George Johnstone (Royal Navy Officer) - Arrival at The Cape and Saldanha Bay

Arrival At The Cape and Saldanha Bay

Johnstone's forces arrived at the Cape, where he sent HMS Active ahead to reconnoitre. Active found a Dutch merchant, the Held Woltemande, which had recently departed the Cape, and after fooling her into thinking she was a French frigate, captured her. From her Johnstone learnt that Suffren's forces had already reinforced the Cape, and that an attack would be futile. However he also learnt that a small convoy of richly laden Dutch merchants had been moved to the safety of Saldanha Bay. Johnstone decided to capture them, and on the morning of 21 July, arrived off the entrance to the bay. The Dutch squadron consisted of the Dankbaarheid, Perel, Schoonkop, Hoogscarspel and Middleburg, under the command of Captain Gerrit Harmeyer of the Hoogscarspel. Their stores and equipment had been stored on the packets Zon and Snelheid, which were sent further into the bay, near to Schapen Island. They had been given orders to burn their ships if attacked, while even if they were captured, the loss of their equipment on the Zon and Snelheid would make them useless. However the Dutch were largely unprepared, and only on the Middleburg had stores of combustible material been prepared. They cut their anchor cables and ran onshore, where their crews set fire to them, but the British were able to board them in their boats and extinguished the fires on all but the Middleburg, to which Johnstone personally attached a line to, repeating the success of his youth, and had towed away from the remaining Dutch ships. The five ships fell into British hands, as did the two packets, which were captured without any attempt being made to destroy them. After equipping his ships, Johnstone left the bay with his prizes, leaving only the Zon and Snelheid, which were considered too old to be of any use.

Having failed in his objective to capture the Cape, Johnstone decided to send the troops and supplies on to the East Indies station, detaching his best warships under Captain James Alms of HMS Monmouth to escort them, while he returned to Britain with the ships Romney, Jupiter, Diana, Jason, Terror, Infernal, one light cruiser, two victuallers, and the Dutch prizes. He stopped on his voyage home at Lisbon, where he married Charlotte Dee, daughter of the British vice-consul, on 31 January 1782.