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The Action of 24 October 1798 was a minor naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought between a British Royal Navy frigate and two ships of the Batavian Republic. The Dutch ships were intercepted in the North Sea within hours of leaving port, northwest of the Texel, by the British ship HMS ''Sirius''. Both Dutch vessels were carrying large quantities of military supplies and French soldiers, reinforcements for the French and Irish forces participating in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Although the rebellion had been defeated a month earlier, word of the British victory had not yet reached the European continent, and the Dutch force was intended to supplement a larger French squadron sent earlier in October. The French had already been defeated at the Battle of Tory Island and the Dutch suffered a similar outcome, both ships defeated in turn by the larger and better armed British vessel. Captain Richard King on ''Sirius'' discovered the Dutch ships early on 24 October, when they were separated by and thus unable to mutually support one another. Targeting the smaller ship, ''Waakzaamheid'', King was able to outrun her in an hour and force her to surrender without a fight. Turning his attention on the larger vessel, ''Furie'', King rapidly overhauled her as well and opened a heavy fire, to which ''Furie'' was only able to ineffectively reply. Within half an hour she too had surrendered. Both ships were taken to Britain, repaired and commissioned in the Royal Navy. The defeat ended the last effort by the continental nations to land soldiers in Ireland, and signified the last action of the Irish Rebellion. ==Background== Following the French Revolution in 1789, a political organisation was formed in Ireland named the Society of United Irishmen. Crossing social and religious boundaries, this organisation embraced republican principles with the stated goal of removing British government control from Ireland.〔Pakenham, p. 27〕 When Britain went to war with the French Republic in 1793, the organisation was declared illegal and driven under cover, many of its senior members going into exile in Europe or America. These men continued to call for armed resistance to the British government, and in 1796 persuaded the French Directory to launch the ''Expédition d'Irlande'', a large scale invasion of Ireland. The expedition was a disaster, with thousands of French soldiers drowned without a single man successfully landed.〔James, p. 4〕 Subsequently the French-controlled government of the Batavian Republic, formerly the Dutch Republic, was persuaded to make an attempt on Ireland in October 1797, but their fleet was intercepted and defeated by Admiral Adam Duncan at the Battle of Camperdown.〔Come, p. 186〕 In May 1798, the arrest of a number of the leaders of the United Irishmen provoked the Irish Rebellion of 1798, a widespread uprising across Ireland. The Rebellion took the British authorities by surprise, but the introduction of regular British Army troops rapidly defeated the Irish armies and the last resistance was brought to an end in September with the surrender of a small French force at the Battle of Ballinamuck.〔Smith, p. 141〕 The French authorities had also been taken by surprise by the uprising, and were consequently unprepared: the forces they deployed were inadequate to face the much larger British armies operating in Ireland at the time.〔Regan, p. 88〕 News of this defeat had still not reach the continent by October, when a second French invasion force set out. Closely watched by the Royal Navy as soon as it left Brest, the squadron was defeated on 12 October 1798 at the Battle of Tory Island: fewer than a third of the French ships returned to France.〔James, p. 144〕 The Dutch had also been persuaded to send reinforcements to the United Irishmen during the rebellion, but like the French they were unprepared for the sudden uprising and their contributions were not ready until 24 October. Two Dutch ships had been ordered to take on troops and supplies: the 36-gun frigate ''Furie'' under Captain Bartholomeus Pletz and the 24-gun corvette ''Waakzaamheid'' under Captain Meindert van Neirop, who assumed command of the expedition.〔 Although both ships were small and poorly armed, each carried a number of French soldiers for service in Ireland, ''Furie'' embarking 165 and ''Waakzaamheid'' 122. In addition, the ships carried over 6,000 stands of arms and large quantities of other military stores with which to arm the Irish irregular forces that they expected to meet.〔James, p. 241〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Action of 24 October 1798」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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