Dutch West Indies campaign

The Dutch West Indies campaign was a series of minor conflicts in 1781 and 1782, in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War and the American War of Independence. Following Great Britain's declaration of war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, British Admiral George Brydges Rodney, the commander of the Royal Navy in the West Indies, was notified by a fast-sailing packet of the declaration. He immediately acted to gain control over as many of the Dutch colonies as possible, seizing Sint Eustatius, a vital entrepot of French and Dutch trade with the Americans, in early February 1781. He also captured Saba and Sint Maarten, and orchestrated the seizure of the Dutch colonial outposts of Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo in South America. A planned expedition by Samuel Hood against Curaçao was called off on rumors that a French fleet was approaching. French action later in 1781 and in 1782 recovered the territories taken by the British, although Sint Eustatius never recovered its importance as a trading point.