Pieter de Bitter

Pieter de Bitter; Portrait by JW Bloem

Pieter de Bitter (* around 1620; † June 15, 1666 ) was a Dutch naval officer of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He became famous for his victory in the Battle of the Bay of Bergen on August 12, 1665.

Life

Nothing is known about the early years of Pieter de Bitter's life. He is first mentioned during the Anglo-Dutch War (1652-1654) in 1653 as the captain of the Mercurius (40 cannons), a VOC ship . In the Battle of Scheveningen (August 10, 1653) he distinguished himself by eliminating an English flagship.

Two years later, during the Dutch-Portuguese War (1624–1661), De Bitter was part of a Dutch expedition against the Portuguese colony of Ceylon , apparently since he had left for the Dutch East Indies . In July 1656 he returned to Batavia and was appointed vice-commander of a naval association, which was given the task of blocking the Portuguese ports on the Malabar coast . From there he returned in the spring of 1657, but in August he served again in the Dutch squadron that blocked the Portuguese Goa . In doing so, he brought up the ship Santa Crux, which was loaded with valuable spices . Since he enriched himself with the booty, he was later slightly punished. As captain of the salamanders , De Bitter took part in the capture of Jaffnapatnam on June 21, 1658 . In the summer of 1659 his ship, this time the Tholen , again belonged to a blockade association off Goa. De Bitter captured the English Constantinople Merchant , which was suspected of transporting contraband . At the end of the war against Portugal, De Bitter rose to the higher ranks within the VOC. In April 1661 he was appointed inspector of ships and master of the orderly of Batavia. On July 22nd, he himself commanded a blockade squadron off Goa. Two years later he took part in the conquest of Kochi and subsequently acted briefly as its governor . In May 1664 he returned to Batavia and in June traveled on a diplomatic mission to Narai , King of Siam . He obtained an extension of the Siamese-Dutch treaties (August 22nd) and then returned to Batavia in November.

In December of the same year De Bitter was entrusted with the command of the convoy back to Europe. Since the imminent outbreak of the Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667) was already indicated, he was selected as an experienced officer to bring the precious cargo back to the United Netherlands undamaged. On the way he received news of the outbreak of war and the Dutch defeat in the Battle of Lowestoft (June 13, 1665). New orders then told him that he should first wait for an escort from the Netherlands in the neutral Danish port of Bergen . There the convoy was ambushed on August 12, 1665 by an English naval formation under Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Teddeman (1620–1668). In the following “ Battle of the Bay of Bergen ” De Bitter successfully fended off this attack. After a Dutch escort fleet under Vice Admiral Michiel de Ruyter (1607–1676) had led the VOC convoy to the Netherlands, De Bitter received numerous honors from the States General . The board of directors of the VOC also presented him with two gold chains of honor and on March 6, 1666 appointed him commander of the next fleet to Batavia, where De Bitters' wife and children also lived. De Bitter left Europe on April 15 and died of scurvy while the voyage was still on June 15, 1666 on board his flagship Hollandsche Tuyn (off the West African coast) .

literature

• Michael Breet: Strijd om de VOC-miljoenen. Slag in de haven van het Noorse Bergen, August 12, 1665. Walburg Pers, Zutphen 2007, ISBN 9-0573-0468-6 .