THE FIRST DUTCH WAR 403 



if captured. Blake, on seeing the Dutch fleet returning, 

 stood off to meet it. He did not know the real reason that 

 had made Tromp alter his course : he had passed the merchant- 

 ships a few days after their meeting with Young, and had 

 done nothing to them. He believed that Tromp was seeking 

 an occasion of quarrel, and watching for an advantage to 

 brave them on their own coast. The Dutch admiral came 

 on with his flag at the main-top, and when he was well within 

 range, Blake fired a gun across his bows to make him strike, 

 and after an interval a second, and yet again a third at his 

 flag, the ball going through the main-sail and killing a man 

 on deck. Tromp then, still with the States' colours aloft, 

 fired a single gun at Blake's flag, ran up a red flag, the 

 prearranged signal for battle, and poured a broadside into 

 Blake's ship, and the two fleets entered into a fierce encounter. 1 

 The fight lasted from four or five o'clock until nine, Blake 

 being assisted by Bourne, who came from the Downs with 

 his small squadron and assailed Tromp in the rear. The 

 Dutch fleet, with the loss of two ships, gradually drew off 

 towards the French coast, and Blake kept his position all 

 night and anchored some leagues off Dungeness. 



This was the first great fight over the striking of the flag, 

 and it occasioned immediate war between the two countries. 

 Encounters on a small scale had been not infrequent before, 

 but no foreign fleet had hitherto ventured to challenge an 

 English fleet in this way off the English coast. Tromp himself, 

 thirteen years before, when he possessed an overwhelming 

 force, readily struck his flag to Pennington's small squadron 

 in the Downs. After the battle attempts were made to 

 justify Tromp's action, but not at all on the ground that the 

 demand for him to strike his flag to the English admiral 

 was unjust or contrary to custom. Blake was accused of 

 having precipitated the battle. Tromp, it was said, had men 

 aloft ready to strike the top-sails, or had already done so ; he 



1 The Answer of the Parliament. Gibson, Collections of Naval Affaire, Add. 

 MSS., 11,684, fol. 56. Geddes, op. cit., 212. Gardiner, op. cit., ii. 118 ; Lettert 

 and Papers, i. 172. Tideman, op. cit., 135. The Dutch accounts, which vary in 

 certain particulars from the English and from one another, are unanimous in say- 

 ing that the first broadside came from Blake's ship, the James, which would have 

 been according to custom, since Tromp did not lower his flag after the third shot. 



