recaptured before the remainder reached Britain. Casualties in both fleets were heavy, for the Dutch followed the British practice of firing at the hulls of enemy ships rather than their masts and rigging, which caused higher losses among the British crews than they normally experienced against continental navies. The Dutch fleet was broken as an independent fighting force, losing ten ships and more than 1,100 men. When British forces confronted the Dutch Navy again two years later in the Vlieter Incident, the Dutch sailors, confronted with superior British firepower as they had been at Camperdown, and in the face of pro-Orangist insurrection, abandoned their ships and surrendered en masse. Background In the winter of 1794–1795, forces of the French Republic overran the neighbouring Dutch Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars. The French then reorganised the country as a client state named the Batavian Republic, and it joined France against the allies in the War of the First Coalition. One of the most important Dutch assets of which the French gained control was the Dutch Navy. The Dutch fleet provided a substantial reinforcement to the French forces in northern European waters, which were principally based at Brest on the Atlantic Ocean and whose main opponent was the Royal Navy's Channel Fleet. The location of the main anchorage of the Dutch fleet in the waters off the Texel prompted a reorganisation of the distribution of British warships in Northern European waters, with a new focus on the importance of the North Sea. With the Navy suffering severe shortages in men and equipment and with other theatres of war deemed more important, small, old and poorly maintained ships were activated from reserve and based in harbours in East Anglia, principally the port of Yarmouth, under the command of Admiral Adam Duncan. The 65-year-old Duncan was a veteran of the wars of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) and the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and had fought at numerous engagements with distinction and success. Standing at 6'4" (1,93m) he was also noted for his physical strength and size: a contemporary described him as "almost gigantic". The French Navy had suffered a series of one-sided defeats in the opening years of the war, suffering heavy losses at the Glorious First of June in 1794 and during the Croisière du Grand Hiver the following January. In late 1796, after prompting