On the 6th October many sails were descried in the distance, and the longing eyes of the Hollanders were at last gratified with what was supposed to be the great West India commercial squadrons.  The delusion was brief.  Instead of innocent and richly Freighted merchantmen, the new comers soon proved to be the war-ships of Admiral Dan Luis de Fazardo, eighteen great galleons and eight galleys strong, besides lesser vessels —­the most formidable fleet that for years had floated in those waters.  There had been time for Admiral Haultain to hold but a very brief consultation with his chief officers.  As it was manifest that the Hollanders were enormously over-matched, it was decided to manoeuvre as well as possible for the weather-gage, and then to fight or to effect an escape, as might seem most expedient after fairly testing the strength of the enemy.  It was blowing a fresh gale, and the Netherland fleet had as much as they could stagger with under close-reefed topsails.  The war-galleys, fit only for fair weather, were soon forced to take refuge under the lee of the land, but the eighteen galleons, the most powerful vessels then known to naval architecture, were bearing directly down, full before the wind, upon the Dutch fleet.

It must be admitted that Admiral Haultain hardly displayed as much energy now as he had done in the Straits of Dover against the unarmed transports the year before.  His ships were soon scattered, right and left, and the manoeuvres for the weather-gage resolved themselves into a general scramble for escape.  Vice-Admiral Klaaszoon alone held firm, and met the onset of the first comers of the Spanish fleet.  A fierce combat, yard-arm to yard-arm, ensued.  Klaaszoon’s mainmast went by the board, but Haultain, with five ships, all that could be rallied, coming to the rescue, the assailants for a moment withdrew.  Five Dutch vessels of moderate strength were now in action against the eighteen great galleons of Fazardo.  Certainly it was not an even game, but it might have been played with more heart and better skill.  There was but a half-hour of daylight left when Klaaszoon’s crippled ship was again attacked.  This time there was no attempt to offer him assistance; the rest of the Dutch fleet crowding all the sails their masts would bear, and using all the devices of their superior seamanship, not to harass the enemy, but to steal as swiftly as possible out of his way.  Honestly confessing that they dared not come into the fight, they bore away for dear life in every direction.  Night came on, and the last that the fugitives knew of the events off Cape St. Vincent was that stout Regnier Klaaszoon had been seen at sunset in the midst of the Spanish fleet; the sound of his broadsides saluting their ears as they escaped.