Berbice is a region along the Berbice River in Guyana, which was between 1627 and 1792 a colony of the Dutch West India Company and between 1792 and 1815 a colony of the Dutch state. After having been ceded to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the latter year, it was merged with Demerara-Essequibo to form the colony of British Guiana in 1831. It became a county of British Guiana in 1838 till 1958. In 1966, British Guiana gained independence as Guyana and in 1970 it became a republic as the Co-operative Republic of Guyana.
The Battle of Blaauwberg was a successful British amphibious operation during the War of the Third Coalition which lasted from 8–18 January 1806 and resulted in the capture of the Dutch Cape Colony. After defeating their Batavian opponents, the British signed a treaty under the Treaty Tree in Woodstock, Cape Town which established Britain's control over the Cape Colony. The colony later became a permanent part of the British Empire following the Congress of Vienna that marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1814. Due to establishing permanent British rule over the Cape Colony, the battle would have many ramifications for southern Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A bi-centennial commemoration of the battle was held in January 2006.
The 64th Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army. The regiment was created as the 2nd Battalion, 11th Regiment of Foot in 1756, redesignated as the 64th Regiment of Foot in 1758, and took a county title as the 64th Regiment of Foot in 1782. Following the Cardwell Reforms the regiment amalgamated with the 98th Regiment of Foot to become The Prince of Wales's in 1881. In the new regiment the 64th Foot became the 1st Battalion due to its seniority over the 98th Foot.
General Francis Dundas was a British Army officer and colonial administrator who served as the acting governor of the Cape Colony from 1798 to 1799 and again from 1801 to 1803. He was the second son of Robert Dundas of Arniston, the younger and nephew of Henry Dundas.
The Battle of Cartagena de Indias took place during the 1739 to 1748 War of Jenkins' Ear between Spain and Great Britain. The result of long-standing commercial tensions, the war was primarily fought in the Caribbean; the British tried to capture key Spanish ports in the region, including Porto Bello and Chagres in Panama, Havana, and Cartagena de Indias in present-day Colombia.
HMS Centaur was a 74-gun third rate of the Royal Navy, launched on 14 March 1797 at Woolwich. She served as Sir Samuel Hood's flagship in the Leeward Islands and the Channel. During her 22-year career Centaur saw action in the Mediterranean, the Channel, the West Indies, and the Baltic, fighting the French, the Dutch, the Danes, and the Russians. She was broken up in 1819.
In the Vlieter incident on 30 August 1799, a squadron of the Batavian Navy, commanded by Rear-Admiral Samuel Story, surrendered to the British navy. The incident occurred during the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland. It occurred in the tidal trench between Texel and the mainland that was known as De Vlieter, near Wieringen.
HMS Hippomenes was a former Dutch corvette built in Vlissingen in 1797 for the Batavian Republic. The British captured her in 1803 and she served with the Royal Navy until sold in 1813. With the Royal Navy she participated in two notable single-ship actions in the West Indies.
The Caribbean campaign of 1803–1810 was a series of military contests mainly in the West Indies spanning the Napoleonic Wars involving European powers Napoleonic France, the Batavian Republic, Spain, the Kingdom of Portugal and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Eventually British naval forces dominated the seas and by 1810 every French, Dutch and Danish colony was firmly under allied control.
Aegidius van Braam was a Dutch naval officer who attained the rank of vice-admiral. When the Dutch Republic was overrun by French Revolutionary troops in 1795, he remained loyal to the House of Orange-Nassau and fled to England. Following the restoration in 1814, he was repatriated by King William I and received the hereditary noble title of jonkheer.
HMS Surinam was the 18-gun Batavian corvette or sloop Pilades that the British captured on 5 May 1804 when they captured Surinam from the Dutch. The Batavian flotilla that the British captured was under the command of naval Captain Blots Van Treelong.
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.
Hector was a Dutch 44-gun frigate launched in 1784 that the British captured in 1799. They fitted her out and transferred her to the Transport Board in 1800 under the name Pandour. She then transported troops to and from Egypt. The Royal Navy commissioned her in 1803 as HMS Pandour; she then sailed to the Leeward Islands, where she participated in the capture of Surinam. The Navy converted her to a floating battery in 1804, and transferred her to Customs as a store hulk in 1805. She was sold in 1814.
HMSEmerald was a 36-gun Amazon-class fifth rate frigate that Sir William Rule designed in 1794 for the Royal Navy. The Admiralty ordered her construction towards the end of May 1794 and work began the following month at Northfleet dockyard. She was completed on 12 October 1795 and joined Admiral John Jervis's fleet in the Mediterranean.
HMS Roebuck was a fifth-rate ship of the Royal Navy which served in the American and French Revolutionary Wars. Designed in 1769 by Sir Thomas Slade to operate in the shallower waters of North America, she joined Lord Howe's squadron towards the end of 1775 and took part in operations against New York the following year. She engaged the American gun batteries at Red Hook during the Battle of Long Island in August 1776, and forced a passage up the Hudson River in October. On 25 August 1777, Roebuck escorted troopships to Turkey Point, Maryland, where an army was landed for an assault on Philadelphia. She was again called upon to accompany troopships in December 1779, this time for an attack on Charleston. When the ships-of-the-line, which were too large to enter the harbour, were sent back to New York, Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot made Roebuck his flagship. She was, therefore, at the front of the attack, leading the British squadron across the shoal to engage Fort Moultrie and the American ships beyond.
Proserpine was launched at Amsterdam in 1801 as a 32-gun frigate. The Royal Navy captured her in May 1804 at the capture of Surinam and took her into service as HMS Amsterdam. She sailed to England where she became a guard and storeship at Cork. She was sold in 1815.
General William Grinfield was a British Army officer who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Grinfield joined the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards in 1760 and was promoted through the ranks, becoming a major in the regiment in 1786. In 1793 his regiment joined the Flanders Campaign, fighting at the siege of Valenciennes and Battle of Lincelles, during which time he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel. Having held a higher army-wide rank than he did regimental rank, Grinfield was promoted by seniority to major-general later in the same year.
The York Light Infantry Volunteers, also known as the Barbados Volunteer Emigrants, was a foreign light infantry regiment of the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. It was formed in September 1803 from the Dutch garrisons of the captured Batavian colonies of Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice. Additions to the regiment were recruited from the ranks of prisoners of war, and the regiment was also the recipient of the majority of deserters taken in the Peninsular Wars. The regiment served its whole existence in the West Indies, fighting in the British West Indies campaign. It was present at the Battle of Suriname in 1804 and at the invasions of Martinique and Guadeloupe in 1809 and 1810 respectively. It finished the Napoleonic Wars as garrison at Jamaica, before in early 1817 being sent to England, where it was disbanded on 19 March.
The Montgomeryshire Militia, later the Royal Montgomeryshire Rifles, was an auxiliary regiment reorganised in the Welsh county of Montgomeryshire during the 18th Century from earlier precursor units. Primarily intended for home defence, it served in Great Britain and Ireland during Britain's major wars. It later became part of the South Wales Borderers until it was disbanded in 1908.
The British campaign in the Caribbean took place during the first year of the Napoleonic Wars and began shortly after the breakdown of the Treaty of Amiens. Hostilities with France resumed in May 1803 but official notification did not arrive in the West Indies until mid-June, along with British orders to attack France's valuable sugar islands. The expedition, under commanders in chief William Grinfield and Samuel Hood, set out from Barbados on 20 June with 3,149 soldiers, two ships-of-the-line, two frigates, converted to troopships, and two sloops. St Lucia was captured on 22 June 1803, after the island's main fortress, Morne Fortunee had been stormed, and Tobago nine days later. After leaving men to hold these islands, the expedition returned to Barbados.
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