Holmes's Bonfire - First Day of The Raid

First Day of The Raid

Holmes on Thursday 19 August, the adverse southeasterly having eased to a breeze, around 8:00 AM entered the Vlie, using Tyger as his flagship and leaving Hampshire and Advice behind as a covering force. Normally the shifting shoals would have made an approach very difficult but Holmes had a stroke of luck. On the 17th the Dragon had taken a Danish merchantman with a Dutch pilot on board that Holmes considered more capable than Heemskerck; also it transpired that part of the buoyage had not been removed; this had been ordered by the Admiralty of Amsterdam but on the 18th the English were already so close that the official 'buoy man' had not dared to complete the job. Also the admiralty had some days before ordered all ships to return to the home port, at a penalty of six guilders per day, but almost none had complied; most ship-owners had explicitly given orders to stay, to be able to sail immediately at the end of the English blockade. As a result Holmes found a fleet of about 140 merchantmen or smaller vessels at anchor — by himself estimated at about 150 to 160 —, guarded by two frigates, the Adelaar and Tol. The crews of the ships were very confident of their ability to repulse an attack and many villagers from the islands had even brought their possessions aboard, assuming these to be more safe there than on land, where they expected the brunt of the English attack would be directed.

Indeed Holmes had been ordered to give priority to the shore installations on Vlieland. However, when his Tyger as first ship arrived at the Reede van Speckhoeck anchorage (Whalers' Moorage or Schelling Road), west of the Hobbesandt shoal, to his puzzlement he saw only a tiny village, Oost-Vlieland, on this island and interrogation of some prisoners confirmed that no important buildings were present there. Meanwhile behind him the Garland and Dragon, with difficulty beating up the wind on a tacking course through the Westerboomsgat, had grounded; the Dragon would only be able to free herself by throwing eight of her cannon overboard and the beer supply. In these circumstances Holmes considered it unwise to commit his landing force, covered by only a handful of frigates, to an attack on what basically was an empty dune area, while expecting the enormous merchant fleet with thousands of sailors to remain passive to his south in the Vlieree (Vlie Road) while this was going on. Therefore he decided to attack this fleet first. According to some, Holmes was also specially inspired by the opportunity to damage the Dutch economy. He would later justify his initiative by claiming that he lacked the landing capacity to attack Vlieland because all ketches had grounded.

Holmes didn't dare to venture any further with his frigates — he was at his position almost enclosed by shoals — so, with the exception of the shallow-draughted Pembroke the assault was carried out around 13:00 by the five fireships, sailing somewhat to the north into the Robbegat channel, the entrance of the Vliestroom, where most of the merchant fleet stretched out from north to south over a distance of ten miles. Their success was complete. On their approach three large armed merchantmen, commanded to assist the guard ships, lost courage and fled. The first fireship managed to set the attacking Dutch frigate Adelaar alight, most of the Dutch crew drowning when their fleeing sloop capsized; when the next approached the Tol, the crew of the latter abandoned ship, rowing away in some sloops. This second fireship grounded however; seeing this the Dutch crew of a sloop turned; then the English fireship crew also entered a sloop, both sloops racing to be the first to reach the Tol. The English won and set the Dutch warship on fire. The other three fireships now attached themselves to an equal number of large Dutch merchantmen on the northern edge of the fleet and burnt them, causing a mass panic on the other vessels, the sailors of which mostly abandoned their ships, escaping to the south in the boats.

Seeing the confusion on the Dutch side, Holmes decided to immediately exploit this opportunity. Every available sloop — Dutch sources indicate a number of 22 — was manned with demolition teams of a dozen men each to set fire to any vessel they could reach, not wasting any time plundering. Soon even the Dutch ships of which the crews held firm, were surrounded by burning vessels and forced to leave their position. Fleeing ships entangled and became easy victims, as the southeasterly wind drove them towards their attackers. During the following hours one after another the ships became victim of the fire until the last remaining nine were saved when a large Guineaman and some armed ketches stood and fought and thus managed to protect some other vessels behind them in a cul-de-sac formed by the Inschot creek. The action ended around 20:00. About 130 ships were destroyed; according to Holmes himself, eleven ships in total escaped. Not all of these 130 were major vessels; the destruction of only 114 merchantmen and warships can be accounted for in the Dutch archives. Almost all sailors saved themselves; most rowing in sloops to Harlingen; some walking or wading over the Kracksant shoal to Vlieland. The English were not keen on taking many prisoners as — to their great embarrassment — they lacked the funds to even feed those they had taken in previous battles.

Meanwhile the civil militia of Vlieland, standing on its eastern land head, had at first deterred, assisted by a thunderstorm, any attempts by small English landing parties but, seeing the conflagration, they lost courage and fled with most of the population, some using small vessels, others walking towards Texel. On their way south they encountered two deputies of the States of Holland, Gerard Hasselaer and Baerding, who had been committed to supervise the fleet at the Texel and hearing of the English threat had travelled to the more northern island to investigate. They managed to encourage the men and reassemble a force on the land head and then returned to the Texel, promising to send a company of soldiers as reinforcement.

The smoke and flames were clearly visible to the English fleet before the Texel, twenty miles to the south, and interpreted as a sure sign that Holmes had succeeded in burning the warehouses. Accordingly Rupert and Albemarle sent him a congratulatory letter ordering his immediate retreat as the enemy had likely been alerted too.