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Affair of Fielding and Bylandt
The Affair of Fielding and Bylandt refers to a brief naval engagement off the Isle of Wight on 31 December 1779 between a Royal Navy squadron, commanded by Commodore Charles Fielding, and a naval squadron of the Dutch Republic, commanded by rear-admiral Lodewijk van Bylandt, escorting a Dutch convoy. The Dutch and British were not yet at war, but the British wished to inspect the Dutch merchantmen for what they considered contraband destined for France, then engaged in the American War of Independence. Bylandt attempted to avoid the engagement by offering the ships' manifests, but when Fielding insisted on a physical inspection, Bylandt put up a brief show of force, before striking his colours. The British then seized the Dutch merchantmen and conducted them as prizes to Portsmouth, followed by the Dutch squadron. The incident worsened the diplomatic relations between Great Britain and the Dutch Republic almost to breaking point. It also contributed to the formation of the First League of Armed Neutrality to which the Dutch acceded in December, 1780. To prevent their receiving assistance from other members of that League, Britain declared the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War shortly afterwards.
==Background==
The Dutch Republic had, after a period of strife during the second half of the 17th century, become a steadfast ally of the Kingdom of Great Britain, initially (after the Glorious Revolution of 1688) as the senior partner in the alliance, but later in the 18th century as the increasingly junior partner. It was bound to Britain by a number of treaties of military alliance (notably those of 1678, 1689 and 1716) which arguably obligated it to offer armed support. On the other hand, it had obtained in the Treaty of Breda and its offshoot, the Commercial Treaty of 1668 (confirmed in the Treaty of Westminster) an important concession from England: the right to transport non-contraband goods in its ships to countries with which Britain was at war, without these goods being subject to seizure by Britain even if they were owned by subjects of belligerent powers (this was usually referred to as the principle of "free ship, free goods"). The concept "contraband" was narrowly defined in these treaties as "arms and munitions." So-called "naval stores" (by which were commonly understood: ship's timbers, masts and spars, rope, canvas, tar and pitch) were not to be considered contraband.〔Edler, p. 96〕 This right became important during wars in which Britain was a participant, but the Republic remained neutral, like the Seven Years' War and after 1778 the American Revolutionary War, in which Britain opposed the rebelling American Colonies and their allies, France and Spain. It exempted Dutch bottoms arguably from inspection by the Royal Navy (or at least from confiscation of the goods in British prize courts), thereby undermining Britain's ability to maintain an effective embargo on the trade of her enemies, especially because Dutch shipping at the time still played a major role in the European carrying trade.〔Edler, p. 100〕
Though public opinion in the Republic became more and more sympathetic to the American Revolution in the years after 1776, the Dutch government that was dominated by stadtholder William V and his autocratic regime, inclined to support the British.〔Edler, p. 209; William was a cousin of king George III. Edler suggests that he had a personal stake in good relations with the British crown because he wished to marry off his only daughter to the Prince of Wales. However, in reality this happened much later (the daughter, Frederika Luise Wilhelmina, was born in 1770), and is unlikely to have had an influence at the time. To illustrate William's personal animosity toward the American Revolution: there exists a letter by him from August 1776 in which he calls the American Declaration of Independence "the parody of the proclamation issued by our forefathers against King Philip II."; (2007) ''The declaration of independence: a global history''. Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-02282-3, p. 43〕 However, the highly federalized structure of the Republic prevented the central government from effectively interfering with the commerce of cities like Amsterdam, which conducted a highly profitable trade with the American rebels (exchanging arms and munitions for colonial wares, like tobacco) via the entrepôt of the Dutch West India Company in its colony of St. Eustatius. The Amsterdam merchants also supplied France with naval stores, which that country needed for its naval construction, but was unable to procure itself in Norway and the Baltic countries, due to the British blockade. The Republic as a ''neutral'' power was therefore very useful for the French and their war effort. Britain, of course, viewed these developments with disfavour, and tried to force the Dutch government to put a stop to them. Diplomatic means failed, however. The Republic refused to provide military assistance in the form of the "loan" of its mercenary Scottish Brigade, when Britain requested that brigade for service in America. It also (reluctantly) provided shelter in Dutch territorial waters for the squadron of the American privateer John Paul Jones in 1779, and refused to embargo the export of arms and munitions. These refusals were due to the influence of Amsterdam, but also to diplomatic counter-pressure of France, exerted by its highly able ambassador Paul François de Quelen de la Vauguyon. When diplomatic means did not suffice, Britain resorted increasingly to seizure of what it considered "contraband" in Dutch bottoms on the high seas by the Royal Navy and British privateers. This elicited howls of protest from the affected merchants, for which the Dutch government at first remained deaf. France then started to exert pressure on the Dutch government to "defend its treaty rights" by selectively subjecting the Dutch cities, that supported the stadtholder in his opposition to taking countermeasures against the British "depredations," to economic sanctions. This soon convinced those cities to fall in line with Amsterdam and start clamouring for escort by Dutch naval vessels of convoys of merchantmen.〔Edler, pp. 100–117〕
The States-General of the Netherlands (the governing body of the Republic) changed its position in November, 1779 and ordered the stadtholder, in his quality of commander-in-chief of the Dutch armed forces, to start offering ''limited'' convoy services to Dutch shipping. This despite the fact that the Dutch navy, because of long neglect, had become only a shadow of its former self. The 20 ships of the line that were not too old to serve, were no match for the British ships armed with 90 or 80 guns. According to the Dutch historian De Jonge the Royal Navy at the time had 137 ships of the line and France 68. After much discussion the States-General had decided on a programme of naval construction in 1778. Twenty-four new ships of the line were to be built, but this programme progressed only slowly, mainly because only the province of Holland paid its share of the cost.〔De Jonge, pp. 391– 395〕 None of the new ships were as yet available. This did not bode well for a future naval conflict between the Republic and Great Britain and may help explain a certain lack of enthusiasm in the Dutch navy to engage in such a conflict. It should be noted that though the Republic did not concede the British interpretation of the Commercial Treaty that naval stores were to be considered contraband after all, the stadtholder prevailed in his policy of nevertheless excluding such stores from the convoys, to minimize friction with the British.〔De Jonge, pp. 396–398〕
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