1633:The Danish Scheme Read Online Free PDF

the meeting. Others had also drifted in and Van Twiller had agreed they might be needed, so they too had stayed. As soon as Captain van den Broecke arrived in the company of the last two members, Tjaert started in with his news. "There's no way to make this easier to hear. Our fleet has suffered a major defeat."
    The New Amsterdam leaders all started to ask questions at once, but Tjaert cut them off with a wave of his hand. "Let me finish first. We met the Spaniards off Dunkirk in September. The action initially began very well for us. "When the French and English fleets arrived, I watched as they passed through our fleet to attack the Spaniards. Without warning, they fired into our fleet instead. It was a slaughter.”
    He paused to let that fact sink in, and then continued. "That’s when I noticed that three Englishmen were definitely heading to engage us. I intended to try and head to port and warn our countrymen of the defeat, but the English had the weather gauge and kept forcing us to the north. They kept coming, but their pursuit seemed halfhearted at best. Eventually we were able to lose them in a fog bank, but by then our only choice was to head here."
    Joris van den Broecke stood up with a beer in hand and slapped Tjaert on the back. "He's too modest. The ploy he used to make our escape was brilliant. As we approached a fog bank, he had a brazier set up in a hatchway and lit off some old, damp gunpowder and rags to smoke like there was a fire below decks. Then he started his men pumping water like they were fighting the fire. As soon as we reached the fog bank, he doused his running lights and launched his long boat with a spar holding decoy lights. The long boat held four casks of old spoiled gunpowder and a slow fuse. When the powder went off, the English must have thought he'd blown up. They broke off the pursuit. I guess they didn't think my Rotterdam  was worth any further effort."
    Tjaert was blushing from the praise but added, "I'm not sure their hearts were in it from the beginning. Their fleet seemed more than willing to let the French have the lead from the brief observation we had before the chase. I just gave them an honorable excuse to break off.” The scowl reappeared on his face as he growled, “We may have escaped, but they kept us from carrying a warning home!"
    "But what of our fleet? What happened to it?" Kiliaen van Rensselaer, von Twiller’s uncle, had cut straight to the crux of the matter.
    "I don't know." Tjaert answered and Joris just shrugged his shoulders in agreement. "The French treachery destroyed or heavily damaged most of the ships not already closely engaged with the Spaniards. We’d been pounding the Spanish, but had gotten almost as much damage in return. I'd guess only a dozen, at best, were still fit enough to try to escape. In any case, the fleet has ceased to exist as a force to hold off the Spanish and their new allies. What advantage the Spanish take from their victory depends on their leadership. The best we can hope for is that they only close off our ports. Or we may have lost the war. In any case, we’re on our own here."
    "But what do we do here in the colony?" Van Twiller had started as a West Indies Company clerk years before and realized the implications from the loss of the fleet. The Spanish were a long-time enemy, but were more concerned with retaking Holland. The English were fierce trade rivals at sea and the French, rivals in the fur trade. Trade and money were powerful motivators. "Without the fleet, we're at the mercy of any fleet that arrives here. The French and English both have reasons to wish us gone and the means to hurt us here."
    Tjaert paused to ponder his answer. If he phrased it properly, they might follow his lead and he had a vow he wanted to keep. Van Twiller appeared to be a weak leader and might be easily manipulated. "You probably have some time before you have to worry about an attack. We didn't go down without inflicting heavy losses.