Camperdown

Background

After their failed attempt to land troops in Bantry Bay at the end of 1796, the main French strategy, as far as the British front was concerned, remained through the summer of 1797 to try to foment and support an uprising in Ireland, based on the optimistic urging of the two prominent Irish rebels, Wolfe Tone and Napper Tandy. They switched however to a plan under which the Dutch fleet would act as the main sea arm, originally intending to transport a joint Franco-Dutch army across the North Sea.
The plan, developed by Tone and taken up by the French General Hoche (at that time incidentally Napoleon's main rival for military honours in the Republic), was for the Dutch to take to sea without troops, meet and defeat Duncan's under-strength North Sea Fleet, then return and transport the army to Edinburgh, from where it would march overland to take Glasgow as a base for an invasion of Ireland. At the time of the Spithead and Nore mutinies, with the Channel and North Sea Fleets effectively paralysed, this might have had come chance, but the opportunity, to Tone's disgust, was let slip through procrastination. Moreover, in the autumn Hoche himself died of consumption.
Nevertheless the Dutch (now of course the Batavian Republic's) naval committee decided to go ahead with the first stage of the plan and the fleet was ordered to sea under Admiral de Winter, who had started life as a sailor, joined the French army and risen to General, and then transferred back to the Navy as Admiral - never having commanded a ship, even in peacetime.
De Winter's fleet, when he put to sea on 8 October 1797, was puny compared to those engaged in most of the major battles: eleven third-rates (four of 74 guns, the rest of 64 or 68), five fourth-rates, four frigates and six sloops. The fourth-rates were obsolete, and the 64-gun ships virtually so. Opposing him, Duncan's North Sea Fleet also had 16 sail of the line, also with nothing bigger than a third-rate.
When the Dutch put to sea, the British fleet was in Yarmouth refitting. An inshore squadron under Captain Henry Trollope was however watching the Texel closely, and a lugger was sent to Yarmouth with the news, getting the message there on the morning of the 9th. Duncan put immediately to sea, met up with Trollope on the 11th, and found the Dutch fleet in line of battle heading north-east with the wind from the west.

The battle (11 October 1797)

At St Vincent, the Spanish had been bunched, and the British (apart from Nelson) formed line to leeward of them: however the two fleets were, at the time of engagement, sailing on parallel courses. At Camperdown, in an interesting contrast, the Dutch were in line and to leeward, and the British formed up in two clusters: however the British, with the wind on the port quarter, were sailing into the Dutch line.
Duncan's ships were split into two roughly equal squadrons, Duncan's own, led by Venerable, to the north aimed at the Dutch van, and Onslow's, led by Monarch, to the south, aimed at the Dutch rear. Onslow's nine ships fairly quickly disposed of the five ships (three of them fourth-rates) cut off at the Dutch rear, but Duncan's seven had a much harder time to the north, where fighting was much more intense before de Winter finally surrendered, the Dutch frigates, contrary to custom, bravely joining in the action, in which two of them were taken.
Effectively, Duncan's tactics cut the Dutch centre under Rear-Admiral Bloys out of the battle and it barely engaged. Despite the weakness of the two fleets, Camperdown remained relatively the bloodiest and hardest-fought of the war's battles. At the end of the day eleven of the 26 Dutch ships returned to the Texel and four were destroyed, the rest remaining in British hands, though so badly damaged that they were unfit for further service.

Aftermath

As St Vincent put the Spanish fleet out of action for some while, Camperdown effectively disposed of the Dutch. Duncan made even surer of that in 1799 by landing troops at the Helder, where the remaining ships surrendered without firing a shot, the crews mutinying and refusing to serve the guns. There was no longer any threat of the Dutch fleet aiding an invasion of Scotland or Ireland. Though the French continued to build up their invasion fleet in France and Flanders through 1798, the scene of action was now to shift eastward, to Egypt.
Duncan, whose only major engagement this was (he retired after the action at the Helder), was made a Viscount for the victory, his second-in-command Onslow was made a baronet, and Trollope and another captain, Fairfax, were knighted.