Although Holland and Britain were at war from January 1795, after which the Dutch lost their possessions in the East Indies, Trincomalee and the Cape of Good Hope, an offensive British force was not established in the southern North Sea until the last weeks of that year, when Admiral Duncan took command. The threat of a combined invasion by the Dutch and French required a constant watch by a strong British fleet on the hostile ships moored in the Texel. Had the winds been fair during the autumn of 1796, Duncan would have carried out his planned attack on the Dutch Fleet. Fifteen years earlier in the American war the base for operations against the Dutch had been Sheerness and the Nore: the decision to give Great Yarmouth and the Yarmouth Roads a central role positioned the English fleet much nearer to their adversary, only 120 miles due east. An additional advantage was that the west–east course from Yarmouth to the blockade position off the Texel lessened the amount of windward sailing for warships and victuallers in the south-west or north-east winds which prevail in the southern North Sea. As a result the port was to have a crucial role in the maintenance of the blockade against the Dutch in the French Revolutionary War. Nevertheless, it was a risky decision to use the Yarmouth Roads, for in north and easterly winds they were and are dangerous and exposed.

As a result, Great Yarmouth, a fishing port which also exported a substantial amount of wheat and flour, now became in addition a busy naval base. From the summer of 1796 victualling systems and networks had to be set up almost from scratch. In the summer months Duncan's fleet off the Texel had to be replenished with live cattle, vegetables, water and coal. When the ships returned to the Yarmouth Roads, they had to be reprovisioned rapidly so that they could get to sea again. During the winter the fleet was anchored in the Roads, ready to move against a Dutch fleet coming out from the Texel at any time. The blockade continued after the battle of Camperdown in October 1797: the following year Great Yarmouth was supporting a squadron even more numerous.