Affair of Fielding and Bylandt
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.
So-called "naval stores" (by which were commonly understood: ship's timbers, masts and spars, rope, canvas, tar and pitch) were not to be considered contraband.
Arguably it exempted Dutch bottoms from inspection by the Royal Navy (or at least from confiscation of the goods in British prize courts), thereby undermining Britain's ability to maintain an effective embargo on the trade of her enemies, especially because Dutch shipping at the time still played a major role in the European carrying trade.
[3] However, the highly federalized structure of the Republic prevented the central government from effectively interfering with the commerce of cities like Amsterdam, which conducted a highly profitable trade with the American rebels (exchanging arms and munitions for colonial wares, like tobacco) via the entrepôt of the Dutch West India Company in its colony of St. Eustatius.
It also (reluctantly) provided shelter in Dutch territorial waters for the squadron of the American privateer John Paul Jones in 1779, and refused to embargo the export of arms and munitions.
When diplomatic means did not suffice, the Royal Navy resorted increasingly to seizure of what it considered "contraband" in Dutch bottoms on the high seas.
This soon convinced those cities to fall in line with Amsterdam and start clamouring for escort by Dutch naval vessels of convoys of merchantmen.
Twenty-four new ships of the line were to be built, but this programme progressed only slowly, mainly because only the province of Holland paid its share of the cost.
[6] 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).
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.
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.
It transpired at Bylandt's court martial that he had given sealed orders to his captains before departure from the Texel that they had to surrender when he gave a designated signal.
He later explained that he had written these secret orders, because he foresaw that he would be confronted with an overwhelming superiority in numbers and guns, against which resistance would be useless.
Fielding proceeded with his inspection of the five merchantmen and duly arrested them when he found the contraband in question, bales of hemp being stashed in the hold.
However, to avoid the possibility of starting an engagement in which his fleet was outmatched, and because he wished to carefully observe the treaties, Bylandt complied with this demand.
Finally, the British sailed with their prizes to Portsmouth, followed into port by Bylandt, who sent a complaint to the Dutch ambassador in Britain, count Van Welderen, as soon as he arrived.
[16] Dutch public opinion was incensed, both by the inspection and by what they considered Bylandt's pusillanimity, that in the view of many amounted to cowardice, if not treason.
This blue-ribbon panel, consisting of no less than seven admirals, soon acquitted him of all charges brought against him though his secret surrender orders required some suppleness of mind in explaining them away.
The Dutch would henceforth try to defend their full treaty rights, to the satisfaction of France, which suspended its economic sanctions.
