Michiel de Ruyter builds command experience from the bottom up

De Ruyter was the son of a brewery drayman and went to sea as a boatswain's apprentice at eleven. He served briefly as a musketeer in the Dutch army before returning to the merchant fleet, rising through chief mate to shipmaster at thirty. By Stromboli he had commanded ships for roughly thirty-nine years. His first wife died in childbirth, followed by their daughter three weeks later, and he threw himself into his work. Privateering against raiders from Dunkirk established his fighting reputation. His later career included the Anglo-Dutch wars and the Raid on the Medway, alongside service in the Eighty Years' War, Portuguese Restoration War, Second Northern War, and Franco-Dutch War.