Schout-bij-nacht Engelbertus Lucas Sr. (5 March 1747 – 21 June 1797The date of death is often given as 26 June, but this must be a misunderstanding, as Jabob Spoors in his report to the Hoge Zeekrijgsraad relates that that court received notice from Lucas' widow on 23 June that her husband had passed away on 21 June. On 26 June the court decided to charge Spoors with writing his report; Spoors, report, pp. 1-2) was a Dutch naval officer. On 17 August 1796 during the War of the First Coalition, he surrendered a Batavian Navy squadron under his command to the Royal Navy in the capitulation of Saldanha Bay.
Personal life Lucas was the son of Abraham Lucas and Elizabeth Bogaert. He was born before 5 March 1747, but baptized on that date. On 4 February 1774 he married Catharina Prins. They had two children, among whom their son, also named Engelbertus, born in 1785, who would become a lieutenant-admiral in the Royal Dutch Navy and Minister for the Dutch Navy from 1849 to 1851. His wife was a business woman in Schiedam who earned a good living as a distiller of Dutch gin. Her annual income in 1798 was 2,000 guilders according to a tax dispute, settled in 1801.Dagverhaal der handelingen van het Vertegenwoordigend lichaam des Bataafschen volks, Volume 12 (1801), pp. 12 ff. Career Lucas from early youth was employed on Dutch merchant ships, but was commissioned as a naval lieutenant by the Admiralty of Rotterdam of the Dutch Republic in 1772. Despite this navy commission he was employed as commodore of a fleet of private whalers, sent out to the Greenland waters by Thomas Pigeaud, a Rotterdam ship owner, from 1777 to 1780. In 1781 (during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War) he received the same commission (though not rank) at the Admiralty. As such he made a final whaling voyage in 1784 for a Schiedam shipowner. On five voyages under his command the Dutch whalers caught a total of 35 whales.Dekker, p. 13
On 20 August 1781, as master of the frigate Waakzaamheid, now Commander (cdr.) Lucas helped save the crew of the ship Embdens Welvaren that had foundered on the Maasvlakte, then a dangerous area of the sea before the Maas river estuary, for which he received an award in silver.Poincten van deliberatie, bij Directeuren der Nederlandsche Huishoudelijke Maatschappij (1781), p. 18
On 18 December 1785 cdr. Lucas, now in command of the frigate Scipio (20), left the Maas roadstead to take part in the expedition of Commodore Willem Silvester to the Dutch East Indies. He only joined Silvester's squadron at the Cape of Good Hope, however, completing the voyage to the Cape alone. Because of an accident with Silvester's ship of the line Holland at the Cape, which necessitated the reorganisation of the expedition, Lucas was again sent alone on Scipio to Ceylon, where he awaited the other ships. This shows that despite having no experience with the route to the East Indies, Lucas was an accomplished navigator.de Jonge a., pp. 240-243
After arrival at Batavia on 30 December 1786 the squadron was divided in two divisions, and the division that contained Scipio was sent on 4 February 1787 under captain Anastasius van Halm to the Moluccas, where it cruised and showed the flag for about eight months. After its return to Batavia the Dutch Indies government sent it to Malacca to reinforce the other division under Commodore Silvester, who was already lying there, in connection with a punitive expedition for the VOC against Riouw. Next Lucas, together with captain Abraham Kuvel of Valk, helped prevent a dangerous insurrection, in connection with a succession crisis in the sultanate of Solo in the latter part of 1788. The Scipio returned to the Netherlands in the Spring of 1789.de Jonge a., p. 244, 252-255
Because of this three-and-a-half-year absence from the Dutch Republic, Lucas missed the Patriot revolution of 1785 and its suppression in 1787, with its subsequent purge of the officer corps of the navy of Patriot sympathizers. This may have saved his commission, as he later became known as an ardent supporter of the Patriot cause, which helped advance his career after the Batavian Revolution of 1795. In February 1795 he was appointed by the States General of the Batavian Republic in a commission, chaired by Henricus Aeneae, to report on the state of the fleet. The commission soon reported that the state was dire, and that many ships needed extensive repairs to become operational again. The report formed the basis for an extensive program of naval construction in 1795–96.de Jonge b., pp. 219-222
Saldanha-Bay surrender
Subsequently, Lucas, now a kapitein ter zee (ktz) was given command of the ship of the line Dordrecht. This ship became, end of 1795, part of a squadron, further composed of the ships of the line Revolutie (ktz. Rynbende) and Tromp (cdr. Valkenburg), and the frigates Castor (cdr. Claris), Brave (cdr. Zoetemans), Sirene (cdr. de Cerf), Bellona (cdr. de Falck), Havik (cdr. Besemer), and the armed VOC ship Vrouwe Maria (lt. Barbier), that was destined for the Dutch East Indies. Lucas was given overall command of the squadron, apparently because he was the only senior officer available at the time (after many "old-navy officers hab been let go after the revolution) who had experience on a voyage to the Indiesde Jonge b., p. 237
The reason for fitting out this expedition was that on the one hand the Republic was about to nationalise the VOC, and to take over both the assets and the liabilities of the company (this was actually decided in December 1795, and would happen on 1 March 1796) which venerable institution was virtually bankrupt, while on the other hand rumors were circulating about the surrender of certain of the colonies of the VOC to the British as a consequence of the Kew Letters from the former stadtholder to the governors of the colonies, which rumors made the authorities fear the loss of those company assets. The States General therefore drew up a number of secret instructions for Lucas in November 1795, but because of the existing uncertainty about the situation (for instance, the capture of the Cape Colony was at that moment not known with certainty) these instructions had a highly contingent character. In this context the instruction concerning what to do in case the Cape had been taken over by the enemy, is most relevant for what later happened. In that case Lucas was explicitly prohibited from even landing anywhere in the Cape, but he should sail straightaway to the French colony of Isle de France (present-day Mauritius). The fact that the squadron did not have any infantry soldiers on board, with which to conduct a land campaign, makes this a quite reasonable command, as an opposed landing would have been impossible with the forces available.De Jonge denies emphatically that the squadron had 3,000 soldiers aboard, as some British historians appear to have asserted; de Jonge b, p. 279, note 2; One could reproach Lucas for accepting the command (as others seem to have refused it for just this reason) with such a weak force, and in a letter to the chairman of the Navy Committee, Pieter Paulus, he expressed skepticism about the reality of support from the French navy, which the Batavian authorities appear to have hoped for, but he was sent out with too few means to execute an ambitious task, like a reconquest of the Cape, anyway, which makes it even more likely that such an ambition was not really present in the given circumstances; de Jonge b., pp. 279-280 The fact that he in the event ignored this instruction was one of the main reasons why his conduct was eventually condemned. But in his defense, the fate of the Cape Colony had become known just before the squadron sailed in January 1796, so that it would have been possible to amend the instructions, to make them less ambiguous.de Jonge b., pp. 277-278
Another problem with which Lucas would have to deal (and which eventually contributed greatly to the failure of the expedition) was the unreliability of the crews of the ships, especially their non-commissioned officers, among whom adherence to the cause of the Orangist party (the supporters of the former stadtholder, who had fled to Great Britain in January 1795) was strong. The same goes for a number of the officers, who had served in the "old navy" and who had only recently been recommissioned in the new navy. This would eventually give rise to a fateful mutiny, but warning signs had already been received when Lucas was still in his home port of Hellevoetsluis, and would later lead to more frequently than normal instances of "jumping ship" during the voyage, and desertion, even defection, during the stay in Saldanha Bay.de Jonge b., pp. 281-283
The squadron set sail on 23 February 1796, together with another squadron under Vice-admiral Adriaan Braak, that was destined for the Dutch West Indies, and this combined fleet sailed around Scotland, to evade heavy concentrations of British ships. A severe storm in early March dispersed this fleet, and Lucas' squadron eventually lost contact, after 19 March, and continued separately on its way to the first port of call Puerto de la Luz on Gran Canaria, arriving there on 13 April. In this port the squadron had a layover of no less than 34 days, to make necessary repairs, but mainly to take sufficient potable water for 14 weeks aboard. During this stay at this neutral port, several ships were sighted, that with 20/20 hindsight may be identified as the British frigate HMS La Moselle; HMS Jupiter with a number of transports with 4,000 British troops destined for the Cape aboard; and finally HMS Tremendous (with Admiral Thomas Pringle on board) also convoying troop transports. Though these sightings were not certain at the time, Lucas was later reproached for his failure to pursue these ships, as that might have done some harm to the cause of the enemy (as was his obligation as a naval officer).de Jonge b., pp. 241-244
On 17 May 1796 Lucas finally left Gran Canaria and on 21 May the squadron crossed the tropic of Cancer, at which time Lucas' promotion to schout-bij-nacht became effective.de Jonge b., p. 244 The squadron then set course for Porto Praia on Cape Verde where it arrived on 26 May. On 29 May Lucas set sail for Brazil, but the Equator was only crossed on 22 June, due to periodical lack of wind in the doldrums, during which the ships lay becalmed. The coast of Brazil was reached on 27 June. Here Lucas could have replenished his water stores, but apparently by this time he already had set his mind on doing this in Saldanha Bay, so after a perfunctory consultation of his council of war (in which essential information was withheld from the other captains), the squadron took advantage of the Westerlies to reach the coast of Africa. The point is important, because by omitting to take in water and other supplies in Brazil, Lucas narrowed his margin of error in case he would have to avoid calling at the Cape, and sail on to Mauritius, in accordance with his secret instructions (which he did not divulge to the council of war at this time).de Jonge b., pp. 244-245