Qualla: Capture of Sint Eustatius

Capture of Sint Eustatius: Introduction

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gruepig, CC BY-SA 4.0. On November 16, 1776, the guns of Fort Orange fired an eleven-gun salute to an American warship flying a flag that no foreign power had yet recognized. It was the first international acknowledgment of the United States. Five years later, that salute would cost Sint Eustatius everything. Admiral George Rodney arrived with over a thousand cannon and a personal grudge, and what followed was not a battle but a plundering so excessive that it scandalized the British Parliament and may have handed the Americans their independence.

Image: Gruepig | CC BY-SA 4.0

Capture of Sint Eustatius: The Golden Rock's Defiance

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gestochen von Johann Baptist Bergmüller (* 1724 in Augsburg; † 1785 ebenda) nach einer unbekannten Vorlage, Public domain. Sint Eustatius was, by any conventional measure, insignificant: a volcanic speck of 21 square kilometers in the Leeward Islands, with a garrison of sixty soldiers and a dozen cannon. But geography and neutrality had made it something extraordinary. As a Dutch free port, the islan...

Image: Gestochen von Johann Baptist Bergmüller (* 1724 in Augsburg; † 1785 ebenda) nach einer unbekannten Vorlage | Public domain

Capture of Sint Eustatius: A Surrender Without a War

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gestochen von Johann Baptist Bergmüller (* 1724 in Augsburg; † 1785 ebenda) nach einer unbekannten Vorlage, Public domain. When Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, Rodney already had his fleet assembled. On January 30, 1781, three thousand troops sailed from Saint Lucia. The main force appeared off Sint Eustatius on February 3, fifteen ships of the line bristling with armamen...

Image: Gestochen von Johann Baptist Bergmüller (* 1724 in Augsburg; † 1785 ebenda) nach einer unbekannten Vorlage | Public domain

Capture of Sint Eustatius: The Admiral's Obsession

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gestochen von Johann Baptist Bergmüller (* 1724 in Augsburg; † 1785 ebenda) nach einer unbekannten Vorlage, Public domain. What Rodney found in the harbor stunned him: 130 merchantmen, five American warships, and warehouses bursting with goods worth an estimated three million pounds. He and General Vaughan signed an agreement claiming everything for the Crown, though both expected a handsome personal...

Image: Gestochen von Johann Baptist Bergmüller (* 1724 in Augsburg; † 1785 ebenda) nach einer unbekannten Vorlage | Public domain

Capture of Sint Eustatius: Persecution on the Bay

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gestochen von Johann Baptist Bergmüller (* 1724 in Augsburg; † 1785 ebenda) nach einer unbekannten Vorlage, Public domain. Rodney's conduct toward the island's inhabitants was brutal, and his treatment of the Jewish community was singled out as especially cruel even by the standards of the era. Ten days after the capture, he ordered 31 Jewish families deported with only 24 hours' notice. He imprisone...

Image: Gestochen von Johann Baptist Bergmüller (* 1724 in Augsburg; † 1785 ebenda) nach einer unbekannten Vorlage | Public domain

Capture of Sint Eustatius: A Fortune Lost Twice

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nicolas Ponce d'après Clément-Pierre Marillier, Public domain. British control of Sint Eustatius lasted barely ten months. On the night of November 26, 1781, fifteen hundred French troops under the Marquis de Bouille landed covertly. The British commandant, Lieutenant Colonel James Cockburn, was captured during a morning ride by soldiers of ...

Image: Nicolas Ponce d'après Clément-Pierre Marillier | Public domain