The AEolus now fired a broadside into her antagonist, making fearful havoc, and killing Admiral D’Avila.  The commanders-in-chief of both contending fleets had thus fallen at the very beginning of the battle.  While the St. Augustine was engaged in deadly encounter, yardarm and yardarm, with the AEolus and the Tiger, Vice-admiral Alteras had, however, not carried out his part of the plan.  Before he could succeed in laying himself alongside of the Spanish vice-admiral, he had been attacked by two galleons.  Three other Dutch ships, however, attacked the vice-admiral, and, after an obstinate combat, silenced all her batteries and set her on fire.  Her conquerors were then obliged to draw off rather hastily, and to occupy themselves for a time in extinguishing their own burning sails, which had taken fire from the close contact with their enemy.  Our Lady of Vega, all ablaze from top-gallant-mast to quarterdeck, floated helplessly about, a spectre of flame, her guns going off wildly, and her crew dashing themselves into the sea, in order to escape by drowning from a fiery death.  She was consumed to the water’s edge.

Meantime, Vice-admiral Alteras had successively defeated both his antagonists; drifting in with them until almost under the guns of the fortress, but never leaving them until, by his superior gunnery and seamanship, he had sunk one of them, and driven the other a helpless wreck on shore.

Long Harry, while Alteras had been thus employed, had engaged another great galleon, and set her on fire.  She, too, was thoroughly burned to her hulk; but Admiral Harry was killed.

By this time, although it was early of an April afternoon, and heavy clouds of smoke, enveloping the combatants pent together in so small a space, seemed to make an atmosphere of midnight, as the flames of the burning galleons died away.  There was a difficulty, too, in bringing all the Netherland ships into action—­several of the smaller ones having been purposely stationed by Heemskerk on the edge of the bay to prevent the possible escape of any of the Spaniards.  While some of these distant ships were crowding sail, in order to come to closer quarters, now that the day seemed going against the Spaniards, a tremendous explosion suddenly shook the air.  One of the largest galleons, engaged in combat with a couple of Dutch vessels, had received a hot shot full in her powder magazine, and blew up with all on board.  The blazing fragments drifted about among the other ships, and two more were soon on fire, their guns going off and their magazines exploding.  The rock of Gibraltar seemed to reel.  To the murky darkness succeeded the intolerable glare of a new and vast conflagration.  The scene in that narrow roadstead was now almost infernal.  It seemed, said an eye-witness, as if heaven and earth were passing away.  A hopeless panic seized the Spaniards.  The battle was over.  The St. Augustine still lay in the deadly embrace of her antagonists, but all the other galleons were sunk or burned.  Several of the lesser war-ships had also been destroyed.  It was nearly sunset.  The St. Augustine at last ran up a white flag, but it was not observed in the fierceness of the last moments of combat; the men from the bolus and the Tiger making a simultaneous rush on board the vanquished foe.