List of ships of the line of the Dutch Republic
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This is a list of Dutch (the United Provinces of the Netherlands) ships of the line, or sailing warships which formed the Dutch battlefleet. It covers ships built from about 1623 (there are few reliable records of individual earlier warships) until the creation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands on March 1815, including the period of the French-controlled Batavian Republic, nominal Kingdom of Holland and direct French annexation between 1795 and 1813. It excludes frigates and lesser warships.
The Dutch were often handicapped by the smaller size of their ships relative to the vessels of other nations, particularly those of England and France. This was partly due to the shallow home waters of the Netherlands, which limited the maximum draft with which ships could operate. Consequently, the Dutch did not build large three-deckers such as were found in the navies of England and France, except for a brief period from 1682 to 1695 (and a very few much later on during the Napoleonic era). However, during the period up to 1650 the Dutch made up in sheer quantity of ships for what they lacked in terms of the size of vessels; the list below is incomplete and does not include some of the many hundreds of Dutch warships belonging to the United Provinces between 1579 (when the Netherlands effectively became independent from Spanish control) and 1795 (in which latter year the French invaded and established the puppet state of the Batavian Republic).