Duncan's fleet won a complete victory over de Winter's in what was the most significant engagement between British and Batavian forces during the French Revolutionary Wars, capturing eleven ships without losing any of their own.

With the Navy suffering severe shortages in men and equipment and with other theatres of war deemed more important, small, old and poorly maintained ships were activated from reserve and based in harbours in East Anglia, principally the port of Yarmouth, under the command of Admiral Adam Duncan.

Tone joined the staff of Vice-Admiral Jan Willem de Winter on his flagship Vrijheid in the Texel and 13,500 Dutch troops were equipped in preparation for the operation, the fleet waiting only for the best moment to take advantage of easterly winds and sweep past the British blockade and down the English Channel.

When men from his flagship, HMS Venerable, clambered up into the rigging and roared three cheers in a prearranged signal for the revolt to begin on 1 May, Duncan initially threatened to run the ringleader through with his sword.

So fierce was his tone that the men fell silent and hesitantly returned to their quarters except for five ringleaders, whom he admonished personally on his quarterdeck before issuing a general pardon and dismissing them to their duty.

When a sailor stepped forward, Duncan seized him by his shirt and dangled him over the side of the ship with one arm crying, "My lads – look at this fellow – he who dares to deprive me of command of the fleet".

[27] By the middle of August 1797, after six weeks of constant easterly winds that kept his ships trapped in their harbour, De Winter decided that an attempt to join the French at Brest as the first stage of an invasion of Ireland was impractical and he abandoned the plan.

[28] In addition to his concerns about the proficiency of his men, De Winter was also worried about their loyalty: the dominion of France over the Batavian Republic and the country's enforced participation in distant theatres of warfare were unpopular among the Dutch people.

[29] Although De Winter was an avowed republican, who had fought in the French Army against the Netherlands between 1793 and 1795, support for the House of Orange remained strong among the Dutch population and with the fleet's sailors.

Although some sources, particularly in France, have claimed that De Winter was determined to bring Duncan to battle,[32] in reality he was more concerned that his men were disaffected and inexperienced by their long stay in port, and had reluctantly acceded to orders from the Batavian government to conduct a brief sweep in the Southern North Sea in search of weak British forces that could be overwhelmed by his fleet or drawn into the dangerous shallow waters of the Dutch coastline.

The despatch vessel flew the signal for an enemy as it entered Yarmouth roads early in the morning on 9 October, so that by the time it had docked the British fleet was already preparing to sail,[Note 3] Duncan sending the final message to the Admiralty: "The wind is now in the NE and [I] shall make good course over to them, and if it please God, hope to get at them.

The weather was poor, with heavy seas and strong wind from the southeast broken by frequent rain squalls,[33] but this did not prevent hundreds of Dutch civilians gathering on the dunes to watch the impending combat.

Shortly afterwards, concerned that the Dutch might make the shoreline before he could bring them to battle despite his wry insistence that "I am determined to fight the ships on land if I cannot by sea",[41] Duncan ordered his fleet to turn southwards and advance on the enemy and "bear up and sail large".

He then made an effort to re-establish the line on the starboard tack before realising that the Dutch fleet was still in order awaiting the British attack and continually drawing closer to the dangerous coastline.

[43] Monarch was almost immediately followed by HMS Powerful under Captain William O'Bryen Drury, which passed through the same gap, raked Haarlem again and poured a destructive fire into the wallowing Monnikkendam.

[56] Despite the heavy odds Duncan continued to fight hard, the British succeeded in knocking out two opponents by wounding Captain Dooitze Eelkes Hinxt of Beschermer, which drifted eastwards in confusion, while shots from either Bedford or Triumph set a powder barrel on Hercules on fire.

[53] With the arrival of British reinforcements and the retreat of sections of the Dutch fleet, the battle was almost complete; the battered Wassenaar surrendered for the second time, to Russell, while Admiraal Tjerk Hiddes De Vries and Gelijkheid, both of which were too badly damaged to escape, also struck their colours.

On being informed that he was a prisoner of war, he replied "This is my destiny not foreseen" and, after checking on a mortally wounded officer who lay on the quarterdeck, he followed the boarding party back to their boat for the trip to Venerable.

[63] The worst hit of the British ships were those in the first wave, such as Ardent with 148 casualties, Monarch with 136 and Belliqueux under Cpt John Inglis with 103, while both Adamant and Agincourt escaped without a single man killed or wounded.

[70] On 13 October, Duncan completed his official despatch and sent it ahead of his wallowing ships with Captain William George Fairfax on the cutter Rose: he praised all of his men, reserving special mention for Trollope and the late Burges, whom he called a "good and gallant Officer...a sincere Friend".

Bullen offered a place in the first rescue boat, from Veteran, to Heilberg, but the Dutch officer refused, gesturing to the immobile wounded who had been brought onto the maindeck as the lower decks had flooded and replying "But how can I leave these men?".

[72] The prize crew left on the second rescue boat sent from Russell, and Bullen and Heilberg waited for a third trip to bring them off with the remaining 30 wounded men and three junior Dutch officers who had also elected to stay.

Admiral Bloys van Treslong had sailed for the coast off Hinder with two brigs, and there on 13 October the 40-gun British frigate HMS Endymion under Captain Sir Thomas Williams found him.

Unable to reach Duncan's flagship, the King instead rewarded the fleet as a whole by pardoning 180 men condemned for their role in the Nore Mutiny and held aboard the prison hulk HMS Eagle in the River Medway.

[5] A public subscription was taken up for the widows and wounded and raised £52,609 10s and 10d (the equivalent of £6,880,000 as of 2025),[81][64] When Duncan travelled to a reception at The Guildhall on 10 November, a mob surrounded his carriage in the street, unhitched the horses and dragged it themselves up Ludgate Hill as a mark of respect.

As a result, Williamson was accused of failing to do his duty by Captain Hopper of Agincourt's Royal Marines and court-martialled on 4 December 1797, at Sheerness aboard Circe, on the charges of "disobedience to signals and not going into action" and "cowardice and disaffection".

[68] All of the captured Dutch ships were bought into the Royal Navy, Gelijkheid, Vrijheid, Wassenaar, Haarlem and Alkmaar under their own names (although in most cases they were anglicised) and Admiraal Tjerk Hiddes De Vries as the simpler Devries.

[89] Although Camperdown was considered the greatest ever victory for a British fleet over an equal enemy force to that date,[42] historian Noel Mostert has noted that it "was a battle that, with posterity, somehow lost rank and significance against the greater and more romantically glorious events that followed".

"[97] but some of the highest praise came from his erstwhile opponent, De Winter, who wrote that "Your not waiting to form line ruined me: if I had got nearer the shore and you had attacked, I should probably have drawn both fleets on it, and it would have been a victory for me, being on my own coast.

[72] De Winter was released from captivity in 1798 after news reached Britain that his wife had suffered a stroke, and he subsequently became the Batavian ambassador to France, before resuming command of the Dutch fleet at the start of the Napoleonic Wars.