Qualla: Action of 24 October 1798

Action of 24 October 1798: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Word travelled at the speed of a horse and a sail in 1798, which was not fast enough. The Irish Rebellion had been crushed in September. A French invasion force had been smashed at Tory Island on 12 October. But on the night of 23 October, two Dutch warships slipped out of the Texel carrying French soldiers and supplies for a rebellion that no longer existed, sent by a Batavian government that did not yet know. Thirty nautical miles northwest of the island, in the cold light of an autumn morning, a British frigate was waiting.

Action of 24 October 1798: A Society and a Rebellion

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Society of United Irishmen was formed in the warm afterglow of the French Revolution, an organization that took Catholics and Protestants alike under the banner of republicanism and the goal of removing British rule from Ireland. When war with revolutionary France broke out i...

Action of 24 October 1798: Sirius Off the Texel

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The British frigate HMS Sirius was new and dangerous. Rated as a 36-gun frigate she actually carried forty-four. Captain Richard King had been stationed off the Texel specifically to watch for Dutch movements and pounce on anything of equal or smaller size. The Dutch squadron und...

Action of 24 October 1798: The Hour Before Surrender

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

King chose the smaller ship first. Waakzaamheid was upwind of her flagship, which meant Furie would have to beat against the wind to come to her rescue. Sirius closed fast, ignoring Furie, and at nine in the morning came alongside the corvette. A single warning shot was fired. Va...

Action of 24 October 1798: The Second Surrender

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Pletz fought. For half an hour his Dutch frigate exchanged fire with the British vessel, the range opening and closing as he tried to slip out of effective gun range. His French soldiers fired their muskets from the deck and learned what every infantryman aboard a ship eventually...

Action of 24 October 1798: The Captured Ships Become British

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Both Dutch vessels were taken to the Nore as prizes. Furie was bought into the Royal Navy under her original pre-war name Wilhelmina; Waakzaamheid kept her name. Surveyors decided the corvette's frame was not strong enough to carry her original twenty-four guns and reduced her ar...