Admiralty of Amsterdam The Admiralty of Amsterdam was the largest of the at the time of the Dutch Republic . The administration of the various Admiralties was strongly influenced by provincial interests . The territory for which Amsterdam was responsible was limited to the city itself , the Gooi region , the islands of Texel , Vlieland and Terschelling , the province of Utrecht and the Gelderland quarters of Arnhem and of the Graafschap ( county ) of Zutphen . Amsterdam had developed into the most important of all the Admiralties and often compensated for the other admiralties ' deficiencies . When the " Committee for Naval Affairs " ( " Comité tot de Zaken der Marine " ) replaced the Admiralty Colleges on 27 February 1795 during the reforms by the Batavian Republic , the lower civil servants were kept on , but the officers were dismissed . Foundation . Initially Amsterdam ranked under the Admiralty of Rotterdam , as it was located in the Southern Quarter of Holland . When the Earl of Leicester reorganised maritime affairs on 26 July 1586 , however , Amsterdam and the Northern Quarter of Holland , and the provinces of Utrecht and Gelderland were all placed under one Admiralty , based in Hoorn . The region ' s West Frisian towns , however , played a wayward role , and this was aggravated when they engaged with Amsterdam in a dispute over the Republic ' s admiralty administration . The States of Holland ( the government of the province of Holland ) decided to back Amsterdam . That there was a need for reorganisation was not contested , Leicester having placed naval and maritime affairs under a single college designed to curb Holland ' s influence . But Hoorn , Enkhuizen and Medemblik rejected the idea that commissioned officers should be appointed by the States of Holland instead of by the cities themselves . As a result , the commissioned officers decided to stay in Amsterdam . On 28 August 1586 , that decision formed the beginning of the Amsterdam Admiralty . The conflict was ended by compromise . In the end , the West Frisian cities gave up their resistance to external appointments , and in 1589 Hoorn instituted its own admiralty college . On 14 June 1597 , the States - General of the Netherlands sanctioned the situation as it then was , so that Amsterdam too kept its own admiralty . These measures were intended to have a temporary character , but in fact they remained in force until the end of the Republic in 1795 . Organisation and development . Under the decisions of 1597 , the Admiralty of Amsterdam provided seven commissioned officers , along with four appointed by the States of Holland and three by other provinces . Numbers and proportions later changed , and in 1739 the college provided twelve members , six from Holland and one from each of the six other provinces . Seats in the Admiralties in Amsterdam and Rotterdam were held to be especially lucrative . The Committee of the Admiralty of Amsterdam was nearly always filled by former mayors . Pay amounted to 1 , 000 guilders per annum , often much more than that . In practice , remunerations could be greatly increased by a variety of perks and compensations . According to a member from Groningen , commissioning was no " witch - finder ' s work " and he gladly kept it on . The administrators resided in the Prinsenhof ( named the " Zeekantoor " after 1795 ) at Amsterdam ' s Oudezijds Voorburgwal . This former monastery had been used as a fencing school , and after the fire of 1652 as a temporary city hall , before becoming the administrators ' office . Whenever the Prince of Orange visited Amsterdam , in his capacity of Admiral - General he resided in the Admiralty building . By law , the grounds were under his jurisdiction , obviating the need for him to be a guest of the city . It was for this reason that the building acquired , and retained , the name of " Prinsenhof " . In 1656 , the Admiralty took over the entire building and renovated it . On its façade is the Hollandic Lion , holding the coat of arms of the High College and guarding the Hollandic Yard , the symbol of territorial integrity and security . On the site of the new 1924 development stood a number of fine houses built by Philips Vingboons , previously used by high officials of the Admiralty . The vroedschap commissioned the great poet Vondel to write verses to be recited at the inauguration of the building . To adorn the interior , Ferdinand Bol was commissioned to paint four huge allegorical paintings , for which he was paid 2 , 000 guilders . In 1632 and in 1636 – 37 , stadholder Frederik Hendrik tried to create more unity in the fight against the Spanish Netherlands . Supervision of the fleet blockading the Dunkirkers was no longer placed in the hands of the five admiralty colleges but given to a central organization , which was to operate from a single base at Hellevoetsluis by directors specially appointed for the purpose . The object was to increase efficiency , but the system did not work well and Holland , notably Amsterdam , put up effective resistance , causing it to be abandoned . " Convooi " and " Licent " . The admiralty colleges had first and foremost been entrusted with equipping the Republic ' s naval fleets . In addition , they had to manage import and export taxes – collecting " Convooien " and " Licenten " . Most important were the " Licenten " , which were licenses on the trade with the enemy , which at that time meant Spain . The proceeds were meant to be spent on building and equipping men - of - war . In 1638 it was decided to lease out the proceeds of these Convooien and Licenten . The region of Holland , however , opposed the decision as it meant that authority for the leases came in the hands of private persons and bring them personal gain . Each province exerted itself to trade internally as much as possible , and thus to evade the rules . Earnings could only be maintained through smuggling and the confiscation of smuggled goods , a lesson especially learnt by the Admiralty in Amsterdam . On the River Oude Rijn there was an outpost of the Arnhem office of the Amsterdam Admiralty . The Rhine customs officer , however , whose jurisdiction extended as far as Lobith on the border with the Holy Roman Empire ( since 1648 ) , was under the authority of the Admiralty of Rotterdam . Pay and bonuses . Unlike the English naval administration , the Dutch admiralty colleges were not permitted to use impressed sailors to man their fleets , this being deemed incompatible with the freedom that was the proclaimed basis of the Republic . A sailor in the fleet received ten or eleven guilders per calendar month . None of the non - commissioned officers or men was in bound service to the admiralty . Sailors who enlisted were housed and fed by it , and had to pay deductions for uniform clothing and equipment . Earnings through plundering or loot dried up in the eighteenth century . Like non - commissioned officers and sailors in general , commissioned naval officers were also dependent on their posting , since they received no payment from the admiralty whilst in port . Indeed , even though for officers " meals at the captain ' s table were . . . always free " , pay was only thirty guilders for a lieutenant and sixty guilders for a commandeur ( i . c . acting captain ) commissioned on a ship . It has been rightly observed that their main income was from captured ships . In 1652 , at the outbreak of the First Anglo - Dutch War , the Admiralty of Rotterdam hired ships in Amsterdam . The Arsenal or ' s Lands Zeemagazijn . The " ' s Lands Zeemagazijn " was the arsenal of the Amsterdam admiralty , built in nine months and containing enormous supplies for the building and equipping of warships . Johann Jakob Wilhelm Heinse saw , when he was travelling in Holland : " " wood , coils of rope of 150 fathoms in length and as thick as a woman ' s leg , all sorts of sails , bullets , anchors , cannon , muskets and guns , lamps , compasses and hourglasses " " . The First Anglo - Dutch War ended infelicitously for the Dutch , and this added to the city administration ' s readiness to have the arsenal built . On 12 August 1655 , the Admiralty was given the entire western strip of Kattenburg island for the construction of a warehouse and timber - wharf , in exchange for so far enclosed grounds it had occupied in the area . In the night of 5 / 6 July 1791 , the " Zeemagazijn " went up in flames . It was a spectacular fire , and only the main supporting walls remained standing , for after a sack in 1740 extra load - bearing supports had been put in from the outside . The building now houses the Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum . At the Oosterdok wharf is moored a replica of a ship of the Amsterdam admiralty , the " Amsterdam " . The admiralty yacht lay in the yacht harbour in the River Amstel . Shipyards . The admiralty ' s yards were initially at Uilenburg , but around 1620 moved to Rapenburg and then around 1655 to the Eastern Islands ( Oostelijke Eilanden ) , Kattenburg and Oostenburg . In time of war , over 1000 shipworkers and sailors worked at the admiralty yard . The admiralty rope - works was established at Oostenburg and was approximately 300 meters in length . Because of the ropes laid alongside each other , sometimes at lengths of up to 220 meters , it was called a " kuil " or net . Old rope was also hung up , to provide oakum for closing up the seams between ships ' boards .