Chapter 5, Merchant Commander and Parliamentary Captain William Haddock
For the full story of this pictured incident, turn to Chapter 5.
During the first three battles of the First Anglo-Dutch War, the young (later Admiral Sir) Richard Haddock served on the heavily armed, hired merchant ship Hannibal, commanded by his father, William Haddock. For the second of these sea fights, the grueling three-day Battle of Portland, the English put a new command structure into place, dividing the fleet into three squadrons. The English ultimately prevailed, gaining control of the English Channel and losing only one ship, though the Dutch lost about 20 warships. Lithograph c.1855 by Petrus Johannes Schotel, Public domain, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons (original in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)