Or, for a period of eighteen years, a total of 107 + 65 = 172 new ships. This increase of the fleet was an absolute necessity. It was necessary, in fact, to make up the losses caused by storms and other misfortunes, and amounting, during the years 1688-1698, to 3 units of 70, 5 of 60, 6 of 50, 8 of 40 to 46 guns, in addition to a few vessels of 30 guns and less, 36 ships in all.
All these works evidently cost large sums. During the period 1682-1702, the expenditures for new ships were about 81,197,000 florins and about 69,954,800 florins for equipment.
Maintenance, equipment, etc. came to about 5,829,000 florins, and in 1697, the costs rose to 7,732,000 florins. (DE JONGE, Vol. II, pp. 80 and 81.) In order to form any exact idea of the importance of this sum, it must be remembered that, at the time under consideration, salaries, etc. were far lower than those of our day. (DE JONGE, Vol. IV, Chap. I, p. 80, note.)
Besides the war ships just mentioned, a large number of merchant ships, vessels of less importance for inland service, and fishing boats were built, so that, if the old writers are to be believed, “there were places where there were counted more boats than houses”.
At the time when Hugo de Groot lived, two thousand vessels were built annually. (KOENEN, Geschiedenis van Scheepbouw en Zeevaart, p. 87.) No Hollanders were met with who did not possess a certain amount of knowledge relating to shipbuilding. (Idem, p. 85.)
In order to display such a large amount of energy, shipbuilding must have developed with us in an extraordinary way. The proof of this is found in the works of Nicolas Witsen (1671) and of Van Yk (1697). Hence our naval architecture enjoyed an unheard of prosperity at the beginning of the XVIIIth century.
In order to form an idea of the perfection of design which our naval architecture had reached toward the middle of the same century, it is enough to consult, in our album, the photographic reproductions of a few drawings made by M. Van Gent in 1750, 1751, 1752, the originals of which belong to the remarkable collection of engravings of M. S. Van Gyn, at Dordrecht, as well as the copy of a war ship of 1770 which appears in the collection of colored drawings.
These documents reproduce faithfully the ships with their water lines. But what attracts attention most particularly is the following inscription which is very legible in the drawing of the war ship of 1750: Property of Admiral Schryver. This admiral is the one who wrote in 1753 that the shipbuilders, and especially those who built the ships of war of the State during the period extending from 1683 to 1753, were scarcely more than ordinary ship carpenters; that they had no theoretical knowledge, were guided only by experience and, in certain respects, were on the same level as the master carpenters of Zaandam who, in the face of a failure, had offered as an excuse that “the boat had not let itself be shaped otherwise with an axe”.