Towards the middle of February the whole of the naval forces on both sides moved down Channel--Tromp to wait off the Land's End for the Dutch convoys, and the English to wait for and fall upon him as he came back to the eastward. On the 18th of February the two fleets came in sight of one another some fifteen miles off Portland. The wind was from the west, and was light. Tromp had from eighty to ninety men-of-war with him, and behind them a great flock of merchant ships. The English, numbering from seventy to eighty ships, were to eastward and leeward, and were much scattered. Only the smaller part of them were together, under the immediate direction of the generals at sea--Blake and Deane. The major part were at some distance to the eastward. Seeing the comparative weakness and the isolation of the part of the English fleet nearest him, Tromp took the energetic and intelligent decision to fall upon them at once. Blake and Deane did not flinch, and a hot engagement, in which the English were roughly handled, took place in the early afternoon. Three of the English ships were taken by the Dutch, but the enemy was not able to carry them off. While the ships immediately exposed to attack were engaged, the rest of the fleet to leeward was working up. About four o'clock it had gained a position which would have enabled it to weather the Dutch line, and thus put Tromp between two fires. To avoid this danger, the Dutch admiral tacked his fleet together, and worked to windward--a sufficiently clear proof that the fleets of the time did not fight in a disorderly swarm, but were perfectly capable of manoeuvring together in obedience to signals. The three ships which had fallen into the hands of the Dutch were retaken, but a fourth vessel, the =Sampson=, was found to be so severely shattered, and had lost so many men, including her captain, that it was decided to withdraw the survivors and let her sink. During the evening the English were busy taking men out of the smaller ships to fill up the vacancies caused by death and wounds in the larger, and refitting their damaged rigging. During the night both made their way eastward, within sight of one another's lights, the English on the north side of the Channel, then next them the Dutch men-of-war keeping guard over the merchant ships, which sailed between them and the coast of France.