84 Weapons for Feathers

For eighty years the Dutch Republic was in a state of war with the Spanish Kingdom and made it a profitable business. The Republic started off on borrowed money trying to fight a war the traditional way with hired troops under the command of Princes. That didn’t work at all. Quickly enough the Republic came to rely on the Merchant Navy. With letters of consent in the pocket and guns below deck the captains of the merchant fleet became the scourge of the Spanish. Part of the loot went to the coffers of the Republic but a sizable part stayed with the ships owners, skippers and the crew. That part was often in kind: goods, riches and weapons. The Dutch became important weapons’ traders. The story goes that the most important client was actually the very people they had taken the guns from: the Spanish. When Michiel de Ruyter sailed his own ship the Salamander to Morocco, he brought at first ‘regular’ stuff for trade with him. In the MuZeeum in Vlissingen they told me with a knowing smile he brought ‘beads and mirrors for the natives’. It was a little bit different. Ali Aboudmiaa, the ‘Sant’ as De Ruyter calls him, had territorial ambitions. He wanted weapons of the most advanced variety. And that was what De Ruyter provided. In exchange he got Ostrich feathers. Was it a good deal: weapons against feathers? De Ruyter thought so. At home the rich and powerful liked to wear Ostrich feathers on hats and helmets. They were willing to pay handsomely for ‘fashion’. Ali Aboudmiaa probably laughed till his stomach hurt. The once very advanced guns are now decorating the sea wall in Vlissingen. Ancient or not they still have firing power. On special occasions the wick is lit and the cannons boom.