After the capture of Tuticorin, the Dutch fleet sailed to Mannar, where missions to the local rulers yielded support to Company's (VOC) attack on the Portuguese, in the form of small ships suitable for landing, and even warriors.
With some ships of the fleet were already ahead, Van Goens awaited the local reinforcements, much to his discontent. But as he favored the advantage of having a full moon during the attack if he moved swiftly, he felt that his army was strong enough to move against Mannar without additional support.
Just as he was preparing to depart without the promised reinforcements on the 11th of February, the small ships finally arrived. He then met up with the other ships at the island of Rammanacoylam (present-day Rameswaran, the westernmost island of Adam's Bridge.) The island of Mannar lay just on the other side of the Strait.
Due to adverse winds, the fleet only arrived before the south coast of Mannar on the 19th of February. Finding that the Portuguese had apparently been aware of the Company’s plans, the southern coast was fortified by a trench two miles long, and eight frigates were defending the coastline.
As it later turned out, the Portuguese had assembled 700 soldiers for the defense of the island. Landing the Company force on a different part of the island was undesirable: the northwest coast was also well-defended, and the east coast was covered by a fortification on the Ceylonese mainland just across.
The troops then, would just have to land on the south coast, as had been planned, but not before the Portuguese ships, the biggest threat to a landing of the army, had been destroyed or taken.
The attack on the Portuguese ships began the next day. Destroying the Portuguese ships, however, proved harder than expected: by the second day of the naval battle, the Company fleet had only destroyed one Portuguese ship, at the cost of several lives on Company side. It was then decided to try and force the landing by a somewhat unusual maneuver.
In the evening of the 21st, the VOC fleet first pretended to move away from the island, but during the night it returned, and maneuvered the smaller ships of the fleet right in between the Portuguese ships and the beach, within musket range of the Portuguese soldiers in the trench.
The Portuguese daringly copied this manoeuvre, sailing their frigates right in between the coast and the Company ships to prevent a landing. This was extremely precarious as the Dutch ships were already so close to the beach that they were in danger of stranding. This action turned out to be the end of the Portuguese frigates: the Company convincingly won the close combat which followed, destroying virtually all the Portuguese vessels.
The naval battle of the past three days turned out to have been the most difficult part of conquering the island: in the morning of the 22nd, the Company troops landed, and by the next morning the island was practically in the hands of the Company.
Though the landing was successful, at least 400 of the 700 Portuguese soldiers had fled across the water and were making for Jaffanapatnam.
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This was obviously advantageous to the Company, as the various Portuguese fortifications were taken with hardly a fight. The disadvantage was, however, that these soldiers would now still have to be defeated at Jaffanapatnam, and that the Portuguese there would start preparing their defences as soon as the soldiers would bring the news of the fall of Mannar.
Reference: VOC warfare.net
Avondster story
Dutch East India Company (VOC) Musketeer ~ 1645 - 1647
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