Tromp, MARTIN HARPERTZOON, a famous Dutch admiral, was born at Briel in 1597, went to sea as a child with his father, a commander in the Dutch navy, was captured off the coast of Guinea by an English cruiser, and compelled to serve over two years as a cabin-boy. In 1624 we find him in command of a Dutch frigate; in 1637 he was created lieutenant-admiral, with command of a squadron of eleven ships, with which he defeated a vastly superior Spanish fleet off Gravelines in February 1639. In the following October he defeated another fleet off the Downs, and captured thirteen richly laden galleons. But it was his conduct in the struggle with England that was to make the name of Tromp immortal. On May 19, 1652, with over forty ships, he encountered an English fleet of fifteen under Blake, and was worsted, with the loss of two ships. Tromp was for a while superseded in command by Ruyter and De Witt, but he was soon afterwards reinstated. On November 30, with eighty ships and a convoy of 300 merchantmen, he again encountered Blake in the Strait of Dover, and this time success was decidedly with the Dutch. The English fleet drew off, but it more than probably is a mere romance that Tromp now sailed up the Channel with a broom at his masthead, to denote that he had swept the enemy from the seas. At any rate that enemy was not long in returning. On the 18th of February 1653 Blake, together with Monk and Deane, engaged Tromp near Portland, and defeated him, though only after a contest memorable for its obstinacy. It lasted three days, at the close of which Blake had taken or destroyed nine ships of war and thirty merchantmen. Tromp fought with desperate courage, and brought off in safety the remainder of his convoy of 200 merchantmen. On June 2 and 3 following another terrific battle between Tromp and Deane took place off North Foreland, in which six Dutch vessels were captured, eleven sunk, and the remainder driven into Calais Roads. The final struggle of the war was his desperate battle with Monk, 31st July 1653, off the coast of Holland. The Dutch lost thirty men-of-war, but their greatest loss was the heroic Admiral Tromp, the victor in thirty-three sea-fights, killed by a bullet through the heart. He was buried at Delft. —His second son, CORNELIUS TROMP, was born at Rotterdam, 9th September 1629. His first service was against the Algerine pirates. Next he served under Van Galen in the Mediterranean, and became rear-admiral after the battle off Leghorn in which Van Galen fell (13th March 1653). On June 3, 1665, he shared the disgrace of Opdani's defeat by the Duke of York at Solebay on the Suffolk coast, but next year had an ample share of the glory of
Ruyter's four days' fight (June 1-4) off the Downs. Two months later he was deprived of his command by Ruyter for a breach of duty, the result of his over-eagerness to pursue an advantage, but was reinstated in 1673 by the stadtholder William, and covered himself anew with glory in the bloody battles against the combined English and French fleets, 7th and 14th June. In 1675 he visited England, and was created a baron by Charles II. The year after he aided the Danes in their struggle with Sweden, and after his return home was appointed, in room of the dead Ruyter, lieutenant-admiral-general of the United Provinces. He died at Amsterdam, 29th May 1691, and was laid at Delft in his father's grave. See Jacob de Liefde, Great Dutch Admirals (Eng. trans. 1873).