Affair of Fielding and Bylandt
1779 CE.
Shown on the map at 50.233°, -1.583°.
The affair of Fielding and Bylandt was 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 squadron of the Dutch States Navy, commanded by Schout-bij-nacht Lodewijk van Bylandt, escorting a Dutch convoy. The Dutch and British were not yet at war, but Fielding wished to inspect the Dutch merchantmen for what they considered contraband destined for France, then engaged in the American Revolutionary War. Bylandt attempted to avoid an engagement by offering to allow the British to inspect the ships' manifests, but when Fielding insisted on a physical inspection, Bylandt fired a single broadside before striking his colours. Fielding's squadron proceeded to take the Dutch convoy as prizes to Portsmouth, followed by van Bylandt's squadron. The incident worsened already strained Anglo-Dutch relations, and also contributed to the formation of the First League of Armed Neutrality to which the Dutch tried to accede in December 1780. Britain declared war on the Dutch in the same month, initiating the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.
Text from the Wikipedia article Affair of Fielding and Bylandt, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.