comprises an important maritime shutter carried out by the Gueux of the sea, scummers Protestant.

Are they really corsairs, or rather pirates, or (this word will be invented for them) flibustiers? A corsair acts on letter of mark delivered by a State and subjects himself to a control on his catches, which must be removed on a ship of an enemy country in time of war. No the State, not of authentic letter of mark. However, the United Provinces are not a State before 1648, date of the international dedication of their independence by the Treaties of Westphalia. , It perhaps too severe to treat pirates at the same time all the Dutch scummers or zélandais. Actually, in this Europe of before the Treaties of Westphalia, all the borders have in recombining, and the concept of Sovereign state is discussed, the armies providing the essence of the sales leaflet.

Before 1648, the letters of marks delivered on the territory of what will be the United Provinces are emitted by actors like William of Orange, war leader, or by the large joint stock companies which arm in race, like the Compagnie Dutchwoman of the Western Indies. This company is based with Middelburg in Zealand and not in some exotic island; it is about one of the first capitalist companies by actions; it has its own vessels, its own territory (which it cuts in America thanks to the action of its captains), much vaster than that of the United Provinces (on which it is supposed to depend), its own objectives, among which the race and the Commerce of the slaves are by no means dissimulated.

It is thus the same actor who arms in race and which delivers the letter of mark; the control of the limit between race and piracy becomes pure simulation.

Such letters of mark did not protect obviously their holder against a charge from piracy in the event of capture not the Spaniards. They could however have a certain protective effect (without automatism) in the event of capture by another country, because the dismantling of the Spanish colonial empire in Americas was sought by all the European powers, which tended to be combined against Spain in this geographical area, which involved a tendency to recognize the United Provinces as independent actor de facto.

One attends the birth of the character of the flibustier, semi-corsair semi-pirate. If it attacks galleons in American water, the system center is in Europe. The United Provinces hold the first role in the beginnings of the flibuste, with the political objective to destroy the Spanish colonial empire; the durable installations of European colonies of settlement in this water are difficult and late, and the flibustiers who attack the galleons charged with gold more often leave Zealand than of the island of the Tortoise.

Such are the immediate neighbors of the corsairs of Dunkirk: the creators of a machine of total maritime war whose objectives are at the same time political (because the framework is that of a separatist war and a war of religion, and the unit is animated by these statesmen who are the stathouders William of Orange) and economic (because some of the actors more at a peak are large joint stock companies and of the scummers seeking the profit).

The liberty of action of the Dutch scummers increases further when the Spanish maritime power is destroyed by the Dutchmen at the time of disastrous the Bataille of Downs, the October 31st 1639. This destruction encourages English and Dutch (although the latter, before 1648, are still juridically Spanish) to try to seize the Iberian possessions colonial in America, which passes by a recrudescence of piracy to the Antilles.

With the Dutch scummers, we are in the middle of the immense system of race, Pirate laughs or flibuste, such as it will prevail at the 16th century and 17th century. It is about a world system. Some biographical anecdotes will show dimension of it:

of Vernboer (15. - 1620); although he died 28 years before the independence of the United Provinces, he starts under letter of mark " hollandaise" , but finishes pirate in Algiers while preserving some " patriotisme" , at least it is what he says when he seeks to return in grace near his country. It makes hoist the house " hollandais" when the attacked ship is Spanish, and avoids maltreating its prisoners too much when those are Dutch. Its compatriot Jan Janszohn, of Haarlem, also starts under letter of mark " hollandaise" , but operates then starting from Algiers and of Salé (Morocco) and converts with Islam, which enables him, with the passage, to take a second woman.

Piet Hein (1577 - 1629) is, in 1623, vice-admiral with the service of the company of the Indies Occidentales is not satisfied to attack Galion S, but takes also cities, like Bahia (Brazil), then it passes under letter of mark of William of Orange in 1629 and takes share with the blockade of Dunkirk.

The example of Piet Hein shows us that there is not a world of difference between the scummers of the the Antilles and those of the the North Sea.

Involved forces: Spanish and catholic Flanders

The Dunkirk corsairs (nl: Duinkerker kapers ), operated along the Flemish coasts, starting from Dunkirk for the account of ship-owners deprived with the service of Spain during the Guerre Eighty Year old. It is this period which will give its noble letters to the Dunkirk race.

In spite of a constant Blockade of the wearing of Dunkirk on behalf of the men-of-war Dutch, the corsairs often manage to force the passage and continue to affect the naval activities of the Dutchmen. Those retort by declaring in 1587 that the capers Dunkirk would henceforth be treated as of the Pirate S. Their captains must lend oath to pass to the wire of the sword or to throw to the sea all their prisoners. But this particularly severe order remains very unpopular among the Dutch crews, because good number of their brothers or parents are also useful on the Dunkirk ships. Also are often satisfied it to deposit the sailors whom they capture on the sand banks along the Flemish coast, where not very deep water leaves them a chance of patauger to the littoral.

The Dunkirk ones use a type of light and very manoeuvrable ship, the frigate, whose weak draft, enables them to cross the sand banks, where the heavy warships run aground. They thus often escape their prosecutors.

Dunkirk is then in a difficult economic situation, prevented from living fishing because the rançonnage fishermen is, very as far as the attack of the Spanish galleons charged with gold, an activity of Gueux of the Sea. The wish of Spain to develop the corsair activity extremely well came thus and saves more than one sailor of unemployment.

The corsairs cooperate closely with the Spanish regular navy and take part in the Bataille of Downs. The corsairs big families, like Bart, Weuss or Bommelaer, have family ties with admirals Spanish or working for Spain, like Michel Jacobsen. From 1633 to 1637, the corsair Jacob Collaert is vice-admiral of the fleet corsair of Dunkirk. He passes admiral in 1638 and subjects to the Spanish authorities a restructuring plan of the wearing of Dunkirk which will not be carried out for lack of funds.

The English Channel and the North Sea constitute the very first theater of operation of the Dunkirk corsairs. Spain waits them, before-all, until this sector is held.

Although they often operate in and around the Manche, intrepid Dunkerquois pushes sometimes close to the Danish and German coasts to hail the ships returning of the Baltique. They send ships in Spain and the Mediterranean, cooperating closely with the Spanish navy, as with the Bataille of Downs.

On the other hand, the Dunkirk corsairs are less present than others among the Flibustier S of the the Antilles. For various reasons according to the times. Before 1658, since Dunkirk belongs to Spain and that the corsair activity in the Islands is mainly anti-Spanish, it goes without saying they do not have anything to make there. And then, they are also absent from this large page of the history of the flibuste which is the XVIII ème century, because the Treaty of Utrecht put an end to their activities since 1713. If some Dunkirk found the way of the islands, it will be of small number and perhaps at the times when they sailed for " Hollande" in any discretion.

Dunkirk definitively ceases being Spanish the June 25th 1658. It is a large page which is turned for its corsairs.

Dunkirk corsairs sailing for the Plain Provinces

The June 25th 1658, Dunkirk is Spanish the morning, Frenchwoman at midday and English the evening. Indeed, this day there, Henri of the Tower of Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne takes the city with the Spaniards. Cest the Battle of the Dunes. The evening even, Louis XIV gives the city to Oliver Cromwell, temporarily its ally. Dunkirk is definitively attached to the kingdom of France in 1662 after Louis XIV had repurchased it has Charles II of England which with taken the throne of England, two years earlier, but which has great need for money to be maintained there.

From the moment, where they are not Spanish any more, it is for the United Provinces that the Dunkirk corsairs sail when they can it. The question of the relationship with the United Provinces is difficult but important. It is known that Jean Bart learned his trade from sailor near Ruyter which is originating in Flessingue, starting main port of the Compagnie Dutchwoman of the Eastern Indies. Middelburg is one of the starting main ports of the Compagnie Dutchwoman of the Western Indies. It is also known that Nicolas Baeteman said " originating in Zélande" .

There probably exists of other examples. The United Provinces are close to the Flanders by the community of language and the family ties. They are gravitational by the lightness of controls which they exert on the catches. They offer the best occasions possible, for a sailor, to learn his trade. Nowhere elsewhere it will not on the same occasion to learn on all the seas from the sphere. But they are also " other bord" in all connections, Protestant women whereas Dunkirk is catholic. Without counting that the Flemish fishermen of Dunkirk and its area count among the first victims of the Gueux of the sea .

This is, moreover, to betray its fatherland to sail for the " Hollande" ? At the time where Dunkirk is Spanish, the answer is yes, unambiguous. The United Provinces were constituted initially against Spain, against which they have just conquered their independence, against this Spain which is in the beginning, if not of the Dunkirk race, at least of the caste of the high level corsairs social, those which cousinent with the admirals.

Then, the answer becomes moderate, because Dunkirk often changes nationality, and the countries of which it depends (in turn Spain, England, France), often change alliances.

Of 1662 with 1672, Dunkirk is French, but without being in war with the United Provinces. To sail for the " Hollande" is as compromising as trying. It is not expressly prohibited, since a corsair is not obliged to sail under Lettre of mark of his country, it is enough not to sail for an enemy country. The Dunkirk corsairs thus succeed in often sailing under letter of Dutch mark or zélandaise until in 1672, year when Louis XIV declares the war with the United Provinces.

Dunkirk corsairs under letter of French mark

From 1672, except assuming an opened rebellion, it is necessary well to sail under Lettre of French mark, in spite of the difficulty in granting the points of view on the nature of the war of race and the distinction of with piracy.

For Dunkirk capers, cousins of the Dutch flibustiers, being corsair rather than pirate, it is to be in possession of a letter of mark which is worth (in best case) life insurance in the event of capture. It is not to return accounts on any subject and to assume the times and the expenses of a lawsuit to each catch.

For the French authorities on the contrary, the letter of mark is not all. The corsair must comply with rules throughout his activity. He should attack only tradind ships of an enemy country in time of war. On this point, it must lend itself to controls, i.e. subject catches to the decision of a " court of prise" which will judge if these conditions were observed.

A lawsuit by captured ship… one imagines the expenses and the deadlines. For a Dunkirk corsair, it is irrational. He knows how the system functions in his/her cousins of Holland. He knows at which point controls can be fictitious when the authorities want it.

In opposite direction, the official power dreams to transform the corsair into naval officer, a naval officer which it would not have to pay but which would attack target very that the authority would indicate to him, that there is or not possibility of seizing a cargo to be remunerated. It is much to require.

The interests do not converge easily, and the recourse to the corsairs is always a makeshift which the States cease using when their navy of war becomes sufficient. The French state control of Louis XIV does not have any spontaneous sympathy to these badly disguised pirates, and, at the beginning, he encourages them little, letter of mark or not.

The things change starting from 1692: the disaster of Hougue destroyed most of the French fleet. As all the States deprived of a navy of sufficient war, France becomes aware of what the corsairs can bring to him. In 1695, Sebastien Prestre de Vauban takes party with its famous Mémoire concerning the caprery . He convinces the king to support the race. He reaches that point of as much better than the previous year is that of the battles of Texel.

The Chamber of commerce of Dunkirk has also its own squadron, under the command of Cornil Sauss, assistant Nicolas Baeteman.

The Bataille of Texel (1694) eliminates a risk of famine. Jean Bart is assisted there by the knight Claude de Forbin. This victory marks the beginning of an immense respect of the king for Jean Bart and, through him, for Dunkirk, which feels finally French heart.

Some Dunkirk corsairs pertaining to the French period: Jean Bart, Cornil Saus, Nicolas Baeteman.

Life on board

A ship corsair is small to remain handy. In the ideal, it is a frigate. What characterizes initially a ship corsair, it is accumulation. The captain was indeed to provide that the combat could cause much deaths and that then, in the event of victory, the crew should be able to drive not only his own ship but also the captured ship. An insufficient number of survivors on the boat corsair obliged it with " embaucher" for the operation of the sailors of the captured ship and exposed it to the risk of " Re-secousse". The accumulation of the sailors was a characteristic of the pirate boats or corsairs, the only criterion which did not mislead.

The ships corsairs or pirates were experts in fraud. The use of a false house obstructed them of nothing. It happened that he closes his Sabord S to hide his guns (in opposite direction, a tradind ship could paint deadlights on its hull to have the frightening air). It is thus not on such criteria that a captain was to base himself to know if it were approached by a predator. On the other hand, when the observation with the Lunette revealed an abnormal number of occupants, it was time to flee, if one could.

Consequently of this accumulation, as soon as the voyage is a little long (and it is it often: let us recall that the corsairs who operate in the remote islands often make it starting from European ports, at least at the beginning), the provisions are insufficient for lack of place where to put them, and the hunger is voyage whatever the possible good will of the captain to nourish his men correctly (this will existed sometimes. Jean Bart tried to nourish its sailors of good cheese of Holland).

Add to that the diseases, the wounds, the danger.

Techniques of combat

The corsair is a professional of the unequal combat, from where very particular techniques of combat.

The Dunkirk corsairs invented the frigate, ship smaller and more handy than the ship of the line. In the best of the cases, the captain corsair orders a frigate of about thirty guns (until the hundred for a vessel); more often, if it did not make fortune yet, it operates from anything which floats.

The objective is thus to prevent that the combat is an exchange of blows of gun, not only because of the imbalance of the firepowers, but also because the corsair, whose motivations are economic, hopes to bring back a catch in good state.

To approach its prey, all the tricks are of setting, including the houses use of forgery.

To obtain a rendering without combat is the ideal. It rather often occurs, for multiple reasons. Maybe because the attacked ship is a trading vessel without military capacity. Either because the crew is terrorized, or still by tactic, to cause the " rescousse" , i.e. the " Re-secousse" , the second combat.

It is important here to know a point of the odd jurisprudence of the courts of catch: when a ship was captured by a corsair and that it is taken again by his crew at the time of the " Re-secousse" , the ship and the cargo belong to the sailors who took it again and not to the owners of origin.

It can thus be suitable to be let capture (on the condition of being certain to fall into the hands from a corsair). Indeed, the winner is well annoyed, because it must lead two boats with the crew of only one. The prisoners thus end sometimes up seeing " embauchés". It even arrives that they are seen entrusting the task to drive to the port their own ship for the account of their winner, accompanied by a handle by guards. Admittedly, the powder of the captive ship is wet, its guns are encloués, and the winner sails in the vicinity. But all can nevertheless occur. For little that the winds separate the two ships and that the guards are of small number, the crew of origin can hope to take again the ship.

If the combat is decided, the captain corsair opens the trunk which contains the weapons (those, in ordinary time are under good key: on board, confidence hardly reigns); it lets each man choose his. The firearms have few amateurs, their retreat is treacherous in the restricted space of the ship. The standard choice: an axe with the belt, a knife enters the teeth, the hands having to be free for the boarding. The captain, if it makes a point of fighting with elegance, will choose a saber with curved blade (a right blade would be inserted in the thigh at the time of the boarding).

The corsair attacks if possible his prey by before (one knows the song To the thirty and one of August: " Transfer windward side for windward side while arriving, I approached it by his avant" ); in any case it tries to avoid the sides and their lines of aligned guns. Arrived in the vicinity, it launches the hooks for the boarding.

If, by a rare misfortune, the prey is defended and that the combat engages, it is butchery. Several hundreds of died on only one boat are not rare thing. Initially for technical reasons: the naval action is without equivalent with ground. The restricted space of the ship does not make it possible to move back of a step. The expression " to overcome or mourir" is not an exaggeration. Then because the resistance of the prey heats with white the fury of the corsair, who expected a rendering without combat.

Captured goods

The capture is generally followed " ploutrage" (of English to plunder ), i.e. of a plundering obeying traditional rules. Each one is entitled to the businesses of its counterparts. The sailors seize the clothes of the sailor, the writer of the edge seizes the feathers and the paper of his counterpart; one quotes even the case of the chaplain of Skilful the , Chevalier captain of saint pol., who, in 1703, seized the " bells and chapelles" of its fellow-member of the Ludlow .

The cargo must be the subject of a favorable judgment of the court of catch, which must declare it " of good prise" , i.e. removed with an enemy country in time of war.

After a favorable judgment, the goods can be sold with the biddings, and its shared price. The King and the ship-owner reserve the largest share, the remainder in theory is divided between the captain and his men. Actually, so that the basic sailor obtains something, it would be necessary that it is alive at the conclusion of the lawsuit, that he is present in Dunkirk, and that he is informed of the judgment in good time. All circumstances which are seldom joined together.

In general, the only payment whose sailor sees the color concretely consists in the product of the ploutrage, which does not prevent the authorities from being indignant at its behavior of plunderer. It is advisable however to add that an advance was versed with his wife before her loading, and that this advance, in spite of its name, is final. The Chamber of commerce of Dunkirk, which arms in race, has a time inclination to give in advance a refundable character; it is indignant at what this one remains sure with the family even if the sailor did little use, for example if he deserted or if he were killed quickly. These inclinations remain without success.

The treaty of Utrecht and race end in Dunkirk

England does not have of cease to be removed from this gun pointed towards the heart of London which Dunkirk constitutes. It obtains the disarmament of the port in 1713 by the treaty of Utrecht. The attempts to free itself from this treaty fail: it is the end of the corsairs of Dunkirk and the beginning of a great misery.

To become fishing is not simple thing, because pirate and corsairs continue to exist North at sea, and to hold to ransom the fishermen.

To survive, the Dunkirk ones undertake fishing " in Hytland" , i.e. fishing in Iceland, another great epopee, but especially the last of the trades. At the beginning of the 20th centuries still, it was allowed that, on hundred sailors left for fishing Iceland, five or six did not return. Front, it was undoubtedly worse.

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