The Batavian government, not yet aware of the capture of the Cape Colony, but worried by rumors of British attacks against colonies of the Dutch East India Company (which was about to be nationalised because it was virtually bankrupt), decided to send a Batavian Navy squadron to the Dutch East Indies via the Cape Colony in November 1795 and if necessary recapture the latter. This force comprised three ships of the line and six smaller vessels under the command of Rear-Admiral Engelbertus Lucas Sr. Security regarding the plans was weak and the British knew of the operation before Lucas had sailed.
The British warned Elphinstone, who further reinforced the Cape Colony. Lucas' journey took nearly six months, with his squadron suffering shortages of drinking water leading to a near-mutinous state among his crews. On its arrival at the colony, the Batavian squadron anchored in Saldanha Bay to take on fresh water before deciding to abandon the operation and sail to the French base at Île de France in the Western Indian Ocean.
On 15 August 1796 Elphinstone's larger fleet discovered Lucas' squadron and trapped it in the bay. Aware that resistance would be futile and with his crews in open revolt, Lucas surrendered unconditionally. The ships of the captured Batavian force were taken into the Royal Navy, joining the squadron at the Cape Colony; Elphinstone was later made Baron Keith in recognition of his achievements. The Batavian operation did however force the cancellation of a planned British invasion of Île de France. Lucas faced a court martial on his return to Holland, but died before it began. The main responsibility for the debacle was laid at his feet but his death forestalled a conviction for dereliction of duty. All other officers were acquitted. The Cape Colony was not attacked again before the end of the war in 1802, when the Treaty of Amiens returned it to the Batavian Republic.
To ensure that the Cape Colony did not become a French naval base, Secretary of State for WarHenry Dundas ordered a large expeditionary force to sail for the colony in March 1795.[2] The force comprised two squadrons and 500 troops, all under the overall control of Vice-Admiral Sir George Elphinstone; more substantial reinforcements followed. Arriving on 10 June in False Bay, Elphinstone then conducted two months of fruitless negotiations with Governor Abraham Josias Sluysken.[3] On 7 August, with negotiations stalled, Elphinstone ordered an attack on Dutch positions at Muizenberg. The Dutch defenders withdrew, but Elphinstone's forces were low on food and ammunition and not numerous enough to launch a major attack on Cape Town. On 14 September the arrival of British reinforcements under General Alured Clarke convinced Sluysken to surrender the colony.[4]
Elphinstone turned his attention to planning operations against the Dutch East Indies and the French island base of Île de France. He sailed for Madras in his flagship HMSMonarch to take command of the East Indies Station, but maintained a strong garrison and naval presence at the Cape Colony under Sir James Henry Craig and Commodore John Blankett. Much of his squadron subsequently dispersed on operations across the Indian Ocean.[5] While Elphinstone was consolidating his position, the Batavian government determined in November 1795 to send an expedition to inspect its new colonies in the Dutch East Indies, as the previous owner, the Dutch East India Company, was about to be nationalised. The expedition was to call at the Cape Colony on its way; if that colony had been captured, an attempt at recapture could be made, but only if this was feasible. The expedition did not carry a large number of troops or boats to land them. If the colony was in enemy hands the expedition was to bypass the Cape Colony and sail directly for Île de France.[6]
A squadron was prepared under the command of Rear-Admiral Engelbertus Lucas Sr., who had sailed to the East Indies once in 1786, but otherwise had no experience of long expeditionary campaigns. His force comprised three 66-gun ships of the line, Dordrecht, Tromp, and Revolutie, and six smaller warships.[7][8] After calling at the Cape Colony, Lucas was to continue his expedition in order to reinforce the Dutch East Indies.[9]
Lucas' voyage
Lucas' expeditionary force sailed from the Texel on 23 February 1796, together with another squadron destined for the Dutch West Indies, under Vice-Admiral Adriaan Braak, intending to pass through the North Sea and around Scotland before entering the Atlantic Ocean and turning south.[10] Unspecified French support for the operation had been promised by the National Convention, but did not materialise.[11] The British North Sea Fleet was actively blockading the Texel and the 16-gun brigHMSEspiegle sighted the Batavian force putting to sea.[12]Espiegle shadowed Lucas throughout the day, sending a message to Admiral Adam Duncan at Great Yarmouth. On 26 February a small British squadron led by Captain Henry Trollope in HMSGlatton detached from the cruising division of Rear-Admiral Thomas Pringle and encountered the Batavians, the weaker British making off as Lucas formed a line of battle.[13]
Having successfully evaded pursuit, Lucas followed his planned route, arriving at Las Palmas on Gran Canaria on 13 April. The journey had not been unobserved: a small British warship, the 20-gun HMSMozelle under Captain Charles Brisbane, had sighted the Batavian force near Madeira while Mozelle was escorting two merchant ships to Barbados. Leaving the merchant ships to make their way unescorted, Mozelle followed Lucas for several days and then sailed south with all haste to bring a warning to the Cape Colony.[14] Despite noticing Mozelle, Lucas decided not to attack her.[15]
After spending no less than 34 days taking on water and supplies at Las Palmas, Lucas on 26 May sailed to Praia on Cape Verde, before continuing south on 29 May in the direction of the Brazilian coast, hoping to profit from favourable trade winds and currents. In fact, due to persistent calms in the doldrums, the squadron only reached a position off the Brazilian shore on 27 June. The delay led Lucas to decide not to take in more water but to sail directly to the Cape Colony.[16] The Batavian expeditionary force did not encounter another vessel during this time and thus had no information regarding British dispositions when it eventually reached the South-African coast on 26 July. After a council of war aboard Dordrecht, Lucas decided not to reconnoitre Table Bay[17] and on 6 August the squadron anchored in Saldanha Bay.[18]
British agents had observed Lucas' preparations in Holland and reported them in January, more than a month before the expedition sailed. The British Admiralty sent the frigate HMSCarysfort to the Cape Colony with a warning.[19]Carysfort arrived at the colony in April, but vague accounts of Lucas' mission had reached Elphinstone even earlier, appearing at Madras in March, less than a month after Lucas' departure from the Texel.[20] Sailing from Madras on 23 March, Elphinstone reached the Cape Colony on 23 May where he received detailed reports of the size and status of the Batavian force heading for the colony. The Admiralty had already responded to the threat by diverting substantial resources to the Cape Colony: in addition to Elphinstone and Blankett's forces a convoy of transports led by Captain William Essington arrived on 28 May and a small squadron under Pringle followed on 28 July, joined that day by Mozelle with the most detailed reports to date of Lucas' movements.[18] Subsequent reinforcements arrived from the squadron based in India, so that by August there were seven ships of the line and seven smaller vessels under Elphinstone's command and the garrison of the colony stood at 9,400 troops.[14]
Saldanha Bay
Elphinstone was concerned that the Batavian force might not be sailing for the Cape Colony at all. In May, a French frigate squadron under Counter-Admiral Pierre César Charles de Sercey had sailed past the colony without stopping, observed by HMS Sphynx, which it chased back to Simon's Town.[21] If the Batavian force was sailing for the East Indies, it might bypass the Cape Colony altogether. Elphinstone therefore decided to take his fleet out to sea to search for the Batavians. On 6 August Elphinstone sailed southwest from False Bay in search of Lucas, but a fierce storm caught the British, inflicting damage on the ships, including the loss of the mainmast on Monarch and flooding on HMSRuby.[22] The fleet returned to Simon's Bay in a battered state on 12 August, to learn on arrival that Lucas' force lay at anchor to the north. The following day a storm swept the bay. Most of Elphinstone's ships were damaged: both HMSCrescent and HMSTrident grounded, and HMSTremendous dragged anchors and was almost wrecked.[23]
Lucas had arrived off the colony on 26 July with no knowledge of Elphinstone's dispositions. He had more pressing concerns: it had been several months since his ships had sighted land and his supplies of drinking water were running dangerously low.[24] A significant proportion of his crews were suffering from scurvy and he had decided to send these men to an encampment ashore to facilitate their recovery. Lucas even ordered that the sails on his ships be removed for repairs, rendering his ships temporarily immobile.[25] On 9 August, Lucas was warned by a servant of a Dutch colonist that a superior British force was present and that the settler population would not assist an attack on the British; he was strongly advised to sail away. Lucas, on hearing this, instead sailed deeper into the bay.[26] Craig sent cavalry to Saldanha Bay to harry Batavian shore parties and organised the withdrawal of the local population and livestock to prevent their capture. He followed with a larger force under his own command.[23]
Lucas held a council of war with his senior officers, debating whether an attack on Cape Town was practical or whether they should abandon the operation. By 16 August the decision had been made to sail for Île de France, but Lucas delayed, unwilling to leave his sick men ashore.[24]
As the Batavian force prepared to sail, on 16 August Elphinstone's fleet appeared off the bay, led by the scouting frigate Crescent. He sent a letter to Lucas demanding that Lucas surrender, which demand Lucas refused. Ascertaining the strength of the Batavian force, in the evening of 16 August[27] Elphinstone led his fleet into the bay in line of battle and brought the line to anchor at close gunshot range to Lucas' ships.[28] Trapped between the coast and the British, Lucas immediately raised a flag of truce. He then sent an officer to negotiate terms with Elphinstone.[23] Elphinstone granted a delay to enable Lucas to consult his captains, but demanded assurances that the Batavian ships would not be damaged. Lucas gave his word of honor that this would not be done. The council of war then decided that a capitulation on terms should be sought. One of the terms proposed was that the Batavian officers would be allowed to go home on two of the Batavian frigates, designated as cartel ships. Elphinstone rejected these proposals, but offered to release the officers eventually, if they gave their parole. By 23:00, hopelessly outnumbered and with his crews in open rebellion, Lucas agreed to terms that dictated an almost unconditional surrender of the Batavian force. This was the next morning (17 August) agreed between Elphinstone and a Batavian parlimentaire, Captain Claris; Lucas signed the capitulation that afternoon.[29]
The Royal Navy took all the Batavian warships into its service. Elphinstone further attached the warships to the squadron at the Cape Colony, an action the Admiralty criticised. Elphinstone returned to Britain in October 1796.[31] His flagship Monarch passed right through the French fleet of the Expédition d'Irlande during a snow storm, anchoring in a disabled state at Crookhaven on 25 December.[32] Following his return he was made Baron Keith for his capture and retention of the Cape Colony.[31]
Most of the sailors and soldiers in the Batavian force were Germans and nearly all entered British service, either with the Royal Navy or the East India Company. Lucas and other Batavian officers later returned to Europe in the cartel Gertruida.[33] One of the captured ships, HMS Dordrecht became notorious the following year when the crew mutinied at Saint Helena in imitation of the Spithead and Nore mutinies in Britain. Only the intervention of Captain Charles Brisbane, who threw a noose around the ringleader's neck and threatened death if the disobedience was repeated, succeeded in intimidating the mutinous sailors.[34]
In the Batavian Republic, Lucas' surrender caused popular outrage. On his return he faced a court-martial ordered by the National Assembly of the Batavian Republic on 19 May 1797. Lucas died on 21 June, a few days before the trial was to start, and the court therefore decided on 26 June to charge the prosecutor Jacobus Spoors with holding an inquiry, in which all witnesses were deposed. On the basis of this report the court decided on 14 December to lay the main responsibility for the surrender with Lucas, and to acquit the other officers.[35]
Historians have held Lucas blameless for refusing to engage Elphinstone's force, which was far superior in both ships and men.[7] Elphinstone's ships carried more than twice as many men as the Batavian expedition, even before the British troops ashore are taken into account. Lucas could only muster 1,972 men compared with the 4,291 under Elphinstone's command.[36] The expedition has however been criticised for its lack of preparedness; while it is true that promised French support failed to appear, the Batavian troops were insufficient in number to threaten seriously the British garrison. As Parkinson noted: "what could be the point of landing a few hundred men on a shore bristling with English bayonets?"[24] An unintended effect of the campaign however was to forestall a British invasion of Île de France, which Elphinstone had postponed to prepare for Lucas' arrival and which was ultimately cancelled entirely.[37]
There were no further attacks on the Cape Colony during the war. The Treaty of Amiens in 1802 returned the colony and all other captured Dutch colonies, except Ceylon, to the Batavian Republic.[38] The peace was short-lived, and early in the Napoleonic Wars the British prepared another expeditionary force. In January 1806, the British again occupied the Cape Colony following their victory at the Battle of Blaauwberg.[39] The colony remained part of the British Empire until its independence as part of a unified South Africa in 1910.
George Keith Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith was a Royal Navy officer, politician and peer who served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
The Battle of Blaauwberg, also known as the Battle of Cape Town, fought near Cape Town on Wednesday 8 January 1806, was a small but significant military engagement during the War of the Third Coalition, one of the Napoleonic Wars. After a British victory, peace was made under the Treaty Tree in Woodstock establishing British control over the Dutch Cape Colony. The Cape later became a permanent part of the British Empire following the Congress of Vienna that marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1814. By establishing permanent British rule over the Cape Colony the battle would have many ramifications for the southern Africa region during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A bi-centennial commemoration was held in January 2006.
Vice-Admiral Thomas Pringle was a British officer of the Royal Navy. He served during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
The action of 26 July 1806 was a minor naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars fought off the southern coast of the island of Celebes in the Dutch East Indies. During the battle, a small British squadron attacked and defeated a Dutch force defending a valuable convoy, which was also captured. The British force—consisting of the frigate HMS Greyhound and brig-sloop HMS Harrier under the command of Captain Edward Elphinstone—was initially wary of the Dutch, mistaking the Dutch East Indiaman merchant ship Victoria for a ship of the line. Closer observation revealed the identity of the Dutch vessels the following day and Elphinstone led his frigate against the leading Dutch warship Pallas while Harrier engaged the merchant vessels and forced them to surrender. Only the corvette William escaped, taking no part in the engagement.
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 Invasion of Ceylon was a military campaign fought as a series of amphibious operations between the summer of 1795 and spring of 1796 between the garrison of the Batavian colonies on the Indian Ocean island of Ceylon and a British invasion force sent from British India. The Dutch Republic had been a British ally during the French Revolutionary Wars, but was overrun by the French Republic in the winter of 1794 and reformed into the client state of the Batavian Republic. The British government, working with the exiled Stadtholder William of Orange, ordered the seizure of Batavian assets including colonies of the former Dutch Empire. Among the first territories to be attacked were those on the coast of the island of Ceylon, with operations initially focused on the trading port at Trincomalee.
The Battle of Île Ronde was a minor naval engagement between small French Navy and British Royal Navy squadrons off Île de France, now named Mauritius, in the early stages of the French Revolutionary Wars. The battle was fought over control of the waters around Île de France, which was under blockade from the British squadron as French warships and privateers operating from the island posed a significant threat to vital British trade routes connected to British India and China.
The Dutch sloop Sireene was launched in 1786. The British captured her in 1796 at the capitulation of Saldanha Bay. She then served in the Royal Navy, first briefly as the sixth rate HMS Daphne, and then from 1798 as the prison ship HMS Laurel. The Admiralty sold her in 1821.
HMS Euphrosyne was an American brig that Vice-Admiral George Elphinstone purchased for the Royal Navy at Simon's Bay in 1796 in preparation for his attack on the Dutch squadron at Saldanha Bay. She was sold in 1802.
HMS Crescent was a 36-gun Flora-class frigate of the British Royal Navy. Launched in 1784, she spent the first years of her service on blockade duty in the English Channel where she single-handedly captured the French frigate, La Reunion. In 1795, Crescent was part of a squadron commanded by George Elphinstone, that forced the surrender of a Batavian Navy squadron at the capitulation of Saldanha Bay. After serving in the West Indies, Crescent returned to home waters and was wrecked off the coast of Jutland on 6 December 1808.
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 action of 9 September 1796 was an inconclusive minor naval engagement between small French Navy and British Royal Navy squadrons off northwestern Sumatra, near Banda Aceh, during the French Revolutionary Wars. The French squadron comprised six frigates engaged in commerce raiding against British trade routes passing through captured parts of the Dutch East Indies, and posed a considerable threat to the weakened British naval forces in the region. The British force consisted of two 74-gun ships of the line hastily paired to oppose the eastward advance of the French squadron.
The Bali Strait Incident was an encounter between a squadron of six French Navy frigates and six East Indiamen of the British East India Company (EIC) in the Bali Strait on 28 January 1797. The incident took place amidst the East Indies campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars — repeated French attempts to disrupt the highly valuable British trade routes with British India and Qing Dynasty China.
The raid on Manila of January 1798 was a Royal Navy false flag military operation during the French Revolutionary Wars intended to scout the strength of the defences of Manila, capital of the Spanish Philippines, capture a Manila galleon and assess the condition of the Spanish Navy squadron maintained in the port. Spain had transformed from an ally of Great Britain in the War of the First Coalition into an enemy in 1796. Thus, the presence of a powerful Spanish squadron at Manila posed a threat to the China Fleet, an annual convoy of East Indiaman merchant ships from Macau in Qing Dynasty China to Britain, which was of vital economic importance to Britain. So severe was this threat that a major invasion of the Spanish Philippines had been planned from British India during 1797, but had been called off following the Treaty of Campo Formio in Europe and the possibility of a major war in India between the British East India Company and the Kingdom of Mysore.
The action of 9 February 1799 was a minor naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars between a British Royal Navy frigate and a French privateer frigate fought 100 nautical miles (190 km) west of the southeastern coast of what is now Natal in South Africa. The 32-gun French frigate Prudente had since the start of the war been part of a squadron operating from Île de France. This squadron had dispersed during 1798, with the ships sent on independent commerce raiding operations across the British trade routes in the Indian Ocean. Prudente had subsequently been seized in the autumn of that year by Anne Joseph Hippolyte de Maurès, Comte de Malartic, the Governor of Île de France, and sold to a private raiding company.
The Battle of Port Louis was a minor naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought on 11 December 1799 at the mouth of the Tombeau River near Port Louis on the French Indian Ocean island of Île de France, later known as Mauritius. Preneuse had originally been part of a powerful squadron of six frigates sent to the Indian Ocean in 1796 under the command of Contre-amiral Pierre César Charles de Sercey, but the squadron dispersed in 1798 and by the summer of 1799 Preneuse was the only significant French warship remaining in the region. The battle was the culmination of a three-month raiding cruise by the 40-gun French Navy frigate Preneuse, commanded by Captain Jean-Matthieu-Adrien Lhermitte. Ordered to raid British commerce in the Mozambique Channel, Lhermitte's cruise had been eventful, with an inconclusive encounter with a squadron of small British warships in Algoa Bay on 20 September and an engagement with the 50-gun HMS Jupiter during heavy weather on 9–11 October.
The invasion of the Cape Colony, also known as the Battle of Muizenberg, was a British military expedition launched in 1795 against the Dutch Cape Colony at the Cape of Good Hope. The Dutch colony at the Cape, established and controlled by the United East India Company in the seventeenth century, was at the time the only viable South African port for ships making the journey from Europe to the European colonies in the East Indies. It therefore held vital strategic importance, although it was otherwise economically insignificant. In the winter of 1794, during the French Revolutionary Wars, French troops entered the Dutch Republic, which was reformed into the Batavian Republic.
Engelbertus Lucas was a Dutch naval officer, who as a rear-admiral, commanding a squadron of the Batavian Navy, was forced to surrender that squadron on 17 August 1796 at Saldanha Bay to a Royal Navy squadron under Vice-Admiral George Elphinstone.
Brunswick was launched in 1792 as an East Indiaman for the British East India Company (EIC). She made five complete voyages for the EIC before the French captured her in 1805. Shortly thereafter she wrecked at the Cape of Good Hope.
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James, William (2002) [1827]. The Naval History of Great Britain, Volume 1, 1793–1796. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN0-85177-905-0.
Lloyd, Christopher (1963). St Vincent & Camperdown. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd.
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