1809 - Expedition to the Scheldt

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1809 British and French Fleets 132

their main hold prepared for the reception of horses), two 50-gun ships, three 44-gun ships, 23 frigates, one 20-gun ship, 31 ship and brig sloops, five bomb-vessels, 23 gun-brigs, and about 120 sail of hired cutters, revenue-vessels, tenders, and gun-boats, making, in all, 245 vessels of war, accompanied by about 400 transports (measuring more than 100,000 tons), sailed from the Downs, the fleet commanded by Rear-admiral Sir Richard John Strachan, and the troops, numbering 39,219 men (including about 3000 cavalry), by Lieutenant-general the Earl of Chatham. The precise object of the expedition, as contained in the admiral's instructions, was, to capture or destroy the whole of the enemy's ships afloat in the Scheldt or building at Antwerp, to demolish the dock-yards, and arsenals at Antwerp, Terneuse, and Flushing, and, if possible, to render the Scheldt no longer navigable for ships of war. To facilitate the passage up the western Scheldt, Cadzand and the islands of Walcheren and Zuid-Beveland were to be occupied by divisions of the British troops.

On the same evening the two commanders-in-chief, in the 74-gun-ship Venerable, Captain Sir Home Popham, accompanied by the 36-gun frigate Amethyst, Captain Sir Michael Seymour and several smaller vessels, anchored in the road of West-Kapelle, and were there joined by the 38-gun frigate Fisgard, Captain William Bolton ; who had placed vessels as buoys on some of the shoals off the coast. After dark the Roompot channel was sounded, and vessels stationed at its entrance. On the 29th, in the morning, the transports containing Lieutenant-general Sir John Hope's division of the troops joined ; and in the evening the whole under the direction of Rear-admiral Sir Richard Goodwin Keats in the 36-gun frigate Salsette, Captain Walter Bathurst, presented by Captain Sir Home Popham, who had removed from the Venerable to the ship-sloop Sabrina, Captain Edward Kittoe, anchored in safety between the islands of Noord-Beveland and Schouwen, and nearly opposite to the town of Zierikzee upon the latter. On the same evening, and on the morning of the 30th, arrived Rear-admiral William Albany Otway, in the Monarch 74, with the left wing of the army, about 17,000 strong, under Lieutenant-general Sir Eyre Coote, destined to act exclusively against Walcheren, and intended to be landed on Domburg beach. The first intention had been to disembark the men in Zouteland bay, but intelligence received at Deal, of preparations to resist a landing had occasioned Domburg to be preferred.

In the course of the 29th, a strong westerly wind sprang up, and raised such a surf on the western coast of Walcheren, that a landing at Domburg was considered impracticable. The same gale, on the morning of the 30th, obliged the ships of war and transports to seek shelter in the Roompot : and in the course of the forenoon the fleet, under the skilful guidance, as before, of

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