Dutch East India Company In 1607 Hein joined the
Dutch East India Company (VOC) and left for Asia, returning in the rank of captain (of the
Hollandia) five years later. He married Anneke Claesdochter de Reus and settled in
Rotterdam. In April 1609
Verhoeff arrived on
Banda Neira and tried to force the establishment of a fort. However, the Bandanese preferred free trade, as they were unwilling to limit their custom to only the Dutch. The
VOC aimed for a
monopsony on the
spice trade so that the Bandanese could only sell their products to the Dutch. Negotiations were difficult, and at one point the village chiefs lured Verhoeff and two other commanders, who had left their ships to negotiate on the beach, into a trap in the forest and murdered them there in the end of May 1609. In retaliation, several Bandanese villages were plundered and ships destroyed; Hein was probably not involved in this action, because he did not yet have a military position at the time. In August a peace was concluded in favour of the VOC: the Bandanese recognized Dutch authority and a monopoly on the spice trade. This was a direct cause of the
Dutch conquest of the Banda Islands (1609–1621). Hein replaced Verhoeff as the fleet's commander. In 1618, when he was captain of the
Neptunus, both he and his ship were pressed into service by the
Republic of Venice. In 1621, he left his vessel behind and traveled overland to the Netherlands. For a year in 1622, he was a member of the
local government of Rotterdam, although he did not have citizenship of this city: the cousin of his wife, one of the three
burgomasters, made this possible.
Dutch West India Company After capital had been raised for the
Dutch West India Company, the company's directors, the Heeren XIX, devised the
Groot Desseyn in October 1623. The plan was to first seize the capital of Brazil,
São Salvador da Bahia (Salvador), and then the main Portuguese fort on the coast of Angola,
São Paulo de Loanda (Luanda). In this way, the company would control both the lucrative sugar plantations in Brazil and the
Atlantic slave trade. Control of the trade itself was necessary because of the high mortality rate from the plantations' harsh conditions and tropical diseases such as
malaria. In the same year, Hein became
vice-admiral of the new Dutch West India Company, and sailed to the
West Indies the following year with a fleet of 26 ships and 3,300 men. In
Colonial Brazil, he briefly captured the settlement of Salvador, personally leading the assault on the sea fortress of that town. In August, with a small and undermanned fleet, he sailed for the African west coast and attacked a Portuguese fleet in the strongly defended bay of Luanda, but failed to capture any ships.
Privateering He then crossed the
Atlantic Ocean again to try and capture merchant ships at the city of
Vitória, but was defeated by resistance organized by the local citizenry with the assistance of the Portuguese garrison. After finding that Salvador had been recaptured by a large Spanish–Portuguese fleet, Hein returned home. The Dutch West India Company, pleased with Hein's leadership, placed him in command of a new squadron in 1626. In subsequent raids during 1627 at Salvador, he attacked and captured over 30 richly laden Portuguese merchant ships before returning to the
Dutch Republic.
Spanish treasure fleet In 1628, during the
Eighty Years' War, Admiral Hein, with
Witte de With as his
flag captain, sailed out to capture a
Spanish treasure fleet loaded with silver from the
Spanish American colonies and the
Philippines. With him was Admiral
Hendrick Lonck. He was later joined by a
squadron under Vice-Admiral
Joost Banckert, as well as the pirate
Moses Cohen Henriques. Part of the Spanish fleet in
Venezuela had been warned because a Dutch
cabin boy had lost his way on
Blanquilla island and was captured and betrayed the plan, but the other part from
Mexico continued on its voyage, unaware of the threat. Sixteen Spanish ships were intercepted and captured: one
galleon was taken after a surprise encounter during the night, nine smaller merchants were talked into surrendering, two fleeing small ships were taken at sea, and four fleeing galleons were trapped on the Cuban coast in the
Bay of Matanzas. After some
musket volleys from Dutch
sloops, the crews of the galleons also surrendered and Hein captured 11,509,524
guilders of booty in gold, silver, and other expensive trade goods, such as
indigo and
cochineal, without any bloodshed. The Dutch did not take prisoners: they gave the Spanish crews ample supplies for a march to
Havana. The released were surprised to hear the admiral personally giving them directions in fluent Spanish; Hein after all was well acquainted with the region as he had been confined to it during his internment after 1603. The capture of the treasure fleet was the Dutch West India Company's greatest victory in the
Caribbean. It enabled the Dutch, at war with Spain, to fund their army for eight months (and as a direct consequence, allowing it to capture the fortress
's-Hertogenbosch), and the
shareholders enjoyed a cash
dividend of 50% for that year. The financial loss strategically weakened their Spanish enemy. Hein returned to the Netherlands in 1629, where he was hailed as a hero. Watching the crowds cheering him as he stood on the balcony of the town hall of
Leyden, he remarked to the
burgomaster: "Now they praise me because I gained riches without the least danger; but earlier when I risked my life in full combat they didn't even know I existed...". Hein was the first and the last to capture such a large part of a Spanish "silver fleet".
Lieutenant-Admiral Hein became, after a conflict with the
Dutch West India Company about policy and payment, Lieutenant-Admiral of Holland and West Frisia on 26 March 1629, and thus factual supreme commander of the confederate Dutch fleet, taking
Maarten Tromp as flag captain. He died the same year in a campaign against the
Dunkirkers, the highly effective fleet of Habsburg
commerce raiders and
privateers operating from
Dunkirk. His flotilla intercepted three privateers from
Ostend. Hein sailed his flagship between two enemy ships to give them simultaneous broadsides. After half an hour, he was hit in the left shoulder by a cannonball and died instantly. He is buried in the
Oude Kerk in
Delft. == Commemoration ==