Jacob Collaert

Jacob Collaert , also Jacob Collaart , French Jacques Colaert (* 1584 in Dunkirk ; † 30 July 1637 in San Sebastian ) was a Flemish privateer and admiral who was on behalf of the Spaniards against the Dutch during the Eighty Years' War on a pirate voyage from Dunkirk .

Collaert came from an old and well-known seafaring family in Dunkirk and was in the service of the Spanish Netherlands under Albrecht VII . In 1635 he began to talk about himself (but at that time he already had significant successes as a pirate and in naval warfare). At first he successfully led 2,000 Spanish infantry to Dunkirk. In the same year he undertook a major raid on the Dutch fishing fleet. From 30 available ships, he selected six new frigates and 14 more warships. They were able to bypass the Dutch blockade of the port and attacked the fishing fleet from Enkhuizen , which had just left the port and was delayed in the North Sea this year. On August 17th they sank almost half of the 140 fishing boats, they dispersed and only four more the following day. On the fishing grounds of the Dogger Bank, however, Collaert was soon able to surprise the Meuse fishing fleet, which had not been warned, and after a fight with their escort, arrested 20 ships. Then he made his way back and was able to repel a Dutch warship fleet that was almost as large as his own. In response to the news of the disaster in the fishing fleet, a fleet under Willem Codde van der Burch left Rotterdam, which met near Texel with a fleet under the command of Philips van Dorp . Collaert was able to severely damage four of the 20 Dutch warships, but then had to give way when reinforcements arrived under Vice Admiral Quast. Despite persecution, he was able to escape to Dunkirk with his booty without losing his own ships. The loot included cannons, ammunition, a large Dutch warship, lots of fish and over 900 prisoners. 89 fishing trawlers and five warships had been destroyed or captured. A month later he achieved another coup when he attacked a Dutch West Indies convoy in the English Channel that was returning from a raid against the Spaniards. He also captured the commander Cornelis Corneliszoon Jol and captured his flagship Otter . At the beginning of 1636 his luck ran out. It was supposed to complement the planned large convoy of troop transports (Fuentes Expedition) from Spain to the Spanish Netherlands with four large warships. When trying to break the blockade off Dunkirk, one of his ships was forced to run aground and the others were attacked in a battle lasting several hours off Dieppe on February 29, 1636 by a Dutch fleet under Johan Evertsen . Collaert was captured and exchanged with other prisoners for half of the approximately 1,000 Dutch fishermen caught. In the spring of 1637 he traveled on the Galleone Stella Maris to San Sebastian and from there to Madrid, where the Spanish King Philip IV himself awarded Collaert, who has meanwhile been promoted to admiral, the Order of Santiago in a solemn ceremony. He died of illness soon after on his flagship in A Coruña .

His daughter Clara married the Irish privateer and later admiral of the Royal Navy Edward Spragge (around 1620–1673). His son Jacob Collaert the Younger was also a privateer.

His fame was later overshadowed by that of another great Dunkirk corsair, Jean Bart . In addition to the Colaert and Bart families, the Jacobsen family from Dunkirk provided well-known pirates and naval officers at the time.

literature

• RA Stradling: The armada of Flanders. Spanish Maritime Policy and the European War, 1568-1668 , Cambridge UP 1992
• H. Malo: Les Corsaires: Les Corsaires Dunkerquois et Jean Bart , Paris 1913, Volume 1 (of two), pp. 320–327
• E. Hambye: L'Aumonerie de la flotte de Flandre au XVIIe siècle , Leuven 1967, pp. 43-45
• C. Fernandez Duro: Armada Espagnol desde la Unión de los Reinos de Castilla y Aragon , 9 volumes, Madrid 1894 to 1903, here volume 4, pp. 407-408

Individual evidence

1. ↑ NN Vanderest, Histoire de Jean Bart, Paris 1841, p 19. As of death is also Corunna specified.
2. ^ RA Stradling, The armada of Flanders, Cambridge UP 1992, pp. 86-88
3. ↑ According to Vanderest, Histoire de Jean Bart, Paris 1841, p. 19, he captured and defeated 109 merchant ships and 27 warships in his career and was seriously wounded seventeen times