Left to himself, alone in a dismasted ship, the vice-admiral never thought of yielding to the eighteen Spanish galleons.  To the repeated summons of Don Luis Fazardo that he should surrender he remained obstinately deaf.  Knowing that it was impossible for him to escape, and fearing that he might blow up his vessel rather than surrender, the enemy made no attempt to board.  Spanish chivalry was hardly more conspicuous on this occasion than Dutch valour, as illustrated by Admiral Haultain.  Two whole days and nights Klaaszoon drifted about in his crippled ship, exchanging broadsides with his antagonists, and with his colours flying on the stump of his mast.  The fact would seem incredible, were it not attested by perfectly trustworthy contemporary accounts.  At last his hour seemed to have come.  His ship was sinking; a final demand for surrender, with promise of quarter, was made.  Out of his whole crew but sixty remained alive; many of them badly wounded.

He quietly announced to his officers and men his decision never to surrender, in which all concurred.  They knelt together upon the deck, and the admiral made a prayer, which all fervently joined.  With his own hand Klaaszoon then lighted the powder magazine, and the ship was blown into the air.  Two sailors, all that were left alive, were picked out of the sea by the Spaniards and brought on board one of the vessels of the fleet.  Desperately mutilated, those grim Dutchmen lived a few minutes to tell the tale, and then died defiant on the enemy’s deck.

Yet it was thought that a republic, which could produce men like Regnier Klaaszoon and his comrades, could be subjected again to despotism, after a war for independence of forty years, and that such sailors could be forbidden to sail the eastern and western seas.  No epigrammatic phrase has been preserved of this simple Regnier, the son of Nicholas.  He only did what is sometimes talked about in phraseology more or less melo-dramatic, and did it in a very plain way.

Such extreme deeds may have become so much less necessary in the world, that to threaten them is apt to seem fantastic.  Exactly at that crisis of history, however, and especially in view of the Dutch admiral commanding having refused a combat of one to three, the speechless self-devotion of the vice-admiral was better than three years of eloquent arguments and a ship-load of diplomatic correspondence, such as were already impending over the world.

Admiral Haultain returned with all his ships uninjured—­the six missing vessels having found their way at last safely back to the squadron—­but with a very great crack to his reputation.  It was urged very justly, both by the States-General and the public, that if one ship under a determined commander could fight the whole Spanish fleet two days and nights, and sink unconquered at last, ten ships more might have put the enemy to flight, or at least have saved the vice-admiral from destruction.