No, the British never held long-term sovereign ownership of the island of Saint Martin, which has been uniquely divided between the French and the Dutch since the Treaty of Concordia in 1648. However, the British did temporarily occupy the island multiple times during the various Napoleonic Wars and colonial skirmishes of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. For instance, the British seized the island in 1801 and again in 1810 to prevent it from being used by French privateers. Each time, the island was eventually returned to its original dual claimants (France and the Netherlands) through international treaties like the Treaty of Paris in 1814. Today, the island remains famously split: the northern side is Saint-Martin (an Overseas Collectivity of France), and the southern side is Sint Maarten (a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands). While the British influenced many neighboring islands like Anguilla and St. Kitts, their presence on St. Martin was purely military and temporary, leaving the island's unique "dual-nationality" legacy as one of the oldest stable borders in the world.