Dutch ship Eendracht (1655)

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Portrait of Eendracht by Willem van de Velde the Elder
History
Dutch Republic
Name	Eendracht
Builder	Jan Salomonszoon van den Tempel, Dordrecht
Fate	Blown up at the Battle of Lowestoft on 13 June 1665
General characteristics
Class and type	58-gun ship of the line
Length	150 Amsterdam feet (42.5 m (139 ft))
Beam	38 Amsterdam feet (10.8 m (35 ft))
Depth of hold	15 Amsterdam feet (4.2 m (14 ft))
Propulsion	Sails
Sail plan	Full-rigged ship
Complement	300 sailors and 75 soldiers
Armament	58 guns (later 72 guns)

The Eendracht or Eendragt ("Concord" - more precisely translated as "Unity") was the flagship of the confederate navy of the United Provinces (a precursor state of the Netherlands) between 1655 and 1665. Eendragt was the more common spelling in the 17th century; Eendracht is the modern Dutch standard spelling.

Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp had for many years insisted on the construction of a new flagship to replace the Brederode, which was too lightly armed with only 56 guns. For reasons of cost and impracticality (Dutch home waters being very shallow) this was refused until the events of the First Anglo-Dutch War made it painfully clear that much heavier ships were needed. In February 1653 it was decided that the cost was to be shared confederately by the seven provinces of the Netherlands. The project was at the instigation of Cornelis de Witt moved to the wharf of Goossen Schacks van der Arent in Dordrecht for a ship to be built under the supervision of shipwright Jan Salomonszoon van den Tempel who had previously designed Brederode and the earlier flagship Aemilia. The Admiralty of de Maze based in Rotterdam (one of the five autonomous Dutch admiralties) therefore signed a contract with van den Tempel on 8 March 1653 and he then laid the keel of a ship of 150 (Amsterdam) feet (42.5 m) in length.

Due to conflicts about cost, size and materials, Eendracht was only finished in January 1655 when the First Anglo-Dutch War had already ended and Tromp was dead. At first it was intended to name the then 58-gun ship Prins Willem after the infant son of the late stadtholder William II of Orange, but Johan de Witt, Grand Pensionary with the States of Holland, decided to rename the project after the main ideal of his domestic policy: the concord between all provinces and citizens, also expressed in the official motto of the Republic: Concordia res parvae crescunt, "Small things grow through concord". When he happened to be absent for a month the Orangist faction changed the name back, but the States hurriedly reverted this when De Witt after his return merely expressed his amazement.