The loss was pretty equal on both sides. The English had four men-of-war sunk or disabled, but they were small ships; whereas the Dutch lost three of the best in their fleet: one sunk, another burnt, and a third taken; a fourth, called the _Great Holland_, commanded by the brave Captain Brakell, was entirely disabled. As for the French, notwithstanding all their caution, they lost two men-of-war and their rear-admiral, M. de la Rabiniere. Of the English, about two thousand five hundred were killed and as many wounded. The Dutch did not publish any list, though their loss without question must have been as great; since De Ruyter says in his letter, "it was the hardest fought battle that he ever saw." But though losses were reckoned as pretty equal on either side, the loss of the _Royal James_ with its one hundred guns, its eight hundred men, and its admiral, the Earl of Sandwich, who was probably without his equal upon the sea at this time, was loss enough, as the Duke of Buckingham observed, to give the name of victory to the Dutch. The earl, a son of Sir Sidney Montague, born on July 27th, 1625, had rendered a great deal of distinguished service. On August 20th, 1643, when no more than eighteen years of age, he received a commission to raise and command a regiment in the parliamentary interest in the Civil War. He was present at the storming of Lincoln, on the 6th of May, 1644, which was one of the warmest actions in the course of the war. He was likewise in the battle of Marston Moor, which was fought on July the 2nd, of the same year, where he greatly distinguished himself; insomuch that soon after, when the city of York demanded to capitulate, he was appointed one of the commissioners for settling the articles; which must have been the pure effect of personal ability, since he was then but in his nineteenth year. We find him next in the battle of Naseby; and in the month of July, 1645, he stormed the town of Bridgewater. In September he commanded a brigade in the storming of Bristol, where he performed very remarkable service, and, on September 10th, 1645, subscribed the articles of the capitulation, granted to Prince Rupert on the delivery of that important place to the parliament. After the first Dutch war was over he was brought into a command of the fleet, and was appointed by the protector to act with Blake in his expedition into the Mediterranean.