Action of 4 February 1781

rdf:langString Action of 4 February 1781

rdf:langString Action of 4 February 1781

rdf:langString Francis Moreton

rdf:langString Willem Krull

rdf:langString the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War

rdf:langString Off Sombrero, Caribbean Sea

rdf:langString British victory

rdf:langString The action of 4 February 1781 was a minor naval engagement that occurred on 4 February 1781 off Sombrero, Anguilla, between a British force of two ships of the line and one frigate under the command of Captain Francis Reynolds-Moreton, 3rd Baron Ducie and a Dutch frigate escorting thirty merchant ships under the command of Rear-Admiral Willem Krull, and resulted in the capture of all Dutch vessels present by the British. The battle occurred soon after a British expeditionary force under the command of Admiral George Brydges Rodney had captured the Dutch colony of Sint Eustatius during the opening stages of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, a conflict resulting from tensions between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Dutch Republic over Dutch support for the American rebels during the Revolutionary War. The Dutch had been secretly supplying the Continental forces with supplies and munitions, causing the British to declare war on them in 1780, after the United States had managed to secure Dutch recognition of them as a belligerent and allow for trade between the two countries. The war consisted mostly of a series of successful British expeditions against the Dutch colonial empire. Rodney was put in command of an expeditionary force with the aim to capture the Dutch colony of Sint Eustatius in the Caribbean. The capture proved controversial in Britain due to allegations that Rodney enriched himself at the expense of putting his expeditionary force to sea to capture other Dutch colonies. Rodney received intelligence that a convoy of thirty Dutch merchant ships, laden with sugar and coffee had left the harbour a few days ago under the protection of a Dutch frigate and made sail back towards the Dutch Republic. A British squadron under Francis Reynolds-Moreton set sail immediately following their direction, and on 4 February, managed to catch up with the Dutch convoy and engage the lone Dutch frigate, the Mars, which proved no match for the superior British forces. After thirty minutes of being pounded with a furious cannonade from the British ships, the Dutch rear-admiral, Willem Krull, gave his dying orders for the Mars to strike her colours to the British. The convoy, helpless without their escort, were all easily captured along with their cargo, and brought back to British territory. Reynolds-Moreton would go on to see action in several more naval battles, such as the Battle of the Saintes and the Battle of the Mona Passage, and ended his career as a Member of Parliament for Lancaster from 1784 until 1785, long after the conclusion of both the American Revolutionary War and the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.