Admiral Adam Duncan, 1st Viscount Duncan was a British admiral who defeated the Dutch fleet off Camperdown on 11 October 1797. This victory is considered one of the most significant actions in naval history.
The Battle of Camperdown was a major naval action fought on 11 October 1797, between the British North Sea Fleet under Admiral Adam Duncan and a Batavian Navy (Dutch) fleet under Vice-Admiral Jan de Winter. The battle, the most significant action between British and Dutch forces during the French Revolutionary Wars, resulted in a complete victory for the British, who captured eleven Dutch ships without losing any of their own.
The Fireship is a 1975 novel by British naval historian C. Northcote Parkinson, one of a series of nautical novels by the author. It is set in the late 18th century, when Britain was at war with Revolutionary France. Parkinson's hero is a junior naval officer. Unlike many fictional officers Parkinson's hero, Richard Delancey, does not have any powerful patrons to ease his way to promotion.
Rear-Admiral Samuel Story was a Dutch naval officer. He commanded a Batavian Navy squadron which surrendered without a fight to the British Royal Navy during the Vlieter incident in 1799.
The French expedition to Ireland, known in French as the Expédition d'Irlande, was an unsuccessful attempt by the French Republic to assist the outlawed Society of United Irishmen, a popular rebel Irish republican group, in their planned rebellion against British rule during the French Revolutionary Wars. The French intended to land a large expeditionary force in Ireland during the winter of 1796–1797 which would join with the United Irishmen and drive the British out of Ireland. The French anticipated that this would be a major blow to British morale, prestige and military effectiveness, and was also intended to possibly be the first stage of an eventual invasion of Great Britain itself. To this end, the Directory gathered a force of approximately 15,000 soldiers at Brest under General Lazare Hoche during late 1796, in readiness for a major landing at Bantry Bay in December.
The Expédition d'Irlande was a French attempt to invade Ireland in December 1796 during the French Revolutionary Wars. Encouraged by representatives of the Society of United Irishmen, an Irish republican organisation, the French Directory decided that the best strategy for eliminating Britain from the war was to invade Ireland, then under British control. It was hoped that a substantial invasion in the summer of 1796 would encourage a widespread uprising among the Irish population and force the British to abandon Ireland, providing a major strategic and propaganda coup for the French Republic and a staging point for a subsequent invasion of Britain. Assigned to lead the operation was General Lazare Hoche, the Republic's most successful military commander, who was provided with a significant body of troops and the services of the entire French Atlantic fleet.[A]
The action of 24 October 1798 was a minor naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought between a British Royal Navy frigate and two ships of the Batavian Navy. The Dutch ships were intercepted in the North Sea within hours of leaving port, 30 nautical miles (56 km) northwest of the Texel, by the British ship HMS Sirius. Both Dutch vessels were carrying large quantities of military supplies and French soldiers, reinforcements for the French and Irish forces participating in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Although the rebellion had been defeated a month earlier, word of the British victory had not yet reached the European continent, and the Dutch force was intended to supplement a larger French squadron sent earlier in October. The French had already been defeated at the Battle of Tory Island and the Dutch suffered a similar outcome, both ships defeated in turn by the larger and better armed British vessel.
Johan Arnold Bloys van Treslong was a Dutch naval officer. He started his naval career in 1772, serving as a midshipman with the Admiralty of the Maze. He served in the Dutch States Navy on the North Sea, in the West Indies and in battle with Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean.
HMS Adamant was a 50-gun Portland-class fourth rate warship of the British Royal Navy. She served during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars, and the Napoleonic Wars in a career that spanned thirty years.
The Batavian Navy was the navy of the Batavian Republic which was a continuation of the Staatse vloot of the Dutch Republic. Though thoroughly reorganized after the Batavian Revolution of 1795, the navy embarked on several naval construction programs which, at least on paper, made it a serious rival of the Royal Navy during the War of the Second Coalition. However, the Capitulation of Saldanha Bay, the Battle of Camperdown and the Vlieter incident showed that the navy did not measure up to that expectation. Nevertheless, the reorganizations proved to be durable, when the Batavian Republic was succeeded by the Kingdom of Holland, and later, the Kingdom of the Netherlands which makes the present-day Royal Netherlands Navy expected to trace its ancestry through it.
The action of 22 August 1795 was a minor naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars between a squadron of four British Royal Navy frigates and two frigates and a cutter from the Batavian Navy. The engagement was fought off the Norwegian coastal island of Eigerøya, then in Denmark-Norway, the opposing forces engaged in protecting their respective countries' trade routes to the Baltic Sea. War between Britain and the Batavian Republic began, undeclared, in the spring of 1795 after the Admiralty ordered British warships to intercept Batavian shipping following the conquest of the Dutch Republic by the French Republic in January 1795.
The action of 12 May 1796 was a minor naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars between a squadron of British Royal Navy frigates and a frigate and four smaller ships of the Batavian Navy. The British squadron had been detached on the previous day from the British North Sea fleet under Admiral Adam Duncan, which was cruising off the Batavian fleet anchorage at the Texel, while the Batavian squadron was returning to the Netherlands from the Norwegian coast where it had been sheltering since suffering defeat at the action of 22 August 1795 the previous year. As the Batavian squadron neared the Dutch coast, the British squadron under Captain Lawrence Halstead attacked.
The Capture of the Dutch fleet at Den Helder on the night of 23 January 1795 presents a rare occurrence of an interaction between warships and cavalry, in which a French Revolutionary Hussar regiment came close to a Dutch fleet frozen at anchor in the Nieuwediep, just east of the town of Den Helder. After some of the Hussars had approached across the frozen Nieuwediep, the French cavalry negotiated that all 14 Dutch warships would remain at anchor. A capture of ships by horsemen is an extremely rare feat in military history.
Dooitze Eelkes Hinxt was a Dutch naval officer. He was the son of Eelke Tabes Hinxt, a merchant captain from the city of Dokkum. Hinxt died on the ship of war Beschermer, due to the wounds he received during the battle of Camperdown.
The Staaten Generaal was a Dutch 74-gun third rate ship of the line which served in the Dutch States Navy and the Batavian Navy. The order to construct the ship was given by the Admiralty of the Meuse. The ship was commissioned in 1786.
The East Indies theatre of the French Revolutionary Wars was a series of campaigns related to the major European conflict known as the French Revolutionary Wars, fought between 1793 and 1801 between the new French Republic and its allies and a shifting alliance of rival powers. Although the Indian Ocean was separated by vast distance from the principal theatre of the conflict in Western Europe, it played a significant role due to the economic importance of the region to Great Britain, France's most constant opponent, of its colonies in India and the Far Eastern trade.
The capitulation of Saldanha Bay was the surrender to the British of a Batavian expeditionary force sent to recapture the Dutch Cape Colony in 1796. In 1795, early in the War of the First Coalition, French troops overran the Dutch Republic which then became a French client state, the Batavian Republic. Great Britain was concerned by the threat that the Cape Colony posed to its trade routes to British India. It therefore sent an expeditionary force that landed at Simon's Town in June 1795 and forced the surrender of the colony in a short campaign. British Vice-Admiral Sir George Elphinstone, then reinforced the garrison and stationed a naval squadron at the Cape Colony to protect it.
Batavier was a Dutch 56-gun fourth-rate ship of the line of the navy of the Admiralty of Amsterdam. In 1795 she became part of the Batavian Navy, and on 30 August 1799 was captured by the Royal Navy, who retained her in various subsidiary roles until she was broken up in 1823.
HMS Beaulieu was a 40-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. The ship was laid down in 1790 as a speculative build by the shipwright Henry Adams and purchased by the Royal Navy in June of the same year. Built to the dimensions of a merchant ship, Beaulieu was broader, with more storage capacity, than a standard frigate; though may not have had good sailing qualities. The frigate was commissioned in January 1793 by Lord Northesk and sent to serve on the Leeward Islands Station. She participated in the capture of Martinique in February 1794, and then was similarly present at the capture of the island of Saint Lucia in April. The frigate also took part in the initial stages of the invasion of Guadeloupe. Later in the year the ship's crew was beset by yellow fever and much depleted. Beaulieu was sent to serve on the North America Station to allow them to recuperate, returning to the Leeward Islands in 1795. In the following two years the ship found success in prizetaking and briefly took part in more operations at Saint Lucia. She returned to Britain at the end of 1796.
HMS Trent was a fifth-rate sailing frigate of 36 guns, built for the Royal Navy and launched in February 1796. She carried a main battery of twenty-six 18-pounder (8.2-kilogram) long guns. She and her sister ship HMS Glenmore were constructed from pitch pine rather than oak.
