The Island of Mozambique was occupied by Portugal in order to serve as an essential port of call between Europe and Asia for their India Armadas, and fortified it in the mid 16th century, building the strong fort São Sebastião.

[1] On 20 April 1606, Paulus van Caerden set sail from Texel with a force of 1060 men embarked on 8 warships (the Banda, Walcheren, Bantam, Ceylon, Ter Veere, China, Patane and Zierikzee[4]) and one patache.

[1] They then manned the launches and managed to capture a Portuguese galliot anchored in the harbour and cut the mooring lines of two poorly defended galleons, which ran aground and were torched.

On the night of 29 April, 25 Portuguese conducted a sally on Dutch siege works under the rain, when muskets could not be used and killed 30 sailors, though they were repulsed.

Van Caerden returned to Mozambique on 4 August, however he remained at bay hoping to capture any passing Portuguese tradeship.