Action of 22 August 1795

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 Danish 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.

Action of 22 August 1795
Part of the French Revolutionary Wars
Defeat of the Dutch Fleet off Egerö, 22 August 1795, Nicholas Pocock, 1795
Date 22 August 1795 Location Off Eigerøya, North Sea Result British victory
Belligerents
Great Britain	Batavian Republic
Commanders and leaders
James Alms	Van Dirckinck[1]
Strength
1 ship of the line 3 frigates	2 frigates 1 cutter
Casualties and losses
5 killed 18 wounded	2 killed 15 wounded 1 frigate captured

Action

Map of the North Sea, the battle identified by the red mark

A British squadron of four frigates under the command of Captain James Alms was patrolling the entrance to the Skagerrak in August 1795 when three sails were spotted off the Norwegian coast to the north. Closing to investigate, the ships were discovered to be a Batavian squadron of two frigates and a small cutter. In the face of the larger British squadron the Batavian force turned away, sailing southeast along the Norwegian coast with the British approaching from the south in an effort to cut them off from the neutral Danish shore. At 16:15 the leading British ship HMS Stag caught and engaged the rearmost Batavian ship Alliantie (cdr. Claas Jager[2]); the remainder of the British squadron continued in pursuit of the Batavian squadron. For an hour Alliantie held out against the more powerful Stag and was eventually compelled to surrender. The remainder of the Batavian squadron escaped due to a fierce rearguard action by the frigate Argo, reaching the safety of the Danish harbour at Eigerøya.

Background

In the winter of 1794–1795 the armies of the French Republic overran the Dutch Republic, reforming the country into a client state named the Batavian Republic. The Dutch Republic was part of the Coalition against Republican France formed in the War of the First Coalition at the start of the French Revolutionary Wars, and their closest ally in Northern Europe was Great Britain.[3] In Britain the Admiralty was alarmed by developments in the Netherlands, particularly the seizure of the Dutch Navy by French cavalry units while the fleet was frozen into its winter harbour, and gave orders that the Royal Navy was to detain Dutch merchant and naval ships. As a result, the Batavian Republic and Great Britain began an undeclared war in the spring of 1795.[4]

In response to the threat that the Batavian fleet posed, the Admiralty established a new British fleet to oppose it. The Admiralty named this force, under the command of Admiral Adam Duncan, the North Sea Fleet. The fleet was based at Yarmouth in East Anglia and consisted mainly of older and weaker second-line vessels.[5] Duncan was also provided with a number of frigates, essential in securing the safe movement of the Baltic trade. Much of Britain's vital naval stores were obtained from Scandinavia and the trade routes through the Baltic Sea and North Sea were vital to the maintenance of the Royal Navy.[6] One Navy squadron that sailed from The Downs on 8 August 1795 with instructions to cruise off the mouth of the Skaggerak in the Eastern North Sea, consisted of four ships: 36-gun HMS Reunion under Captain James Alms, 32-gun HMS Stag under Captain Joseph Sydney Yorke, 50-gun HMS Isis under Captain Robert Watson and 28-gun HMS Vestal under Captain Charles White.[7]

The Scandinavian trade routes were equally important for the Batavian Navy, and to protect their merchant shipping from attack by British frigates, the Batavian authorities also sent a frigate squadron to the region, consisting of the 36-gun frigates Alliantie and Argo and the 16-gun cutter Vlugheid. On the afternoon of 22 August 1795 the Batavian force was sailing southeast along the coast of Norway, then part of Danish Norway, tacking to port towards the land, when the British squadron was spotted approaching from the south.[6]

Battle

Plan of engagement between Isis, Reunion, Stag and Vestal and the Dutch frigate Alliantie, 22 Aug 1795; sketch c. 1795, by Nicholas Pocock

With their ships heavily outnumbered by the approaching British, the Batavian squadron made all sail along the coastline with the intention of sheltering in the neutral Danish harbour of Eigerøya (referred to in British sources as Egeroe or Egerö).[8] Sighting the Batavian ships to the north, Alms ordered his squadron to give chase. Soon the fastest British ship, Stag made use of favourable wind to pull ahead of the others and at 16:15 succeeded in cutting off the rearmost Batavian vessel Alliantie from its companions. Although Alliantie with its 36-guns was a stronger ship than the 32-gun Stag, its main battery was of only 12-pounder cannon compared to Yorke's 18-pounder guns. This, coupled with the presence nearby of the rest of the British squadron meant that Alliantie, in the words of naval historian William James, "from the first, had no chance of success."[9]

Despite the odds against him, the Batavian captain engaged Stag, Yorke laying his ship alongside Alliantie and the frigates exchanging broadsides for an hour before the Batavian captain, his situation hopeless and his ship outnumbered and battered, surrendered at 17:15.[6] While Stag and Alliantie fought their duel, the action continued elsewhere, with the remaining Batavian ships making progress eastwards along the Norwegian coastline with the British squadron attempting to cut them off from the channel between Eigerøya and the Norwegian mainland in which the Batavian ships could shelter, protected by Danish neutrality.[6] Vlugheid rapidly outdistanced pursuit, but Argo was slower and came under heavy but distant fire from Reunion and Isis, replying in kind. Argo was subsequently found to have been hit thirty times by 24-pounder shot and had much of its sails and rigging torn away, requiring extensive repairs. Eventually the Batavian persistence paid off, and Vlugheid and Argo successfully escaped into the neutral harbour of Eigerøya before Alms could intercept them.[9]

Aftermath

Alms sent the captured Alliantie back to Britain under the command of Lieutenant Patrick Tonyn of Stag and gave despatches to the Admiralty to Lieutenant William Huggell of Reunion to deliver.[10] He himself remained at sea with the squadron, completing their assigned patrol. British casualties included four killed and 13 wounded on Stag, one killed and three wounded on Reunion and two wounded on Isis. Only Vestal escaped without any damage or casualties.[7] Batavian casualties in the engagement are not known due to the failure of Alms to record Alliantie's losses in his report to the Admiralty, an omission which James criticises him for.[9] It is known that Argo lost two men killed and 15 wounded in the chase.[8] The surviving Batavian ships remained at anchor in the Eigerøya channel until the spring of 1796 when they successfully returned to the Netherlands.[11]

Alliantie was subsequently taken to Spithead and purchased for the Royal Navy as the frigate HMS Alliance, for which prize money was distributed to the crews of the British ships, shared equally among them. The sailors on Isis alone shared £240 (the equivalent of £24,978 as of 2020).[12][13] Over the ensuing months and years, Duncan's fleet was largely successful in protecting the North Sea trade routes from the depredations of raiders from the Batavian ports and in 1797 inflicted a crushing defeat on the Batavian fleet at the Battle of Camperdown.[14]

Meanwhile, the reaction in the Batavian Republic was one of great indignation. In a resolution of 3 September 1795 the Provisionele Representanten van het Volk van Holland, the Dutch representative at the Danish Court, Christiaan Bangeman Huygens, was ordered to complain about the violation of Danish neutrality (as Norwegian/Danish pilots had already gone aboard the Dutch ships, indicating that those had entered Danish territorial waters, as the resolution noted) and to demand that Denmark would make representations at the Court of St. James's to obtain the return of the Alliantie.[15] The new commander-in-chief of the Batavian navy, admiral De Winter issued a proclamation equally denouncing the British action and praising the conduct of the Dutch vessels (confirming that the Argo, under command of Cdr. Van Dirckinck, had lost two killed and 15 injured), earning the admiration of the Norwegian citizens of Eigerøya (which he calls by the Dutch name Kerkhaven). In this proclamation he also suggests that the Batavian brigs Echo, Gier and Mercuur in reprisal[16] had stopped four British merchantmen and brought them into Kristiansand[17] A letter of representative Bangeman Huygens of 19 September 1795 to the Provisionele Representanten reports that the Danish government indeed made representations to the British government (evidently without result[18]) and that the sailors of the British prize ships in the port of Kristiansand had been delivered to the British Consul "John Mischell" (sic) on 22 August 1795.[19] The officers and men of the captured frigate Alliantie were not so lucky. Letters from two Dutch officers (Bakker and Gras) of the ship to the Board of Admiralty of the Royal Navy show that they were still prisoners of war in Ashford, Kent in early 1796.[20]

Notes

1. Dirckinck, (Arnold Christiaan Leopold van), in: Abraham Jacob van der Aa, Karel Johan Reinier van Harderwijk, Gilles Dionysius Jacobus Schotel: Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden: bevattende levensbeschrijvingen van zoodanige personen, die zich op eenigerlei wijze in ons vaderland hebben vermaard gemaakt, Volume 4 (Van Brederode 1858), pp. 183-184
2. A.J. van der Aa, Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden, bevattende levensbeschrijvingen van zoodanige personen, die zich op eenigerlei wijze in ons vaderland hebben vermaard gemaakt, Volume 19 (Van Brederode 1878), p. 71
3. Chandler, p. 44
4. Woodman, p. 53
5. Gardiner, p. 170
6. Gardiner, p. 183
7. "No. 13809". The London Gazette. 29 August 1795. p. 896.
8. Clowes, p. 493
9. James, p. 292
10. James, p. 293
11. Brenton, p. 93
12. UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
13. "No. 14050". The London Gazette. 30 September 1797. p. 950.
14. Gardiner, p. 176
15. Jan Wagenaar, Vaderlandsche historie,: vervattende de geschiedenissen der vereenigde nederlanden, zints den aanveng der noord-americaansche onlusten, en den daar uit gevolgden oorlog tusschen engeland en deezen staat, tot den tegenwoordigen tyd (Johannes Allaart 1803), pp. 130-131; Martinus Stuart, Nieuwe Nederlandsche Jaarboeken [van het Koningrijk der Nederlanden], Vol 30 (Amsterdam 1795), p.5556
16. In this he was mistaken as the flotilla of the three brigs actually had taken the British merchantmen (and a British brig, the "Nantie of Air" [sic], master Joseph Leid) on 19 August, which may have caused the British to attack the two Batavian frigates on 22 August; cf.Gerrit Dirk Bom "D'Vrijheid" 1781-1797: geschiedenis van een vlaggeschip (Bom 1897), p. 123
17. Stuart, op. cit., pp. 5774–5775
18. Great Britain had declared war on the Batavian Republic on 15 September 1795; cf. Bom, op.cit., p. 124
19. Decreeten van de Provisioneele repræsentanten van het volk van Holland. 26 January 1795--2 Maart 1796, Volume 5, Part 1 ('Lands drukkerij, 1798), pp. 484-486
20. Paul Chamberlain (2016). Hell Upon Water: Prisoners of War in Britain 1793-1815. History Press. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-7509-8053-1.

References

• Brenton, Edward Pelham (1837) [1825]. The Naval History of Great Britain, Vol. I. London: C. Rice.
• Chandler, David (1999) [1993]. Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars. Wordsworth Military Library. ISBN 1-84022-203-4.
• Clowes, William Laird (1997) [1900]. The Royal Navy, A History from the Earliest Times to 1900, Volume IV. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 1-86176-013-2.
• Gardiner, Robert (editor) (2001) [1996]. Fleet Battle and Blockade. Caxton Editions. ISBN 1-84067-363-X.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
• James, William (2002) [1827]. The Naval History of Great Britain, Volume 1, 1793–1796. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-905-0.
• Woodman, Richard (2001). The Sea Warriors. Constable Publishers. ISBN 1-84119-183-3.