[citation needed] In the course of the War of the Second Coalition, which actually was a continuation of the first war, without France, Great Britain, or the Batavian Republic having concluded a peace, Great Britain and Russia decided to launch an invasion of the Batavian Republic in the peninsula of North Holland in August 1799.

The former Stadtholder and his eldest son the Hereditary Prince tried to support the expedition by propaganda efforts and intrigues with disaffected officers.

[1] To accomplish this bloodless capture, the Allied fleet came stocked with the Prinsenvlag, pro-Orangist pamphlets, and Dutch émigrés, the most important of whom was the Hereditary Prince.

[2] One of the Orangist officers who had left the Navy in 1795, Carel Hendrik Ver Huell, had on behalf of the Prince contacted two of his former colleagues, Theodorus Frederik van Capellen and Aegidius van Braam (who had re-enlisted in the Batavian navy), with the object of getting them to organize a mutiny in the Helder squadron (where they each commanded a ship of the line).

However, on 22 August, British Vice-Admiral Andrew Mitchell was able to approach the roadstead of Den Helder where the squadron of Admiral Story lay at anchor.

[citation needed] On 26 August an Anglo-Russian[3] invasion fleet of eleven ships-of-the-line and seven frigates arrived at the roadstead of Texel, flying the flag of the Prince of Orange.

General Herman Willem Daendels, the commander of the Batavian land forces, ordered the evacuation of the coastal forts of Den Helder after losing the Battle of Callantsoog (1799).

Enervated by the sight of the Orange Prince's Flag on the forts and church steeples of Den Helder, several ships' crews began to mutiny.

Instead, he informed his commanding officer, Admiral Story—who himself had to counter an incipient mutiny on the flagship Washington—of the "precarious situation" aboard the other ships of the fleet.

Van Capellen and De Jong were to instruct Mitchell that the Dutch fleet intended to give battle in accordance with explicit orders from the agent for the Navy of the Batavian Republic, Jacobus Spoors, but that Story had requested further orders and proposed to await those.

To you in this letter, I apprehend I do right inform you, that above mentioned captains did declare their attachment to the Stadholder and the former government and their disgust at the present government and their French connections ..."[4] Before this council started, the crew of the Washington had already begun a full mutiny, refusing to man the guns, and throwing munitions into the sea.

When asked during the council of war to describe the situation aboard their ships, all except Captain Van Senden of Batavier had similar stories.

Finally, some calculated that it would be better to surrender without resistance, because in that case the ships would end up in the possession of the Stadtholder, instead of becoming war prizes for the Allied forces.

[11] One captain, N. Connio, of the brig Gier was condemned to death, and executed on board the guard ship Rozenburg on 27 December, to the consternation of the detained officers.

Captain Dirk Hendrik Kolff of Utrecht was also condemned to death, but he managed to escape before his execution.

[11] Captain De Jong was acquitted of the charge of treason, for lack of evidence, but he was convicted of dereliction of duty.

He was cashiered; had to undergo a symbolic simulated execution (whereby a sword was swung over his head), and was banished for life.

Van Capellen became a vice-admiral in the new Royal Netherlands Navy, and commanded a squadron at the Bombardment of Algiers in 1816.