The Dutch strike back against the Royal Adventurers of Africa

News of Holmes’s conquering reached the Netherlands in July 1664. Although States General diplomats publicly protested these peacetime attacks, they also secretly ordered Admiral Michiel de Ruyter to sail for West Africa and restore the West India Company’s lost holdings. De Ruyter’s fleet of 13 ships and 2,200 men captured numerous richly laden returning Royal Adventurers of Africa ships and seizes English forts at Goree and Sierra Leone en route. Arriving at Axim in January 1665, he found no English ships on the coast, which left the Royal Adventurers of Africa’s forts and lodges vulnerable.

After regrouping at Elmina Castle and raising an auxiliary force of between 200 to 300 Elminian war canoes, de Ruyter considered attacking England’s new Cape Coast Castle but deemed it too formidable to capture, given its strong local Efutu support. Instead, he targeted Cormantine, as England’s established administrative capital and commercial headquarters.