The affair of Fielding and Bylandt was a brief naval engagement off the Isle of Wight on 31 December 1779 between a Royal Navy squadron, commanded by Commodore Charles Fielding, and a naval squadron of the Dutch Republic, commanded by rear-admiral Lodewijk van Bylandt, escorting a Dutch convoy. The Dutch and British were not yet at war, but the British wished to inspect the Dutch merchantmen for what they considered contraband destined for France, then engaged in the American War of Independence.

Charles Fielding was a British naval officer who was the initiator of the Affair of Fielding and Bylandt in the run-up to the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. He attained the "rank" of Commodore and died of gangrene after being wounded in action during the Battle of Cape Spartel, commanding HMS Ganges.