Lodewijk van Bylandt
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Lodewijk Count van Bylandt ( Keken, 1718 – Hoeven, 28 December 1793) was a Dutch lieutenant-admiral. He gained a certain notoriety in the
Affair of Fielding and Bylandt 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 naval squadron of the Dutch Republic, commanded by rear-admir ...
of 1779 and even more in consequence of the refusal of the Dutch navy to put out to sea to combine with the French fleet in
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in 1783, during the
Fourth Anglo-Dutch War The Fourth Anglo-Dutch War ( nl, Vierde Engels-Nederlandse Oorlog; 1780–1784) was a conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Dutch Republic. The war, contemporary with the War of American Independence (1775-1783), broke out ove ...
, for which refusal many held him responsible. He was court-martialed and exonerated in the first case, and in the second case an inquiry into his conduct was long delayed and eventually quietly abandoned after stadtholder
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had prevailed against the Patriots in 1787. This made his promotion to lieutenant-admiral (the highest rank in the Dutch navy, as that of General Admiral could only be held by the stadtholder) possible. He died in office as inspector-general and commander of the gunners corps of the navy of the
Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...
.


Family life

Van Bylandt was the son of Ludwig Roeleman,
Imperial Count Imperial Count (german: Reichsgraf) was a title in the Holy Roman Empire. In the medieval era, it was used exclusively to designate the holder of an imperial county, that is, a fief held directly ( immediately) from the emperor, rather than from ...
of Bylandt-Halt (a
cadet branch In history and heraldry, a cadet branch consists of the male-line descendants of a monarch's or patriarch's younger sons ( cadets). In the ruling dynasties and noble families of much of Europe and Asia, the family's major assets— realm, tit ...
of the House of Bylandt), a Prussian high official, and Christina Maria Louisa Freiin (baroness) von Heyden - Broeck. He never married. He was a relative of several other high officers in the army and navy of the Dutch Republic and
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, among whom Willem Frederik van Bylandt, who commanded a brigade at the
Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...
.


Career

Van Bylandt entered the Dutch navy as an ''adelborst'' ( midshipman) in 1736 in which year he sailed on a cruise to Curaçao. He attained the rank of captain in 1747. In 1756 he was captain of ''West Stellingwerff'' and in 1768 of ''Thetis'' with which he took part in expeditions against the Barbary corsairs in those years. In 1775 Van Bylandt was acting-commander of a Dutch naval expedition (with the rank of
rear-admiral Rear admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, equivalent to a major general and air vice marshal and above that of a commodore and captain, but below that of a vice admiral. It is regarded as a two star "admiral" rank. It is often regarde ...
) against
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. This expedition was successful in its object to force Sultan
Mohammed ben Abdallah ''Sidi'' Mohammed ben Abdallah ''al-Khatib'' ( ar, سيدي محمد بن عبد الله الخطيب), known as Mohammed III ( ar, محمد الثالث), born in 1710 in Fes and died on 9 April 1790 in Meknes, was the Sultan of Morocco from 17 ...
to sue for peace. After the start of the
American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
Dutch merchants became heavily involved in trade with the new American Republic. The Dutch West India Company had an
entrepôt An ''entrepôt'' (; ) or transshipment port is a port, city, or trading post where merchandise may be imported, stored, or traded, usually to be exported again. Such cities often sprang up and such ports and trading posts often developed into c ...
in its colony of St. Eustatius where American merchants came to trade in colonial wares like tobacco and indigo (which had hitherto been prohibited to them under the British
Navigation Acts The Navigation Acts, or more broadly the Acts of Trade and Navigation, were a long series of English laws that developed, promoted, and regulated English ships, shipping, trade, and commerce between other countries and with its own colonies. The ...
). Dutch and French merchants imported guns and munitions, and also naval stores to St. Eustatius, which were then re-exported to the rebellious American colonies. The British considered such trade "illegal" and tried to hinder it by enforcing a trade
embargo Economic sanctions are commercial and financial penalties applied by one or more countries against a targeted self-governing state, group, or individual. Economic sanctions are not necessarily imposed because of economic circumstances—they m ...
with the help of British
privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...
s, which were an encumbrance to American merchantmen that visited the island, and also to Dutch, French and other neutral shipping (France was at this time not yet at war with Great Britain). To suppress this privateer activity the Dutch government sent a Dutch naval squadron under Van Bylandt to the
West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...
. He remained there a year and was successful in keeping the privateers at bay. (Note that at this time the Dutch Republic was still neutral and was just defending its rights as such). After France and Spain became involved in the
War of the American Revolution The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
in 1778 Dutch merchants also were heavily involved in trade with these belligerents in goods that the British considered contraband, but that fell outside the narrow definition of that concept in the Anglo-Dutch Commercial Treaty of 1668. This treaty guaranteed Dutch shipping a privileged status and exempted it from trade embargoes enforced by the British
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
as far as non-contraband goods were concerned. A diplomatic conflict between Great Britain now ensued about the interpretation of this treaty and of the definition of "contraband" under it. The British tried to declare naval stores, like ship's timbers, spars, masts, rope, tar and pitch "contraband," against which the Dutch maintained the narrow definition of the treaty as only "arms and munitions." The trade in naval stores was important to France, as her naval construction depended on it. France therefore strongly opposed the tendency of the pro-British Dutch government of stadtholder
William V William V may refer to: * William V, Duke of Aquitaine (969–1030) *William V of Montpellier (1075–1121) * William V, Marquess of Montferrat (1191) * William V, Count of Nevers (before 11751181) *William V, Duke of Jülich (1299–1361) * Willia ...
to give in to the British demands and insisted on the Dutch "defending their treaty rights" to the point of selectively using economic sanctions against Dutch cities that supported the stadtholder's policy on this point. In November 1779 the
States-General of the Netherlands The States General of the Netherlands ( nl, Staten-Generaal ) is the supreme bicameral legislature of the Netherlands consisting of the Senate () and the House of Representatives (). Both chambers meet at the Binnenhof in The Hague. The States ...
therefore directed the stadtholder (as commander-in-chief of the Dutch navy) to offer limited convoy to Dutch merchants. This was a compromise, as it still excluded protection of merchantmen transporting naval stores to belligerents, but it was hoped that other, even more innocent Dutch vessels could be protected from the harassment of the Royal Navy and British privateers in this way. One of the first convoys, escorted by five Dutch warships under command of Van Bylandt, departed from the
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in December 1779, and was intercepted by a far stronger British squadron near the
Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...
on 30 December 1779. This led to the celebrated
Affair of Fielding and Bylandt 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 naval squadron of the Dutch Republic, commanded by rear-admir ...
in which Bylandt was forced to strike his colors after firing just one broadside. This humiliation caused a furore in the Dutch Republic in which the stadtholder was also attacked. Van Bylandt demanded a special court-martial to clear his name of accusations of cowardice and treason, and he was acquitted. After the Affair the relations between the Republic and Great Britain steadily deteriorated, and the latter started the
Fourth Anglo-Dutch War The Fourth Anglo-Dutch War ( nl, Vierde Engels-Nederlandse Oorlog; 1780–1784) was a conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Dutch Republic. The war, contemporary with the War of American Independence (1775-1783), broke out ove ...
in December 1780. The Dutch colonies in the West Indies were immediately attacked and Great Britain soon captured St. Eustatius that was subsequently devastated by admiral Rodney. According to his biographer Molhuysen Van Bylandt was also sent to the area and he successfully organized the defense of Curaçao, which remained in Dutch hands. However, other sources, notably Dirks, tell us that Bylandt was never directly involved in the defense of Curaçao, but only detached a ship of the squadron with which he was staying in Lisbon at the time for that purpose. After his return to the Netherlands in 1781 he was promoted to vice-admiral and ordered to contest the British blockade of the Dutch coast. He found the state of the Dutch fleet so deplorable, however, that nothing came of this. As the stadtholder resisted a formal alliance with the French there was little cooperation between the Dutch, and the French and Spanish armed forces in the common war with Great Britain, which the Republic conducted as if it were alone. The French strongly favored informal cooperation in specific projects, however, and the stadtholder was not always able to prevent those. One of these projects was the combination of the French and Dutch fleets at
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in late 1782 (when the main British fleet had sailed to Spain to defend
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), with the objective of either harassing the British coast, or attacking the British West-Indies fleet of admiral Rodney that was expected to return around this time. After long dithering the Dutch decided to provide ten ships of the line for such a project, and Van Bylandt was put in charge of this squadron. When he had inspected the ships he refused point-blank to sail in them, however, as he considered their state of readiness insufficient. In this refusal he was supported by the other Dutch commanders. The Dutch government was therefore forced to admit to the French that it was unable to provide the promised naval support. This again caused a furor in the Republic and public opinion also held the stadtholder responsible for the fiasco, though he for once had supported the expedition. The
States of Holland The States of Holland and West Frisia ( nl, Staten van Holland en West-Friesland) were the representation of the two Estates (''standen'') to the court of the Count of Holland. After the United Provinces were formed — and there no longer was a c ...
demanded a public inquiry and the commission that conducted that inquiry recommended prosecution of the officers involved, especially Van Bylandt. This time a court-martial was not deemed to be sufficient, but the case was taken up by a special judicial commission of the States-General at the end of 1783. The trial only started in 1785 (after the war had already ended) and was dragged out by his friends. Meanwhile, the revolt of the Patriots took its course and the military intervention of the Prussians and British in 1787, that ended that revolt, also enabled the stadtholder to quietly end the inquiry. Van Bylandt had never lost the favor of the stadtholder and the latter was now able to promote him to lieutenant-admiral. He was given the prestigious function of inspector-general of the corps of naval gunners. He died in 1793, still in office. During his career he made great contributions to codification of naval tactics with his ''Zeetactiek of Grondregelen der krijgskunde ter zee'' ("Naval tactics or Fundamentals of military science at sea;" Amsterdam, 1767) and he is also credited with restoring discipline in the fleet, which apparently had reached a low level at some point.Molhuysen, p. 386


Notes


Sources

* (1871) ''De Nederlandsche Zeemagt in Hare verschillende Tijdperken Geschetst. Deel 3'' * "Bylandt, Lodewijk van," in: (1918) ''Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek. Deel 4'', pp. 383–38

* (2001; repr. 1911 ed.) ''The Dutch Republic and The American Revolution''. University Press of the Pacific, {{DEFAULTSORT:Bylandt, Lodewijk van 1718 births 1793 deaths 18th-century Dutch people Counts of the Netherlands Admirals of the navy of the Dutch Republic People of the Patriottentijd People acquitted of treason People from Kleve 18th-century Dutch military personnel Dutch military personnel of the War of the Austrian Succession