Capture of Trincomalee

Capture of Trincomalee
Part of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War
A 1782 French map of Fort Fredrick, made after Suffren recaptured the port
Date 11 January 1782 Location Trincomalee, then a Dutch colony in present-day Sri Lanka 8°32′56.79″N 81°14′15.78″E / 8.5491083°N 81.2377167°E / 8.5491083; 81.2377167Coordinates: 8°32′56.79″N 81°14′15.78″E / 8.5491083°N 81.2377167°E / 8.5491083; 81.2377167 Result British victory
Belligerents
Great Britain	Dutch East India Company
Commanders and leaders
Edward Hughes	Iman Willem Falck
Strength
800	450
Casualties and losses
21 killed 42 wounded	13 killed

The Capture of Trincomalee on 11 January 1782 was the second major engagement between Great Britain and the Dutch East India Company in the East Indies after outbreak of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. After capturing Negapatam, the major Dutch outpost in India, a British force assaulted the Dutch-controlled port of Trincomalee on the eastern coast of Ceylon, and successfully stormed Fort Fredrick and Fort Ostenburg to gain control of the city and the port. In gaining control of the port, they also captured the vessels in the port at the time.

Following French entry into the American War of Independence in 1778, Great Britain moved rapidly to gain control over French colonial outposts in India. In December 1780, Britain also declared war on the Dutch Republic, citing Dutch trafficking in arms in support of the French and American rebels as one of the reasons. This news reached Iman Willem Falck, the Dutch East India Company's governor of Trincomalee, early in 1781. In the summer of 1781, Lord Macartney arrived to take over as governor of Madras, and he brought news to the British outpost of the new war, and mobilised British troops to gain control over Dutch possessions in India and Ceylon. These troops first besieged the principal Dutch-controlled port of Negapatam, capturing it on 11 November 1781.

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