ame from his erstwhile opponent, De Winter, who wrote that "Your not waiting to form line ruined me: if I had got nearer the shore and you had attacked, I should probably have drawn both fleets on it, and it would have been a victory for me, being on my own coast." Duncan's health deteriorated after the battle, forcing his retirement from the Navy in 1799 and contributing to his death at Cornhill-on-Tweed in 1804.
De Winter's actions during in the battle have been commended: Edward Pelham Brenton wrote in 1836 that "The Dutch admiral displayed, in his own person, the most undaunted valour ... but was compelled at length to yield to superior skill, it would be untrue to say superior bravery." while William James noted in 1827 that after the battle ""Batavian prowess" still claimed the respect of an enemy and the applause of the world". De Winter was released from captivity in 1798 after news reached Britain that his wife had suffered a stroke, and he subsequently became the Batavian ambassador to France, before resuming command of the Dutch fleet at the start of the Napoleonic Wars. He was a trusted subordinate of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland between 1806 and 1810, and was honoured by Emperor Napoleon in 1811 before his sudden death in Paris the following year.
The battle became a popular theme for contemporary artists and many paintings depicting it are held in National collections in the United Kingdom, including paintings by Thomas Whitcombe and Philip de Loutherbourg in the Tate Gallery, Whitcombe, Samuel Drummond and Daniel Orme at the National Maritime Museum, and George Chambers, Sr. and John Singleton Copley at the National Gallery of Scotland. In literature, the battle has played a central role in the 1968 novel Sea Road to Camperdown by Showell Styles, and the 1975 novel The Fireship by C. Northcote Parkinson. The battle also inspired composers, such as Daniel Steibelt, whose composition Britannia: An Allegorical Overture was created in honour of the victory and Jan Ladislav Dussek, who created a composition entitled The Naval Battle and Total Defeat of the Dutch by Admiral Duncan in 1797.
The Royal Navy has commemorated the battle through the four ships that bore the name HMS Camperdown and seven named HMS Duncan, which have maintained close links with Duncan's hometown of Dundee. In Dundee, the Battle of Camperdown is commemorated at Camperdown House, originally the Dundee seat of the Viscounts Camperdown, which was completed in 1828 and later became a public park and tourist attraction. The bicentennial of the battle was celebrated in Dundee in 1997 with the "Glorious Victory" exhibition at the city's McManus Galleries in conjunction with Camperdown House and the National Museum of Scotland. The exhibition became a popular tourist attraction and was viewed by more than 50,000 visitors. On 11 October a memorial service was held to remember the dead and a new statue of Admiral Duncan unveiled in the town.
- Although most sources give the date of the battle as 11 October, Christopher Lloyd has claimed that as the British naval day ran from noon until noon instead of midnight to midnight, the battle actually began on the morning of what was 12 October 1797 for those on land.
- The first total is taken from the naval abstract of 1793, and the second from the abstract from 1797 (which is incorrectly dated as 1799 in William James).
- The identity of the despatch vessel sent to Duncan by Trollope is disputed. William James, writing in 1827, attributed this action to the hired armed lugger Black Joke, and this was repeated by William Laird Clowes in his 1900 history. However, Edward Pelham Brenton, writing in 1836 named the hired armed cutter Active as the messenger. This view was followed in 2008 by Noel Mostert. In 1963, Christopher Lloyd ascribed the signal to the lugger Speculator, which was followed within hours by the cutters Active and Vestal who brought detailed accounts of De Winter's movements. All of the accounts agree on the manner in which the unknown vessel arrived at Yarmouth. Black Joke was not am