General Janssens had always intended to rely on the tropical climate and disease to weaken the British army rather than oppose a landing. The British now advanced on Janssens’s stronghold, reducing enemy positions as they went. The Dutch military and naval station at Weltevreeden fell to the British after an attack on 10 August. British losses did not exceed 100 while the defenders lost over 300. In one skirmish, one of Janssens’s French subordinates, General Alberti, was killed when he mistook some British troops in green uniforms for Dutch troops. Weltevreeden was six miles from Fort Cornelis and on 20 August the British began preparing fortifications of their own, some 600 yards from the Franco-Dutch positions.
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