Battle of Vågen
| Battle of Vågen | |||||||
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| Part of Second Anglo-Dutch War | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
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Bergenhus Fortress |
 England
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
 Claus von Ahlefeldt
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Sir Thomas Teddiman | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 50 ships | 30 ships | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 30 or 100 Dutch casualties, 8 Norwegian casualties, 10 civilians | 200 or 500 | ||||||
The Battle of Vågen was a naval battle between a Dutch merchant and treasure fleet and an English flotilla of warships in August 1665 as part of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The battle took place in Vågen (meaning "the bay, " in Norwegian), the main port area of neutral Bergen, Norway. Due to a delay in orders the Norwegian commanders took the side of the Dutch, contrary to the secret intentions of the King of Norway and Denmark. The battle ended with the defeat of the English fleet, which retreated, much damaged but without losing any ships. The treasure fleet was relieved by the Dutch home fleet seventeen days later.
The Dutch merchant fleet consisted of about sixty vessels. Ten of them were Dutch East India Company (VOC) vessels under command of Commodore Pieter de Bitter which were returning from the East Indies. Twice each year the Dutch East India Company sent a Return Fleet back to the Netherlands. This one had departed on Christmas Day 1664 and had at that time the richest cargo ever. It was laden with many luxury goods, typical for the "rich trade": spices, among which 4 million catty of pepper, 440,000 pounds of clove, 314,000 pounds of nutmeg, 121,600 pounds of mace and about half a million pounds of cinnamon; 18,000 pounds of ebony; 8690 catty of silk and about 200,000 other pieces of cloth; 22,000 pounds of indigo; 18,151 pearls; 2,933 rubies, 3,084 raw diamonds and 16,580 pieces of porcelain, with a total European market value of about eleven million guilders or three million rigsdaler, more than the total annual revenues of the Danish crown. The Dutch had paid the equivalence of 36 tons of gold, or 3,648,490 guilders, to buy this cargo.
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