'Here slumbers Hulst, the terror of the British naval banner;
Tried in battle after battle, in blood and tide and triumph.
The Admiralty honours this protector of the Nation;
The fame of the brave Hero defies metal and marble.'
Abraham van der Hulst was a Dutch naval hero from the seventeenth century. Joost van den Vondel wrote the poem above on the occasion of his funeral in 1666. Van der Hulst was killed on 12 June of that year, during the Four Days’ Battle, in the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The Dutch, under the leadership of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, won this encounter, one of history’s longest naval battles.
