Name Isaac Sweers | Role 17th-century Dutch Vice-Admiral | |
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Similar Adriaen Banckert, Cort Adeler, Hendrik Gravé, Steven van der Hagen | ||
Hr ms isaac sweers evertsen en van galen eskaderreis 85
Isaac Sweers (Nijmegen, 1 January 1622 – 21 August 1673) was a 17th-century Dutch vice-admiral with the Admiralty of Amsterdam who fought in the Anglo-Dutch Wars.
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HNLMS Isaac Sweers (Dutch: Hr. Ms. Isaac Sweers) was a Gerard Callenburgh-class destroyer of the Royal Netherlands Navy named after Sweers.
Early Life
In 1638, Sweers, tired of school life, was sent at his own request to a business associate of his uncle in Seville , then the most important trading city in Spain. However, due to a lack of diligence, he was quickly dismissed from there. To obtain money, he drew a bill without order on his eldest brother and traveled on a freighter to Plymouth in September 1639 , where he made a good impression until money shortages forced him to return to his homeland after three months. His family then let him work as a clerk for his older brother Salomon Sweers , who was the sheriff of Texel at the time.
Family History
Unlike most Dutch naval heroes, Sweers did not come from a sailor's family or even a port town. His early life is exceptionally well known because an autobiographical account has been preserved by his family, in which Sweers ironically describes his youth.
He was born in Nijmegen on January 1, 1622 and was the fifth son of Alida van Bronckhorst and Alderman Aernout Sweers, a regent from the city council of that place who had lost his position due to the legal opposition of Maurice of Orange in 1618 because of his Remonstrant sympathies.
His father managed to regain his position after the death of Maurits and was delegated by the States of Gelderland in 1628 as director of the VOC in the Amsterdam Chamber. The family lived there from 1628 to 1634 and then returned to Nijmegen; In 1635, a year of a plague epidemic , both of Sweers' parents died. His family then sent him to the French school in Hoorn.