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.

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.