The conduct of Ayscue had not been on a level with his courage, and the Council of State was apparently persuaded that he was unequal to the command of a great fleet. They removed him shortly afterwards from active service, though they softened the severity of this measure by a grant of handsome pensions. It was perhaps some suspicion of the insufficiency of their commanding officer in the west which induced the Council of State first to call upon Blake to reinforce him, and then to send their admiral and general into the Channel himself. The most effectual method of reducing Holland would have been to establish Blake on the Dutch coast with a force capable of maintaining a blockade. But the Council of State either did not understand this, or did not think their fleet powerful enough. They preferred to collect a strong force in the Channel, for the purpose of protecting their own commerce and strangling that of the Dutch. In the middle of September Blake was in the Channel, making his way westward with the main fleet. When his van, under the command of Vice-Admiral Penn, was as far westward as Bolt Head, stormy weather from the west and south-west made it seem advisable to Blake to bear up for Torbay with the bulk of his fleet. Penn, however, remained out with a part of the ships. On the afternoon of the 15th he caught sight of two Dutch vessels to windward, which were seen to be making signals. The look-out men at the topmasthead saw behind the two Dutchmen, visible from the deck, a large fleet of ships still farther to windward. Penn, on his own showing, was prepared to engage in spite of the enemy's obvious superiority of numbers. He had the approval of Bourne, the rear-admiral, who advised that all the captains within call should be summoned to a council, in order that they might know that the enemy was at hand. The code of signals was in its infancy, or else Penn could have given his captains that information more rapidly than by the clumsy device of a council in his flagship. Penn was unwilling to act as Bourne wished, "lest any dirty mouth should say I called for counsel whether I should fight or no." After a decent reluctance, the council flag was hung out on the mizen shrouds, and the captains were duly summoned to learn the vice-admiral's intention of giving battle. He had in sight eighteen or twenty sail, with the merchantmen and fireships. By two in the afternoon the captains had ended their council, and were gone back, each man to his own ship. They lay to with their head to the offing, waiting for the Dutchmen to come down, for they could not work up to the enemy, and, if they had stood across the Channel for the purpose of tacking in his direction, they might have seemed to be opening a way for him to pass. The enemy was estimated at thirty-five or forty ships, but he made no attack. He came down to within three or four miles, and then hauled his wind and stood out across Channel.