Jacob Binckes

Jacob Binckes (1637, Koudum – 12 December 1677) was a Dutch commodore. Jacob himself used the name Benckes.

Jacob was seafarer trading mostly on Norway in the transport of wood.

In 1665 Jacob Binckes started his service with the Admiralty of Amsterdam. His first assignment as a captain was to escort a convoy to Norway. The next year, he helped to secure the River Elbe in northern Germany, near Glückstadt, in the interest of Dutch merchant shipping.

As a captain he participated in the Raid on the Medway in the Second Anglo-Dutch War. With his frigate Essen (including 25 marines) Jacob Binckes is part of the taskforce on the Medway.

In 1673 together with vice-admiral Cornelis Evertsen de Jongste ("Keesje the Devil") he burned part of the Virginia tobacco fleet in the Second Battle of the James River (1673) before they recapture the former New Netherland capital New Amsterdam, which had been renamed New York after it had surrendered in 1664. In 1674, New York was returned to the English by the States General of the Netherlands under the terms of the Treaty of Westminster (1674).

IN 1675 Jacob Binckes is commodore of a fleet to support the Kingdom of Denmark and Norway in its war with the Kingdom of Sweden.

In 1677 as a commodore on his flagship the Beschermer he defeated the French fleet in the First Battle at Tobago of February 1677, but he was killed in action in the Second Battle of Tobago in the Franco-Dutch War in December of the same year. During the second battle a mortar hit the powder storage inside Fort Sterreschans and killed Jacob Binckes and many others.

The person Jacob Binckes and the second battle at Tobago served as basis for the character Robinson Crusoe written by Daniel Defoe.