Hendrik August baron van Kinckel, born as Heinrich August Künckelin (14 August 1747 in Heilbronn – 10 November 1821 in Mannheim), though of German extraction, was a Dutch naval officer and reformer, diplomat, and British confidential agent.
Personal life Van KinckelWho used the Dutch version of his name in correspondence, though he mainly wrote in French was born the fifth son of August Wolfgang Künckelin, an official of the Duchy of Cleves, and Rosina Elisabetha Pancug (the daughter of a burgomaster of Heilbronn). The father was ennobled in 1752, as Freiherr von Kinckel, and this became the name under which van Kinckel was later known. He married baroness Elisabeth Charlotte Henriette Catherine von Botzheim in Wachenheim an der Pfrimm on 23 September 1789. The marriage remained childless.Van der Horst, pp. 167-168, 174
Career Navy Van Kinckel entered the service of the Admiralty of Zeeland as a sub-lieutenant (without first having been an adelborstCadet or midshipman.) in 1764. He was probably sponsored by Johan Adriaan van de Perre, the representative of the First NobleThe States of Zeeland were the only provincial States in which the stadtholder, in his capacity of Marquis of Veere and Vlissingen, had a vote, as the so-called "First Noble" of Zeeland (he was supposed to represent the other Zeeland nobles). He usually exercised this right through a representative. in the States of Zeeland, and also a member of the Zeeland Admiralty Board, whose protégé he would be for many years.Van der Horst, p. 168 His first voyage was on the frigate St. Maartensdijk (24) under captain Cornelis Vis, that left Vlissingen on 27 August 1764 for a cruise against the Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. After this first voyage he served on De Jonge Prins van Oranje for a number of voyages, in 1765 under captain de Kruijne,Against whom van Kinckel and other officers lodged a complaint after the return of the ship, though the affair came to nothing. and later (between 1767 and 1770) four voyages under captain Hendrik Bernard Lodewijk van Bylandt.Who managed to hit a sandbank in 1769, but was exonerated thanks to favorable testimony from van Kinckel. Van Kinckel had been promoted to lieutenant in 1766, after he passed his lieutenant's exam in September.Van der Horst, p. 169
In 1771 the Dutch navy mounted a larger expedition to the Mediterranean, involving several ships of the line. Zeeland contributed the Zierikzee (captain Nebbens), and van Kinckel became its second lieutenant, charged with keeping the ship's journal. Soon after its departure, according to the journal, the ship's crew experienced health problems, many getting sick and dying, probably because of scurvy. This necessitated several lengthy visits to ports on its route, causing the Zierikzee to miss most of the cruise of the squadron (which was commanded by captain van Goor Hinloopen). Eventually, the ship would also lose captain Nebbens, who died of a stroke while on a shore excursion with van Goor Hinloopen near Livorno. After the ship's return under the second captain, Bonifacius Cau, in 1772, van Kinckel was promoted to commander, but for the next three years he did not have another ship. Only in 1775 did he receive a posting on the frigate Walcheren (captain Bonifacius Cau) for a cruise to again the Mediterranean. He returned home in November 1776, and asked his mentor van de Perre to obtain a promotion to captain for him. He was promoted to extraordinary captain on 11 November 1777.Van der Horst, pp. 169-170
Instead of immediately getting a Dutch command, van Kinckel made a curious excursion to the British Royal Navy during the American Revolutionary War in 1778, where he served under Admiral Keppel against the French on HMS Victory, which provided him with combat experience.Van der Aa; this biographer gives no source, and does not mention whether van Kinckel was present at Ushant. However, in an autobiographical note to the Duke of Portland, van Kinckel himself appears to suggest that he did; Cf. Bakhuizen, p. 76
In June 1779 van Kinckel got his first command, as captain of the ship of the line Zuid Beveland (60). His first problem was to find a crew, as manning a ship was the captain's responsibility. As the Dutch navy at the time had a bad reputation as an employer, it was almost impossible to recruit Dutchmen. Van Kinckel therefore decided to set up four recruiting centers around his native Heilbronn, managed by his brothers. They recruited 250 Germans for the crew that eventually would number 472 men (two-thirds of whom Germans).Van der Hoop, pp. 171-172
This experience motivated van Kinckel to write a report for the stadtholder, who was also Admiral-General of the Dutch Navy, in which he proposed to put the personnel policy of the navy on a new footing. Up to then the five Dutch admiralties had been responsible for manning and victualing their respective fleets, but in his report, entitled Un projèt pour la levée d'un certain nombre d'hommes pour la service de la marine de la RepubliqueA project for the raising of a certain number of men for the service of the navy of the Republic. Though both could write and speak Dutch, van Kinckel used French in his correspondence with the stadtholder. (1779), he proposed that there would be organised a corps de marine, especially consisting of specialists like gunners and non-commissioned officers, who were otherwise difficult to recruit or retain, and would function directly under the Admiral-General. He wrote a more detailed proposal along these lines in 1780 with the title Considérations sur la necessité et sur I'utilité d'un corps de mariniers pour la service de la Republique.Considerations about the necessity and the utility of a corps of mariners (not: marines) for the service of the Republic. The innovation here was that the corps would be organised on the level of the Generality, above the level of the five regional Admiralties. This brought him to attention of the stadtholder, with whom he discussed the proposal for the first time in the Spring of 1781. On 17 April 1781 the plan was formally approved by six of the seven provinces in the States General of the Netherlands, but Zeeland vetoed it "for lack of money." In 1782 the stadtholder appointed van Kinckel as one of the two Adjutants of the "corps de marine" he had proposedThough only after a conflict with his rival Lodewijk van Bylandt, who was originally appointed in the post. Van Kinckel made an appeal to his higher seniority. Also, the fact that van Bylandt was embroiled in the Brest Affair may have rendered him less suitable at the time. The appointment was only nominal, as the corps itself was not founded before 1792.Van der Horst, p. 171, 175Van Kinckel also proposed a number of other reforms in a memorandum to the Admiral General in 1781, that would go nowhere at this time, but would eventually be realized in the naval reforms of the Batavian Navy under the Batavian Republic, such as appointment of a constructor-general to coordinate naval construction; the founding of a "widows and orphans fund" for the navy; the creation of a budget for the navy within the War Budget of the Republic (up to then the navy was financed exclusively by the five admiralties); and the centralization of the education of naval officers, including limitation of the recruitment of future naval officers (the adelborsten) to people of noble birth. Finally, he helped introduce the Carronade in the Dutch navy in 1780.Cf. Van der Horst, pp. 175-176
The Zuid Beveland was mainly employed to protect the Zeeland coastal waters in the first days of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War that started in December 1780. The ship was intended to join the squadron of rear-admiral Johan Zoutman before it fought the Battle of Doggerbank in August 1781, but the usual "adverse winds" had prevented it from getting out to sea. Van Kinckel therefore did not share in the glory.Van Kinckel may not have been completely devastated by missing a chance to engage the British, as witnessed by a letter he wrote to the Duke of Portland in April 1795, in which he states: "I would have liked to be able to put a veil over an event that took place soon after, the war between England and the Republic. Though I did my duty as an officer, I do not hide that I felt an extreme repugnance to taking part in this fight against (my) nature; a sentiment that I by the way shared with the entire Dutch navy."; Cf. Bakhuizen, p. 76 However, the ship later captured two English ships and van Kinckel shared in the prize money.Van der Horst, p.173
After peace had been concluded in 1784 van Kinckel asked to be promoted to ordinary captain, which request was granted on 26 September 1784. But van Kinckel did not receive a new command. Instead he was given a diplomatic assignment to the Electorate of Bavaria, where he was to report on the developments around the intrigues of Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken to exchange Bavaria for the Austrian NetherlandsVan der Horst, pp. 173-174
But van Kinckel in this period embarked on another career, that is only cursorily touched upon in his official biographies. Van Kinckel was clearly a partisan on the Orangist side in the political upheavals of the Patriottentijd in the Dutch Republic. In the period 1785-1787 the opponents of the stadtholder, William V, Prince of Orange, gained more and more influence. The British envoy to The Hague, Sir James Harris saw in this the perfidious hand of the French, and he made it his life's work to reclaim the influence of Great Britain on the Republic, by hook and by crook. One of his first actions was to lure the province of Zeeland away from the other provinces in the Spring of 1786 (a rather harebrained project to have Zeeland secede from the Union of Utrecht). The bait was a promise to save the Zeeland Chamber of the VOC from impending bankruptcy by providing a British loan for that purpose to the States of Zeeland. For the negotiations about this project Harris used van Kinckel as his political emissary, with whom Harris had established a relationship in October 1785, according to a letter from Harris to the British Foreign Secretary Carmarthen. From this moment on, van Kinckel was one of Harris' most trusted confidential agents. In May 1786 van Kinckel wrote a memo for Harris pointing out that instead of a real secession, the threat of it would be more useful to put pressure on the Patriots in the States of Holland. Van Kinckel used his Zeeland contacts to bring Harris in contact with the Zeeland Grand Pensionary Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel shortly thereafter.Van Kinckel writes in his autobiographical note that before that he himself had been sent by van de Spiegel on two diplomatic missions to London. Cf. Bakhuizen, pp. 76-77 Harris managed to convince Van de Spiegel to become his main agent of influence in the Republic.Cobban, pp. 81-83