It was six o'clock in the morning when the battle began. Both fleets were heading to the W.S.W., the English somewhat ahead, the Dutch to the northward and windward. By tacking, Monk altered the relative positions of the fleets from parallel to intersecting lines. The bulk of the Dutch weathered the head of the English line, but their rear ships were cut off. We "went through their whole fleet," said Captain Cubitt, "leaving part on one side, and part on the other of us." Tromp was resolved not to lose the weather-gage, and he also tacked when he saw Monk's movement. So did Monk when he had passed through the Dutch line, and the manoeuvre was repeated three times by each. On the second tack, all the Dutch appear to have weathered the English line. The two fleets passed very close, engaging with the utmost fury. From the heavy loss suffered in our ships, it may be concluded that in this battle the Dutch fired less to dismast than to kill. Six English captains were slain, one was mortally wounded, and the loss in the lower ranks must have been in proportion. It was counted one of the advantages of the windward position that it facilitated the despatch of fireships against the enemy to leeward. The Dutch did not fail to use a weapon, so terrible in theory, and so dreadfully destructive when it took effect. Experience, however, proved that as against well-handled ships under way, and under control of steady officers, it could rarely be employed successfully. The fireship could generally be avoided by moving vessels, and when that was difficult, or inconvenient to do, then it was taken in charge by the boats which the warship towed astern, and dragged away to leeward, where it burned out harmlessly. On this occasion little hurt was done by the "branders."
We cannot suppose that the movement of tacking in succession was performed by two fleets, each of over a hundred sail, with absolute uniformity. On this occasion, as in the great battle of the 12th of April 1783, when Rodney pierced the French from leeward, the main line may have broken into smaller ones. But the general course of the battle was in three great zig-zags, ranging along the coast of Holland, from near Egmont towards the mouth of the Maas, which are at a distance of about forty miles from one another. There was no shrinking on the part of the Dutch, and no failure of effort on the part of the English to push the attack home. In many points of the line ships were locked together in desperate attempts to board, or repel boarders. By three in the afternoon victory belonged to the English. A large proportion of the Dutch had been cut off from Tromp, and had fallen to leeward. Most of them were probably too damaged to be in case to do more than put before the wind, and escape as best they could. They fled into Goree and the Maas. The bulk of their fleet was debarred from that refuge by the English, who were still to leeward, and therefore on the line of retreat. It could only head northward and eastward to the Texel. Thither in the afternoon it fled, leaving behind miles of sea covered with the wreckage of the battle, and bearing with it the corpse of its great admiral, who fell by the death he had come to long for--shot mercifully dead by a musket bullet through the heart. He at least had nothing to reproach himself with. All that valour and skill could do to save Holland, he did. If he failed, it was because the mistaken policy of the soldier princes of the House of Nassau, and the unwisdom of the merchant oligarchy, had in false economy supplied him with inferior ships. An Englishman does not undervalue the heroes of his own race, when he acknowledges that not only their valour but skill enabled them to overcome the most famous of the Dutch seamen.