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Jan van Speyk, Dutch Hero > 
Jan Carolus Josephus van Speijk, also written Van Speyk, was a Dutch naval lieutenant who became a hero to the Dutch people for his efforts in suppressing the Belgian Revolution (1831).
Van Speijk, born in Amsterdam in 1802, became an orphan a few weeks after his birth. He joined the Royal Netherlands Navy in 1820 and served in the Dutch East Indies between 1823 and 1825. He successfully attacked Bangka and Java and gained the nickname Schrik der Roovers (Terror of the Bandits).
When the Belgian War of Independence broke out Van Speijk gained an appointment as commander of a gunboat. Van Speijk despised the Belgian independence movement. He announced once he would rather die "than become an infamous Brabander". On February 5, 1831, a gale caused his boat to drift into the quay at the port of Antwerp. Belgians stormed the boat and demanded Van Speijk take the Dutch flag down. Rather than doing so, he fired a pistol (some versions say he threw a lit cigar — few firsthand witness accounts survive) into a barrel of gunpowder while saying "Dan liever de lucht in" (which translates as, "Rather to blow up, then"). The total number of casualties he caused remains unknown: possibly dozens of people.
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