On the 17th August, the two fleets, so vastly disproportionate in number, size, equipment, and military force—­eighteen galleons and galleys, with four or five thousand fighting men, against eleven small vessels and twelve or fourteen hundred sailors—­met in that narrow sea.  The action lasted all day.  It was neither spirited nor sanguinary.  It ought to have been within the power of the Spaniard to crush his diminutive adversary.  It might have seemed a sufficient triumph for Matelieff to manoeuvre himself out of harm’s way.  No vessel on either side was boarded, not one surrendered, but two on each side were set on fire and destroyed.  Eight of the Dutchmen were killed—­not a very sanguinary result after a day’s encounter with so imposing an armada.  De Castro’s losses were much greater, but still the battle was an insignificant one, and neither fleet gained a victory.  Night put an end to the cannonading, and the Spaniards withdrew to Malacca, while Matelieff bore away to Johore.  The siege of Malacca was relieved, and the Netherlanders now occupied themselves with the defence of the feeble sovereign at the other point of the peninsula.

Matelieff lay at Johore a month, repairing damages and laying in supplies.  While still at the place, he received information that a large part of the Spanish armada had sailed from Malacca.  Several of his own crew, who had lost their shares in the adventure by the burning of the ships to which they belonged in the action of 17th August, were reluctant and almost mutinous when their admiral now proposed to them a sudden assault on the portion of the Spanish fleet still remaining within reach.  They had not come forth for barren glory, many protested, but in search of fortune; they were not elated by the meagre result of the expedition.  Matelieff succeeded, however, at last in inspiring all the men of his command with an enthusiasm superior to sordid appeals, and made a few malcontents.  On the 21st September, he sailed to Malacca, and late in the afternoon again attacked the Spaniards.  Their fleet consisted of seven great galleons and three galleys lying in a circle before the town.  The outermost ship, called the St. Nicholas, was boarded by men from three of the Dutch galleots with sudden and irresistible fury.  There was a brief but most terrible action, the Netherlanders seeming endowed with superhuman vigour.  So great was the panic that there was hardly an effort at defence, and within less than an hour nearly every Spaniard on board the St. Nicholas had been put to the sword.  The rest of the armada engaged the Dutch fleet with spirit, but one of the great galleons was soon set on fire and burned to the water’s edge.  Another, dismasted and crippled, struck her flag, and all that remained would probably have been surrendered or destroyed had not the sudden darkness of a tropical nightfall put an end to the combat at set of sun.  Next morning another galleon, in a shattered and sinking condition,