page_title: Affair of Fielding and Bylandt
section_title: The incident
hierarchical_section_title: Affair of Fielding and Bylandt / The incident
caption_attribution_description: English: Engraved portrait of Commodore Charles Fielding, shortly before his death in 1783
context_page_description: The affair of Fielding and Bylandt was a brief naval engagement off the Isle of Wight on 31 December 1779 between a Royal Navy squadron, commanded by Commodore Charles Fielding, and a naval squadron of the Dutch Republic, commanded by rear-admiral Lodewijk van Bylandt, escorting a Dutch convoy. The Dutch and British were not yet at war, but the British wished to inspect the Dutch merchantmen for what they considered contraband destined for France, then engaged in the American War of Independence. Bylandt attempted to avoid the engagement by offering the ships' manifests, but when Fielding insisted on a physical inspection, Bylandt put up a brief show of force, before striking his colours. The British then seized the Dutch merchantmen and conducted them as prizes to Portsmouth, followed by the Dutch squadron. The incident worsened the diplomatic relations between Great Britain and the Dutch Republic almost to breaking point. It also contributed to the formation of the First League of Armed Neutrality to which the Dutch acceded in December, 1780. To prevent their receiving assistance from other members of that League, Britain declared the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War shortly afterwards.
context_section_description: When the first convoys were prepared in December 1779 (one to the West Indies, under Rear-Admiral Willem Crul, and another to France and the Mediterranean under Rear-Admiral Count Lodewijk van Bylandt), the stadtholder gave written instructions that these should exclude ships that transported naval stores (as he at the time understood that the British defined those: in essence ships' timbers).  He also prohibited allowing ships from "nations not recognized by the Republic" (i.e. the ships of John Paul Jones) to become part of the convoys. Finally, he enjoined Bylandt to avoid anything that might jeopardize the neutrality of the Republic.
  The squadron of Admiral Bylandt departed from the Texel on 27 December 1779. It consisted of his flagship, the 54-gun ship of the line Prinses Royal Frederika Sophia Maria, the 40-gun Argo (Captain Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen), the 44-gun Zwieten (Captain Nauman), the 26-gunValk (Captain Silvester) and the 26-gun Alarm (Captain Mulder). They escorted 17 Dutch merchantmen. After progressing calmly a few days through the English Channel the convoy encountered a British squadron in the morning of 30 December. This consisted of the 90-gun HMS Namur, flying the broad pennant of Commodore Fielding, the 74-gun ships HMS Courageux (Captain Thomas Allen), HMS Centaur (Captain J. N. P. Nott), HMS Thunderer (Captain James Bradby) and HMS Valiant (Captain Samuel Goodall), the 60-gun HMS Buffalo (Captain H. Bromedge), the 50-gun HMS Portland (Captain Anthony Hunt), the 32-gun HMS Emerald (Captain Samuel Marshall), the 20-gun ships HMS Seaford (Captain Isaac Prescott) and HMS Camel (Captain Richard Rodney Bligh), the 12-gun HMS Hawk (Captain Richard Murray) and the 8-gun HMS Wolf (Captain M. Cole). Courageux hailed the Dutch flagship and asked for a parley to which Bylandt agreed. Fielding then sent a boat with two parlimentaires, one of which was his flag captain Marshall. Marshall demanded Bylandt's acquiescence in a physical inspection of the Dutch merchantmen by the British.
  Bylandt replied that such a request was unprecedented as in peacetime the bona fides of the naval escorts of the convoy were usually accepted when the commanding officer asserted on his word of honour that the convoy did not transport contraband.  He produced the manifests of the ships in the convoy and sworn statements of the captains of the merchantmen that they did not transport contraband, and added that he had personally satisfied himself that the convoy did not contain ship's timbers, though the Dutch did not consider this contraband.  Marshall asked whether the ships carried hemp or iron (he apparently was well informed) and Bylandt admitted that they did and that this had never been considered contraband.  Marshall replied that according to the British these particular commodities now constituted contraband.  Seeing that he would not get any further with Marshall, Bylandt then sent his own flag captain, his nephew Frederik Sigismond van Bylandt, to the Namur to negotiate directly with Fielding.  This failed to produce agreement.  Fielding announced that he would start searching the Dutch vessels the next morning (as night had now fallen) and the younger Bylandt replied that in that case the Dutch would open fire.
  During the night twelve of the Dutch merchantmen managed to slip away so that the next morning the convoy only consisted of the remaining five.  Fielding now closed in with three of his ships of the line (Namur and two 74s) but was blocked by Bylandt with Prinses Royal, Argo and the frigate Alarm (the other two Dutch ships were out of reach).  Nevertheless, Namur sent a launch to one of the Dutch merchantmen and Prinses Royal then fired two shots across its bow to make it veer away.  About what happened next the British and Dutch versions differ.  According to Bylandt and his captains in their depositions under oath during his court martial the three British ships immediately fired a broadside, to which the Dutch ships replied with one broadside of their own.  According to Fielding he fired a single shot, which
caption: The British commander, Commodore Charles Fielding, c. 1780
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