At daylight on 11 January 1782 British seamen and marines stormed Fort Ostenburg, the stronghold that commanded the harbor of Trincomalee on the east coast of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. The Dutch garrison surrendered after a short fight, and the port, with its two forts and the ships in its harbor, passed into British hands. The British held it for only a few months.
A war against the Dutch in the East
Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, while it was already at war with France over American independence. In India the war gave the East India Company a chance to seize Dutch trading posts. In the autumn of 1781 a British force of 4,443 men under General Hector Munro and Admiral Sir Edward Hughes besieged Negapatam on the Coromandel coast. The Royal Collection Trust's record of a contemporary map dates the start of the siege to 21 October and the surrender to 11 November 1781.1
With Negapatam taken, Hughes turned to the main Dutch harbor on the eastern side of Ceylon. Trincomalee was guarded by two forts: Fort Fredrick on the headland and Fort Ostenburg on a ridge above the entrance to the inner harbor.2
Fort Fredrick taken by surprise
Hughes embarked 500 volunteer sepoys and 30 artillerymen and sailed from Negapatam at the start of January 1782. Paul Harris Nicolas, in his 1845 history of the Royal Marines, dates the departure to 3 January and the squadron's arrival in Trincomalee Bay to 4 January.3
On 5 January the troops landed at Back Bay and moved on Fort Fredrick, the older fort on the headland, then known as Fort Trincomalee. That night the grenadier company of the marines, led by Lieutenant Orr, forced its way in through the gateway while the governor was preparing terms of surrender. Nicolas gives the garrison as only 3 officers and 40 men. The fort mattered because it covered the only safe landing place for stores and provisions.4
The storming of Fort Ostenburg
Most of the Dutch had withdrawn to Fort Ostenburg, which commanded the harbor. On 8 January British seamen and marines seized a hill overlooking it. Hughes summoned the governor to surrender, but a second summons also failed.5
The assault went in at daylight on 11 January. According to Nicolas, a storming party of 450 seamen and marines led the attack, with 20 seamen carrying scaling ladders and a reserve of three companies of seamen and three of marines behind them. A sergeant's party of marines led the way in through the gun embrasures, and the Dutch were soon driven from their works.6
The figures for the garrison differ. Nicolas gives 400 men and more than 50 guns, while the Sri Lankan heritage site Amazing Lanka says 9 officers and 350 men, with 62 guns taken in the two forts. Nicolas also records two valuable East Indiamen and 30 smaller vessels in the harbor.7
Nicolas lists Lieutenant George Long of the navy and 20 seamen and marines killed, and two lieutenants and 40 men wounded, 21 killed and 42 wounded in all. A memorial in the parish church of Saxmundham in Suffolk records that Long, aged 21, led the attack and fell in the moment of victory.8
Lost again within the year
Hughes left a garrison in Fort Ostenburg and sailed for Madras, which he reached on 8 February. The prize did not last. The French admiral Pierre André de Suffren landed troops at Trincomalee on 25 August 1782, according to the Sri Lankan Sunday Times, and the British garrison surrendered after a bombardment. Nicolas dates the surrender to 30 August. On 3 September Hughes and Suffren fought the Battle of Trincomalee off the port.9
The peace settled the matter. Under the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 20 May 1784, Britain returned almost all of the Dutch possessions it had taken in the East Indies but kept Negapatam, as the French national library's heritage site records. For more sea fights of the age of sail, see our guide to the greatest naval battles.10
