An expedition was dispatched from British India in April 1811, while a small squadron of Royal Navy frigates was ordered to patrol off the island, raiding shipping and launching amphibious assaults against targets of opportunity.

The defenders withdrew to a previously prepared fortified position, Fort Cornelis, which the British besieged, capturing it early in the morning of 26 August.

The island remained in British hands for the remainder of the Napoleonic Wars, but was returned to Dutch control in 1816, as per the terms of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814.

With the large forces which had been made available to him for the Mauritius campaign, Minto enthusiastically adopted the suggestion, and even proposed to accompany the expedition himself.

[6] The first division of troops, under the command of Colonel Rollo Gillespie, left Madras on 18 April, escorted by a squadron under Captain Christopher Cole aboard the 36-gun HMS Caroline.

They arrived at Penang on 18 May, and on 21 May the second division, led by Major-General Frederick Augustus Wetherall, which had left Calcutta on 21 April, escorted by a squadron under Captain Fleetwood Pellew, aboard the 38-gun HMS Phaeton joined them.

[6] The two squadrons sailed together, arriving at Malacca on 1 June, where they made contact with a division of troops from Bengal under Lieutenant-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty, escorted by Commodore Broughton aboard the 74-gun HMS Illustrious.

[3] On 31 July Captain Maunsell commanding the sloop the Procris, discovered a convoy of 40 or 50 proas, escorted by six French gunboats in the mouth of the Indromayo river.

Colonel Mackenzie, an officer who had been dispatched to reconnoitre the coast, suggested a landing site at Cilincing, an undefended fishing village 12 miles (19 km) east of Batavia.

[9][10] The British were disappointed to find that part of the town had been set on fire, and many warehouses full of goods such as coffee and sugar had been looted or flooded, depriving them of prize money.

[11][12] Stopford had orders to supersede Rear-Admiral Albemarle Bertie as commander in chief at the Cape, but on his arrival he learnt of Vice-Admiral Drury's death, and the planned expedition to Java, and so travelled on.

[13] In one skirmish, one of Janssens's French subordinates, General Alberti, was killed when he mistook some British riflemen[citation needed] in their green uniforms for Dutch troops.

On 14 August the British completed a trail through the forests and pepper plantations to allow them to bring up heavy guns and munitions, and opened siege works on the north side of the Fort.

[14] A sortie from the fort early on the morning of 22 August briefly seized three of the British batteries, until they were driven back by some of the Bengal Sepoys and the 69th Foot.

Bucephalus's commander, Captain Charles Pelly, turned about and tried to lead the pursuing French over shoals, but seeing the danger, they hauled off and abandoned the chase, returning to Europe.

[24] Java became the last major colonial possession in the East not under British control, and its fall marked the effective end of the war in these waters.

Britain returned Java and other East Indian possessions to the newly independent United Kingdom of the Netherlands under the terms of the Convention of London in 1814.

The Bengali sepoy regiments stationed in Yogyakarta in 1815, inspired by the Hindu rituals of the Surakarta court and the glory of the Javanese temples of Prambanan and Borobodur planned a revolt against the British.

This plot was conjured with the help of Sunan and the sepoys planned to kill all the British officers, overthrow European power, and install a Bengali administration over the whole island.

This they would say was the country in which their gods took delight; this must be the country described in their sacredbooks and not Hindustan, which, if ever the abode of the gods must have since been strangely altered, and that it was a sin and a shame that the land of Brama should remain in the hands of infidelsHe further stated that this revolt would ultimately have led to the reestablishment of Hinduism in Java and the expulsion of European power The intimacy between this prince [Pakubuwana IV] and the Sepoys first commenced from his attending ceremonies of their religious worship, which was Hindu, and assisting them with several idols of that worship which had been preserved in his family.

The conspirators availing themselves of the predilection of the prince for the religion of his ancestors, flattered him by addressing him as a descendant of the great Ráma [Rama], and a deliberate plan was formed, the object of which was to place the European provinces once more under a Hindu power.

In Surakarta, however, the Sunan immediately responded to the sepoys’ overtures by lending them Hindu images from the court collections and by providing money for the decoration of the statues and to light up the ghāt (platforms) on which they were placed.

In return, the Sunan welcomed leading sepoy conspirators into his court, sitting with them in the evenings at the Randingan, the place set aside for archery practice in the kraton, where he would interrogate them on the manner and customs of India and watch their gymnastic displays (Carey 1977:303, 317 note 61).