Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff

{{Short description|Dutch admiral (c. 1573–1609)}}

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File:Portret van Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff (c. 1573-1609) Rijksmuseum SK-A-1469.jpeg portrait]]

Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff ({{circa|1573}} – 22 May 1609) was a Dutch admiral of the Admiralty of Amsterdam, notable for his voyage to Asia between 1607 and 1612.

Verhoeff was in the service of the Dutch East India Company. In 1601, he was involved in the Siege of Ostend as part of the Eighty Years War. During the Battle of Gibraltar, in 1607, he was flag captain of the Aeolus, the flagship of Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk.

A fleet of 13 ships commanded by him left Texel in December of 1607, with secret orders to capture Malacca from the Portuguese. He arrived in the Straits of Malacca in 1608 and after a series of unsuccessful attempts to capture the city, he retreated.{{Cite book |last=Witt |first=Dennis De |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2kPyEAAAQBAJ&dq=With+Johor's+unwillingness+to+offer+assistance,+it+became+clear+to+Verhoeff&pg=PA51 |title=History of the Dutch in Malaysia |date=2011-01-01 |publisher=Nutmeg Publishing |isbn=978-983-43519-3-9 |language=en}}

He died during an attempted conquest of the Banda Islands, where he and many of his crew were ambushed and killed by local chieftains while negotiating with them for the Dutch East India Company. This was a direct cause of the Dutch conquest of the Banda Islands (1609–1621).