Eighteen century portrait engraving of Piet Heyn presented matted and framed. Piet Heyn born Nov. 15, 1577, Delfshaven, Neth.—died June 18, 1629, near Dunkirk, France) was an admiral and director of the Dutch West India Company who captured a Spanish treasure fleet (1628) with 4,000,000 ducats of gold and silver (12,000,000 gulden, or florins). That great naval and economic victory provided the Dutch Republic with money to continue its struggle against Spain for control of the southern, or Spanish, Netherlands (now Belgium and Luxembourg).