Jan Meppel
Dutch admiral
Jan Corneliszoon Meppel (c. 1609 – 2 November 1669) was a Dutch States Navy officer who took the place of Pieter Floriszoon as vice-admiral at the Admiralty of the Northern Quarter after his death. He fought in the Four Days' Battle, the St. James's Day Battle, and the Raid on the Medway.
Biography
In May 1659, he departed with Vice-Admiral Michiel de Ruyter's squadron, which was intended to reinforce Lieutenant-Admiral van Wassenaar's fleet in the Baltic Sea. However, the summer passed without any action, and in November, Meppel returned with Wassenaar, while De Ruyter remained in Denmark.
Meanwhile, the Commonwealth had become embroiled in a war with the Barbary pirate states. To subdue them, Vice-Admiral de Ruyter, and under his command, Meppel, were sent to the Mediterranean Sea, where they destroyed many pirate ships and protected trade. After the peace treaty, the fleet returned to the fatherland in the spring of 1663, but was sent to sea again in May 1664, when the pirates broke the peace.
In 1664, he joined De Ruyter's expedition to West Africa and his failed attack on Barbados, and therefore was not present at the crushing defeat in the Battle of Lowestoft. They returned to the fatherland, on 6 August 1665.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jan Meppel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.