The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 2, Winter 2019 | Seite 120

Foreign Intervention: The Influence of the French
lowed ship materials, such as masts, to
arrive in French ports via the canals. 53
Once the blockade became ineffective,
the British elected to declare war on the
Netherlands in order to directly blockade
her coasts and halt the flow of war
materiel to France.
Britain declared war on December
20, 1780 and set about shutting
down Dutch maritime trade. The
result was the economic ruin of the
Netherlands, as the Dutch did not have
the naval or political power to break
the English blockade. 54 The economic
fallout from the war also affected the
Dutch colonies in the West Indies, and
the Netherlands relinquished the colonies
of Demerary and Essequebo in the
southern Caribbean to Great Britain
without a fight in 1781. 55 The French,
however, captured these colonies from
the British in 1782, which they returned
to the Dutch at the war’s end. 56
The major naval engagement between
the British and the Dutch took
place in 1781, when the two navies
fought an inconclusive engagement in
the North Sea. While the actual battle
was a tactical draw, strategically the
British scored a victory, as they effectively
kept the Dutch navy bottled up in
its home waters for the remainder of the
war. 57 This latter development was important,
as it removed one of the Royal
Navy’s maritime foes from the contest.
The naval war in European waters, particularly
after the Dutch retreat, was at
something of a standstill. The attention
of the remaining combatants shifted
to the West Indies, which was of vital
interest to the British, and they accordingly
sent an able commander to re-es-
5