The place of this collision was somewhere between the South Sand Head, the most southerly point of the Goodwin Sands, and Cape Gris Nez on the coast of France. The time was the afternoon, and the action lasted until dark. Blake was lying to, with the heads of his ships probably pointing to the English shore. He in his flagship, the =James=, was at the head of his line. Tromp in the _Brederode_ bore down with his squadron in line behind him. In this war it is not uncommon to find admirals leading their line, as Nelson and Collingwood did at Trafalgar, instead of placing themselves in the midst, as was the custom throughout the more pedantic time of the eighteenth century. This is one of the resemblances between the earlier and the later periods in the history of the English Navy, which bind them together in distinction to the more dull and more formal age between. If Tromp had had to deal with Blake only, there could have been but one end to the conflict. The Dutch admiral directed his attack on the English flagship. As Blake was at the windward end of his line, this would have enabled the Dutchman to concentrate an overwhelming force on the =James= and the ships immediately about her, before the more leewardly of the English ships could come to their assistance. But there was a third combatant to be considered. Bourne had got under way from the Downs when he saw the threatening manoeuvres of Tromp, and his position enabled him to attack the rear and northerly end of the Dutch line. Thus the combatants were curiously mingled. While Tromp with a superior force was attacking Blake, who was to leeward, he was himself attacked from windward by Bourne. We know little of the details of the battle, or of the conduct of individual ships. The =James=, attacked by the _Brederode_ and other Dutch warships, was very severely handled. "All our rigging and sails," as Blake reported in his despatch, "were extremely shattered, our mizenmast shot off." The loss in men was severe: six killed, "and nine or ten desperately wounded, and twenty-five more not without danger; amongst them our master and one of his mates and other officers," is the number reported by Blake. A century later, a line-of-battle ship attacked at such disadvantage by enemies of equal quality would have been cut to pieces in half an hour. The wild gunnery of the time accounts for Blake's escape from utter destruction. The struggling mass of ships wrestled in the Straits until dark, cannonading one another to the best of their ability. When night came, they separated. Blake, with the advice of the captains, came to an anchor three or four leagues off Dungeness. Tromp stood over to the coast of France. One Dutch vessel remained in the hands of the English, so shattered that her captor, Lawson, did not think her worth keeping, but took her crew out, and forsook her.