#Battle of Saldanha Bay

[ltwilliammowett]

Action off the Cape of Good Hope by Samuel Scott, 1757

The British commodore George Johnstone had been directed to capture the Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope on 21 July 1781 . However, France had learned of his mission, and the French admiral Bailli de Suffren frustrated the mission. Suffren was en route to the Indian Ocean, but the French marine ministry had warned him so he sought to reach the Cape before Johnstone. After an indecisive chance encounter (Battle of Porto Praya), between the two fleets in the Cape Verde Islands on 16 April 1781, Suffren sailed for the Cape while Johnstone remained at Porto Praya for repairs. As a result, Johnstone found the Dutch settlement well defended when he arrived there in July and decided against an attack.

The Dutch had, as a precaution, directed their westbound merchant fleet, laden with goods, to anchor in Saldanha Bay where they would be concealed from the British fleet. They were under orders to ground and burn their ships if the British were to appear; however they were not vigilant in their watches.

One of Johnstone’s frigates, flying French colours, intercepted a Dutch merchantmen that had left the bay several days earlier, heading east. The Dutch vessels were the Heldwoltenmade, Vrolyk, master, which had sailed from Saldanha Bay on 28 June carrying stores and £40,000 in bullion to Ceylon. She struck to HMS Active on 1 July. From Heldwoltenmade Johnstone learned of the whereabouts of the Dutch fleet. Bearing off Saldanha Bay Johnstone sighted the Dutch fleet, and entered the bay flying French colors.

He then raised the union jack and opened fire, totally surprising the Dutch. The Dutch could not escape and decided to destroy their ships rather than let them fall into British hands; so they cut their cables, loosed their top sails, and tried to drive them on shore. Once this was done they attempted to torch the ships, and the British, now in their boats, attempted to extinguish the fires. The British were successful, taking as prizes the Dankbaarheid, Perel, Schoonkop and Hoogcarspel. The Middleburg however burnt furiously and was left alone. She blew up after very nearly colliding with two of the prizes.

HMS Rattlesnake surprised and captured a hooker (a type of coastal vessel), laden with the sails of the captured ships and hidden away behind Schapin (Schaapen) Island. The Dutch had put the sails on board and hidden the hooker to make seizing the Indiamen more difficult.By the end of the day the British had captured another two hookers, which Johnstone could not easily remove. In order not to leave any marks of “barbarity towards a settlement where our wants had so often been relieved”, he gave them back to the Dutch.

After the British Royal Navy captured the Dutch East Indiamen, a boat rowed out to meet the British warships. On board were the “kings of Ternate and Tidore, and the princes of the respective families”. The Dutch had long held these captives on “Isle Robin”, but then had moved them to Saldanha Bay.

The British sent their prizes back to England. Only two reached their destination, and that with difficulty and after some fighting in the English Channel. A French frigate attacked Hoogcarspel, but she succeeded in getting to Mount’s Bay where she was escorted. Also, two French privateers attacked Perel, which succeeded in escaping. Dankbaarheit and Hencoop were lost in January 1782 as the result of a gale at the mouth of the Channel. The prize crew on Dankbaarheit were able to escape and reached Lisbon in safety. Hencoop disappeared and was believed to have foundered with all hands.

[emarywalkersettlers]

British Interest in Southern Africa ~ Part Two

British interest in southern Africa was initially limited to Table Bay, that iconic and celebrated place of natural beauty that adorns every tourist leaflet showcasing South Africa, with its flat-topped Table Mountain rising gloriously from a watery foreground of sea and surf. Sir Francis Drake, the British sea captain and explorer, called it ‘the fairest cape in the whole circumference of the globe”. But Britain’s interest in the Fairest Cape was altogether more practical. The Cape had served as a Dutch-run halfway house for shipping – a refreshment station – for more than a century for European sailors en route to Asia. But in the late 18th century Britain’s continued access to this facility came under sudden threat.

Britain, in a fury at Dutch disloyalty, had declared war on the Netherlands. This situation had arisen when the Netherlands supported France in the turmoil of the American War of Independence, which caused Britain to lose significant numbers of colonies in North and Central America. Now that Britain and the Netherlands were enemies, the British War Office made hasty plans to secure the Dutch governed Cape, suspecting that the French would be having the same thoughts. And indeed they were.

The French planted a spy, De La Motte, in Britain, who reported the activities of Britain’s War Office to France. Britain assembled a significant fleet of ships – 46 vessels and 3000 soldiers – and set sail for the Cape, but en route anchored at the Cape Verde Islands off the mainland of West Africa to take on supplies.  The French, following at a safe distance, came upon the British fleet and attacked several of their ships. The French were then able to make headway towards the Cape before the British had gathered their wits after this hostile encounter.

The Dutch at the Cape had no knowledge of these events in the northern hemisphere and the consequent shift in alliances and hostilities. When the French fleet arrived at the Cape in July 1781 and informed Dutch officials of their new allegiance, the Dutch simply acquiesced and cooperated with the occupying French military.

The British, not to be outsmarted, sent an advance ship under French colours to carry out a surreptitious reconnoitre before the main fleet neared the Cape. Just outside Saldanha Bay the ship encountered a merchant ship leaving the Bay en route to Ceylon and communications were held in French. The merchant ship informed the supposedly French ship that a number of Dutch ships were at anchor in Saldanha Bay, having been moved there from Cape Town to protect them from attack by the British fleet supposedly en route to the Cape. Once this information had been imparted to the captain, the British struck the French flag, hoisted the British flag, and took possession of the merchant ship. This achieved, they once again hoisted the French flag and sailed into Saldanha Bay. When they had positioned themselves to their best advantage, they brought down the French flag again and, flying the British flag, attacked and captured the Dutch ships.

This was a meagre victory for the British, whose plan had been to forcibly take the Cape from the Dutch, but the French fleet’s arrival in advance of their own had foiled their objective and they sailed on to the East. But seeds of hostility at the Cape had now been sown. It was the beginning of a long history of mistrust between  the Cape Dutch and the English.  (As a footnote, although the Dutch would ultimately lose control of the Cape, the Dutch people continued to live there, and continue there and elsewhere in South Africa to this day, under the group identity of Afrikaner.)

A peace agreement between Britain and the Netherlands, signed in September 1783, brought an end to French occupation at the Cape, and Cape Town continued peacefully as a resupply port under Dutch control for more than a decade. The year 1789 saw the start of the French Revolution, and the Revolutionary Wars that followed would have far reaching consequences. France’s declaration of war on the Netherlands in 1793, which resulted in Prince William of Orange fleeing to Britain, opened a new window for British interests in the Cape. Prince William, temporarily stationed at Kew Gardens near London, issued instructions to his Dutch colonial governors to cooperate fully with British forces. Britain, grasping this opportunity with vigour, sent two battle squadrons to the Cape, with a larger backup force assembling across the Atlantic in Brazil.

Once anchored off Simon’s Bay near Cape Town in June 1795, the commander of the British squadron sent a message ashore to the Dutch governor offering an alliance against the French. The Dutch, who were suspicious and mistrustful of the British, saw no credibility in this gesture and declined the offer, making ready for battle. For three months intermittent skirmishes took place without any decisive end in sight. During the disembarkation of British troops onto Cape soil a number of troops, who were American, deserted to the Dutch, where they were given protection in Cape Town. (As a footnote, the American troops had been forcibly placed into service by the British. This was a common practice of the British, called impressment, where foreigners, usually sailors including merchant sailors, were placed against their will into service in the Royal Navy. This was frowned on at the time by other seafaring nations, who recruited their own sailors through national conscription, but the British people rejected the concept of conscription.) Finally, in early September the reinforcements that had been stationed at Brazil arrived in a fleet of 14 ships. The Dutch governor had no choice but to surrender. Before he passed control of Cape Town to the British he allowed the almost 40 American deserters  to escape into the countryside.

There was one failed attempt by the Dutch to retake the Cape. No further attempts were made. The Cape remained under British control for seven years, but in 1802, as part of the terms of the Peace of Amiens, the Cape was restored to the Dutch. However, this lasted for little over three years. The year 1803 saw the start of the Napoleonic Wars, and in January 1806 Britain launched another attack on the Cape, secured a victory at Blaauwberg close to Cape Town, and retook control of the Cape. This was never again contested.

Thus British Imperialism was established in southern Africa, as part of the greater Second British Empire that also included parts of east Africa, the subcontinents of India and East Asia, and Australasia. The Cape Colony was under British rule for 104 years. The British Colony of Natal, further up the east coast, was under British rule for over 70 years. In 1868 Basutoland (now Lesotho, a landlocked country within what is now South Africa) became a British Protectorate and then later a British Crown Colony until 1966. Bechuanaland (later Botswana), Rhodesia (later Zambia and Zimbabwe), Swaziland and Nyasaland (later Malawi) were all subject to British interest and hence were colonised.

British interest and influence in southern Africa has been considerable. But perhaps the most significant and permanent injection of Britishness  into southern Africa took place during a few months of one year, only 14 years after the Battle of Blaauwberg and the final establishment of the Cape Colony.

It was 1820. The place was Algoa Bay, more than 400 miles east north-east of Cape Town. They came by wooden sailing ships. Four thousand people. They were ill prepared and ill equipped. Most of them were poor, many of them suffered on board ship and in their new land, and some of them died. But they established themselves on southern African soil and very few of them ever uprooted from those soils again.

These folk, ordinary British civilians, became universally known as the 1820 Settlers.

(My blogs to come will be about these British people who chose to partake in the British Government Resettlement Programme to the Cape Colony in 1820.)

Mary Walker

19 December 2019

Images: collective commons wikimedia

[capetownrehab-blog]

Robben Island

History of Robben Island

Since the end of the 17th century, Robben Island has been used for the isolation of mainly political prisoners. The Dutch settlers were the first to use Robben Island as a prison. Its first prisoner was probably Autshumato in the mid-17th century. Among its early permanent inhabitants were political leaders from various Dutch colonies, including Indonesia, and the leader of the mutiny on the slave ship Meermin.

After the British Royal Navy captured several Dutch East Indiamen at the battle of Saldanha Bay in 1781, a boat rowed out to meet the British warships. Onboard were the "kings of Ternate and Tidore and the princes of the respective families". The Dutch had long held them on "Isle Robin", but then had moved them to Saldanha Bay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robben_Island

Access to the Island

Robben Island is accessible to visitors through tours that depart from Cape Town's waterfront. Tours depart three times a day and take about 3.5 hours, consisting of a ferry trip to and from the island, and a tour of the various historical sites on the island that form part of the Robben Island Museum. These include the island graveyard, the disused lime quarry, Robert Sobukwe’s house, the Bluestone quarry, the army and navy bunkers, and the maximum-security prison including Nelson Mandela’s cell.

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[ltwilliammowett]

Battle of Porto Praya, 16th April 1781, by Pierre-Julien Gilbert

France had entered the American Revolutionary War in 1778, and Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in late 1780, when the Dutch refused to stop trading with the French and the Americans. Johnstone was ordered to lead an expedition to capture the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope.

On 13 March 1781 Commodore John Johnstone sailed from Spithead with a fleet of 37 ships, including five ships of the line, three frigates, and a large number of troop convoy ships. In early April the fleet anchored in the neutral harbour of Porto Praya in the Portuguese-controlled Cape Verde Islands to take on water and supplies.

Admiral Bailli de Suffren had been dispatched on a mission to provide military assistance to French and Dutch colonies in India, leading a fleet of five ships of the line, seven transports, and a corvette to escort the transports. On 22 March he had sailed in the company of a fleet destined for North America under Admiral de Grasse, with word of Johnstone’s mission and an objective to reach the Cape first.

One of Suffren’s ships, Artésien, had originally been destined for America, and was in need of water, so the French fleet paused when it approached Santiago on 16 April, and Suffren ordered the Artésien to the harbour.

When the Artésien reached the mouth of the harbour, she spotted the British fleet at anchor, and signalled Suffren that the enemy was in sight. Suffren, assuming (correctly) that the fleet had men ashore and would be in some disarray, immediately gave orders to attack, leading the way with his flagship, the Héros. Johnstone, who was in the process of ordering ship manoeuvres to separate ships that had drifted too close to one another when the French squadron was spotted, had to scramble to prepare the fleet for battle.

Suffren’s orders were for his line to anchor before the British fleet and open fire. This he did with Héros, taking on Hero and Monmouth, the two largest British ships. Annibal soon came to his aid, and eventually drew most of the fire. Artésien, whose captain was killed early in the engagement, captured the East Indiaman Hinchinbrooke in the confusion, and then a breeze blew her away from the action. The Vengeur passed along the anchored British fleet exchanging broadsides but never anchored herself and passed out of the action, while the Sphinx also failed to anchor, and only contributed minimally to the action.

Suffren, with the advantage of surprise, maintained the action with the two anchored ships for ninety minutes until damage (Annibal lost two of three masts) led him to signal a retreat while maintaining fire. Annibal lost her third mast on her way out of the harbour, and was slow to follow Héros.

The French captured the East Indiamen Hinchinbrook and Fortitude, and the victualer Edward. The British recaptured Fortitude the next day.

Suffren gathered his fleet together outside the harbour to assess damage and make repairs. Terror and Infernal had got out to sea and the French fired on them. Despite being set on fire, Terror escaped and her crew extinguished the flames. The French captured Infernal, and took out Captain Henry Darby and some sailors and soldiers.

Johnstone got his squadron ready and came out of the harbour in pursuit about three hours later. Suffren adopted an aggressive line, and Johnstone, some of whose ships — especially Isis — had suffered significant damage, chose not to renew the battle, and returned to the harbour to effect repairs. However, before he returned, he succeeded in recovering Infernal. Her remaining crew had recaptured her while the prize crew were off their guard. Alternatively, her prize crew abandoned her at the approach of the British squadron. Their prize crews also abandoned Hinchinbrook and Edward, and the British recovered the vessels a few days later.

Suffren’s squadron reached the Cape of Good Hope on 21 June, with the troop convoys arriving nine days later. After spending a month there for repair and refit, he left 500 men for the defence of the Dutch colony and proceeded on to Ile de France. Johnstone, however, still headed for the Cape and arrived in July and at Saldanha Bay took five Dutch East Indies vessels as prizes. He then made his way back to England.