The states-general heard the news with consternation:  they despatched the grand pensionary Pauw on a special embassy to London.  The imperious parliament would hear of neither reason nor remonstrance.  Right or wrong, they were resolved on war.  Blake was soon at sea again with a numerous fleet; Tromp followed with a hundred ships; but a violent tempest separated these furious enemies, and retarded for a while the rencounter they mutually longed for.  On the 16th of August a battle took place between Sir George Ayscue and the renowned De Ruyter, near Plymouth, each with about forty ships; but with no decisive consequences.  On the 28th of October, Blake, aided by Bourn and Pen, met a Dutch squadron of nearly equal force off the coast of Kent, under De Ruyter and De Witt.  The fight which followed was also severe, but not decisive, though the Dutch had the worst of the day.  In the Mediterranean, the Dutch admiral Van Galen defeated the English captain Baddely, but bought the victory with his life.  And, on the 29th of November, another bloody conflict took place between Blake and Tromp, seconded by De Ruyter, near the Goodwin Sands.  In this determined action Blake was wounded and defeated; five English ships, taken, burned, or sunk; and night saved the fleet from destruction.  After this victory Tromp placed a broom at his masthead, as if to intimate that he would sweep the Channel free of all English ships.

Great preparations were made in England to recover this disgrace; eighty sail put to sea under Blake, Dean, and Monk, so celebrated subsequently as the restorer of the monarchy.  Tromp and De Ruyter, with seventy-six vessels, were descried on the 18th of February, escorting three hundred merchantmen up Channel.  Three days of desperate fighting ended in the defeat of the Dutch, who lost ten ships of war and twenty-four merchant vessels.  Several of the English ships were disabled, one sunk; and the carnage on both sides was nearly equal.  Tromp acquired prodigious honor by this battle; having succeeded, though defeated, in saving, as has been seen, almost the whole of his immense convoy.  On the 12th of June and the day following two other actions were fought:  in the first of which the English admiral Dean was killed; in the second, Monk, Pen, and Lawson amply revenged his death by forcing the Dutch to regain their harbors with great loss.

The 21st of July was the last of these bloody and obstinate conflicts for superiority.  Tromp issued out once more, determined to conquer or die.  He met the enemy off Scheveling, commanded by Monk.  Both fleets rushed to the combat.  The heroic Dutchman, animating his sailors with his sword drawn, was shot through the heart with a musket-ball.  This event, and this alone, won the battle, which was the most decisive of the whole war.  The enemy captured or sunk nearly thirty ships.  The body of Tromp was carried with great solemnity to the church of Delft, where a magnificent mausoleum was erected over the remains of this eminently brave and distinguished man.