[Hanau, David Aubry for Mattheus Merian, 1630]. Map (35.2 x 41.9 cm). With a view of the Bay of Matanzas (Cuba), a map of Cuba (South up), and the portraits of "Pieter Pieters Hayn" [= Piet Hein) and Hendrick Cornelisz Lonq [= Lonck].

This work gives a pictorial account of the capturing of "La Flota" by the fleet of the Dutch admiral Piet Hein in 1628. "La Flota" was the yearly convoy bringing silver, pearls and other valuables, including gold, gems, spices, sugar, tobacco, lumber, etc. from the Spanish colonies in the Americas and the West Indies to Spain. La Flota operated between 1573 and 1790. Piet Hein was the first to successfully attack and defeat the Spanish fleet, a major naval achievement in itself. Even the famous Sir Francis Drake never succeeded, despite many attempts. Hein's men did not kill anyone and Hein allowed the Spanish crew members to march to Havana, even supplying them with food. Piet Hein brought the entire cargo home to the Dutch Republic, where the total value of the captured goods (mainly silver) was estimated to be around 10 million guilders (currently about 120 million euro). This was a huge moral boost to the Netherlands, then in its 60th year of the Eighty Years' War with Spain (ended in 1648) and renewed interest in trading in South America and the West Indies. Hein's achievement is celebrated even today, especially during soccer football matches where a song - written in 1844 by J. P. Heije with a melody by J. J. Viotta - commemorating the event is sung by the Dutch. The present edition is the one printed for Merian (and also used for de Bry's "Grand Voyages", published by Merian) after J. C. Visscher. This edition not in Hollstein. A faint vertical fold in the middle and at the right (identical to the copy in the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, RI), otherwise a very good, clean copy with wide margins. Compare Hollstein XXXVIII, p. 41; XXXIX, p. 38, fig. 64 (Visscher's original Dutch edition).