9. The Dutch joined the war too
During the early years of the American Revolution the British attempted to force the Dutch Republic into honoring previously enacted treaties and support them as they attempted to end the rebellion in North America. The Dutch refused and Dutch merchants surreptitiously traded arms and ammunition with the Americans in exchange for American goods, using the colony of St. Eustatius as a trading point. After France entered the war on the side of the Americans, the Dutch continued to trade with French ports, which the British claimed was a violation of their embargo. The British began seizing Dutch ships at sea, claiming their cargoes to be contraband. The Dutch responded by shipping goods in convoys, protected by Dutch warships.
At the end of 1780 the British declared war on the Dutch, which though they never officially allied themselves with the United States, recognized American independence from Great Britain in 1782. The war between the Dutch Republic and Great Britain carried the conflict which had begun in Lexington, Massachusetts, as far as Sumatra and Ceylon, as Britain dispatched expeditions to capture Dutch colonial possessions. Other expeditions sailed to the Caribbean to capture Dutch colonies in the West Indies. The expeditions against Dutch possessions and the need to blockade the Dutch coast placed even greater strains in the already overstressed Royal Navy, with ships and crews remaining at sea for ever increasing lengths of time. The British were also required to send a squadron to the Baltic to ensure that the Russia of Catherine the Great did not come to Dutch aid.