Invasion of the Cape Colony

The French Revolutionary Wars, which began in 1792, following the French Revolution, expanded in January 1793, when the French Republic declared war on the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Great Britain.[1] This brought the war to the Indian Ocean, where both Britain and the Netherlands maintained lucrative empires. Trade from these empires was menaced by French privateers and warships operating from Île de France, (now Mauritius)[2] but it was protected in the waters off Southern Africa by the presence of the Dutch Cape Colony. Situated at the Cape of Good Hope, the Cape Colony had been established in the seventeenth century to offer a harbour for shipping traveling between Europe and the East Indies, and in the 1790s it remained the only such station between Rio de Janeiro and British India.[3]

The Cape Colony was administered from two towns, the larger Cape Town on the wide Table Bay facing west and smaller Simon's Town on False Bay facing south. Neither bay was sheltered from Atlantic storms and both were notoriously dangerous, with winds, currents and rocks posing considerable threats to shipping.[3] Beyond its importance as a resupply port for East Indies shipping the colony had little economic value in the 1790s,[4] and was defended by a garrison of approximately 1,000 VOC regular soldiers supplemented by the Boer militia and Khoikhoi auxiliaries under the command of General Abraham Josias Sluysken and Colonel Robert Jacob Gordon, numbering a total of 3,600 troops. This garrison was centered on the Castle of Good Hope and operated from a series of coastal fortifications which protected Table Bay. False Bay was more weakly defended, covered by only two lightly armed batteries.[5]

In the winter of 1794, French soldiers invaded the Netherlands and captured Amsterdam. After the Stadtholder, William of Orange, fled to Britain, the Dutch Republic was reconstituted as the Batavian Republic by the revolutionaries.[6] In Britain, William issued the Kew Letters instructing his colonial governors to cooperate with British occupation forces.[7] At the urging of Sir Francis Baring, the Secretary of State for War Henry Dundas authorised a mission to ensure control of the Cape Colony and eliminate the potential threat it posed to the East Indian trade.[8] The Admiralty sent two battle squadrons to the cape on 3 April 1795, one under Vice-Admiral Sir George Keith Elphinstone and the other under Commodore John Blankett, carrying a small expeditionary force of 515 soldiers from the 78th Regiment of Foot under Major-General Sir James Henry Craig. A larger force under General Alured Clarke was instructed to follow these squadrons on 15 May with troops and supplies for a longer campaign, with orders to hold at Salvador until requested.[5]

Extent of Dutch Cape Colony in 1795. Cape Town is at bottom left

Blankett and Elphinstone united off the Cape on 10 June 1795 and anchored in Simon's Bay. There messages were sent to Sluysken offering an alliance against the French.[9] The Dutch governor was inclined to resist however, evacuating the civilian population from Simon's Town in early July and making preparations to raze the town. To prevent this, Craig landed 800 soldiers and Royal Marines on 14 July,[10] who occupied Simon's Town while the Dutch withdrew to the pass at Muizenberg, through which passed the road to Cape Town.[11] For the next month the two armies observed an uneasy truce, broken by occasional patrols and sniping. During this period, Elphinstone and Sluysken continued negotiations for the surrender of the colony. These negotiations were stalled by disputes in the colonial government regarding the legitimacy of the deposed William of Orange and suspicion concerning British intentions. While the debates continued, British envoys were permitted free movement in Cape Town, making detailed observations of the defences.[9]

Elphinstone became concerned that the Dutch positions were too strong for his forces to overwhelm, and on 19 June he sent HMS Sphinx to request assistance from Clarke's fleet. On 7 August, with negotiations stalled, Elphinstone ordered an attack on the pass at Muizenberg.[12] Craig's forces were supplemented with 1,000 sailors from Elphinstone's squadron redeployed on land under captains Temple Hardy and John William Spranger.[13] Among this force were a number of American citizens who immediately deserted to the Dutch and were promised repatriation.[14] At noon on 7 August, HMS America, HMS Stately, HMS Echo and HMS Rattlesnake opened fire on Dutch forward positions. Return fire from Dutch field guns killed two men on America and wounded three more,[15] while Craig's troops were able to advance against the Dutch positions and seize them, with the Dutch defenders falling back in confusion.[16] A second attack by soldiers of the 78th captured a rocky height nearby and a Dutch counterattack the following morning was driven off by Hardy's sailors and marines.[15]

The Dutch fell back to Wynberg but British forces were not strong enough to advance, suffering shortages of food and ammunition. Elphinstone's positions were, however, improved by reinforcements, which arrived in the Arniston on 9 August, as well as disorganisation in the Dutch command resulting in stalemate.[16] The British commander subsequently authorised the seizure of five Dutch East Indiamen merchant ships at anchor at Simon's Town on 18 August. Skirmishing continued throughout the month, with stronger Dutch attacks on 1 and 2 September followed by a larger planned assault on Simon's Town on 3 September in which Sluysken committed all his reserves including 18 cannons.[15] That morning, 14 East India Company ships were seen arriving in Simon's Bay and the attack was cancelled. These ships were the reinforcement fleet under Clarke, who landed 4,000 troops from the 95th and 98th Regiments of Foot, the 2nd Battalions of the 78th and 84th Regiments of Foot, and a contingent of EIC troops from Saint Helena,[10] at Simon's Town for an overland campaign against Cape Town.[16] Clarke's army then advanced against Dutch piquets, losing one killed and 17 wounded in skirmishes.[10] To support this operation, Elphinstone sent America, Rattlesnake, Echo and the Indiaman Bombay Castle to blockade Cape Town and provide artillery support.[17] Outnumbered and surrounded, Sluysken requested a 48-hour truce from Clarke, but was given a 24-hour ultimatum to surrender. Seeing no alternative, the Dutch governor passed control of his colony to the British on 15 September 1795,[17] although he allowed approximately 40 British deserters in Cape Town, mostly impressed Americans, to escape into the countryside before the deadline passed.[14]

Total British losses were four killed and 54 wounded.[10] Captured in Table Bay were the Dutch frigate Castor and the 14-gun mercantile brig Star. The British took both into service, Castor as HMS Saldanha and Star as HMS Hope.[13] Elphinstone's substantial squadron remained on station at the Cape to deter efforts to recapture the colony. Parts of this force were subsequently deployed to bolster British forces in the Indian Ocean.[18] The blockade of Île de France was restored and Arrogant and Victorious were sent to the Dutch East Indies where they would fight an inconclusive battle with a French squadron off Sumatra in September 1796.[19] Elphinstone himself sailed for Madras, where he received reports that a Batavian Navy force had sailed from the Batavian Republic to retake the Cape Colony. The Admiral returned to Cape Town, assembling a large squadron to await the Dutch arrival. Further reports revealed the strength and progress of the Dutch and Elphinstone had ample time to prepare his squadron for their arrival and increase the garrison ashore.[20] The Dutch rear-admiral, Engelbertus Lucas, spent almost six months on the passage and gathered no intelligence on British defences. Thus when he arrived off the Cape he was soon discovered by Elphinstone in Saldanha Bay and intimidated into surrendering without a fight.[21]

No further attacks on the Cape Colony were made during the course of the war. Elphinstone returned to Britain in October 1796 and was subsequently awarded the title of Baron Keith for his service in the capture and defence of the Cape, a reward that historian C. Northcote Parkinson calls "on the whole, easily earned".[22] At the Peace of Amiens, in 1802, one of the treaty terms returned the Cape Colony, along with all captured Dutch colonies except Ceylon, to the Batavian Republic.[23] The peace was short-lived, and after the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803 a second British invasion was planned, executed in 1806 and victory secured following the Battle of Blaauwberg.[24] The Cape Colony remained part of the British Empire until its independence as part of a unified South Africa in 1910.

• Chandler, David (1999) [1993]. Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Military Library. ISBN 1-84022-203-4.
• Clowes, William Laird (1997) [1900]. The Royal Navy, A History from the Earliest Times to 1900, Volume IV. Vol. IV. London, United Kingdom of Great Britain: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 1-86176-013-2.
• Woodman, Richard; et al. (Illustrations from the National Maritime Museum) (2001) [1998]. Gardiner, Robert (ed.). The Victory of Seapower: Winning the Napoleonic War, 1806-1814 (2nd ed.). London, United Kingdom of Great Britain: Caxton Editions. ISBN 9781861760388.
• James, William (2002) [1827]. The Naval History of Great Britain, Volume 1, 1793–1796. London, England: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-905-0.
• Mostert, Noel (2007). Norton, W.W. (ed.). The Line upon a wind. An Intimate History of the Last and Greatest War Fought at Sea Under Sail: 1793—1815. London: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-7126-0927-2.
• Gardiner, Robert; et al. (With contributions from Stephen Chumbley, illustrations from the National Maritime Museum) (1996). "16. Capture of the Cape 1795". Fleet battle and blockade: The French Revolutionary War, 1793-1797 (2nd ed.). London, United Kingdom of Great Britain: Mercury Books/National Maritime Museum. pp. 70–71. ISBN 978-1861760180. Retrieved 26 June 2021 – via Amazon.com.
• Parkinson, C. Northcote (1954). War in the Eastern Seas, 1793–1815. London, England: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. Archived from the original on 24 July 2020. Retrieved 26 June 2021 – via Internet Archive.
• Potgeiter, Thean; Grundlingh, Arthur (1 July 2007). Mandrup, Thomas; Kleynhans, Evert; Fonseca, Raymond Steenkamp; Esterhuyse, Abel; Talliard, Paulette L. (eds.). "Admiral Elphinstone and the Conquest and Defence of the Cape of Good Hope, 1795–96". Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies. Saldanha, South Africa: Faculty of Military Science of Stellenbosch University/Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service. 35 (2): 39–67. doi:10.5787/35-2-37. ISSN 2309-9682. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 August 2017. Retrieved 26 June 2021.