Sunda Strait campaign of January 1794

Sunda Strait campaign
Part of the French Revolutionary Wars
Location of the action on 25 January 1794. The Sunda Strait is the channel between Java and Sumatra.
Date 2 January – 9 February 1794 Location Sunda Strait, off the Dutch East Indies Result Inconclusive
Belligerents
East India Company Dutch Republic	France
Commanders and leaders
Charles Mitchell Captain Kerwal	Jean-Marie Renaud
Strength
6 merchant ships 2 corvettes 1 brig	4 frigates 1 corvette 1 brig
Casualties and losses
3 killed 2 wounded 1 merchant ship captured	11 killed 25 wounded 1 frigate captured 1 corvette captured

The Sunda Strait campaign of January 1794 was a series of manoeuvres and naval actions fought between warships and privateers of the French Republic and a squadron of vessels sent by the British East India Company to protect trade in the region, later augmented by Dutch warships. The campaign developed as French forces based on Île de France reacted more quickly than the British forces in the Indian Ocean to the expansion of the French Revolutionary Wars on 1 February 1793. French privateers rapidly spread along the British trade routes in the Far East, becoming concentrated around the narrow Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies. These ships were soon joined by French Navy frigates and began to inflict losses on shipping in the region. The Royal Navy forces in the Indian Ocean were deployed elsewhere and so the East India Company, the private enterprise that ruled much of British India in the 1790s and maintained their own fleet and navy, raised a squadron of armed merchant ships to patrol the Strait and drive off the raiders.

The arrival of this British force on 2 January 1794 was initially a success, the squadron over-running and capturing two large and well-armed privateers on 22 January, not long after the French vessels had been beaten off during an attack on the British trading post at Bencoolen. On 24 January an action against a larger French squadron was fought in the Strait itself, but ended inconclusively and the squadrons divided, the British receiving the Dutch frigate Amazone as reinforcement. The French subsequently turned southwards out of the Strait and attacked Bencoolen again on 9 February, capturing an East Indiaman in the harbour before returning to Île de France with their prize.