Episode 1 of 2
Royal Navy Seizure
- When
- 17 May 1803
- Where
- Britain (ships stationed in Britain or sailing around)
On 17 May 1803, before the official declaration of war, the Royal Navy captured French and Dutch merchant ships in Britain without warning.
The Navy seized more than two million pounds of commodities and took the crews as prisoners. This action preceded the formal declaration of war and followed the Addington ministry's March 1803 order of military preparations after Cape Colony was reoccupied, guarding against possible French retaliation for the treaty breach.
Sources
- Treaty of Amiens Wikipedia
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.