The precautions taken by his successor to insure an effective defense of the island were by no means superfluous. For as the power of Spain was steadily declining, that of the Netherlands and of England was rising. The establishment of the Dutch along the Hudson, their founding of Nieuw Amsterdam and their settlements on some of the minor West Indies, had brought the danger of Dutch invasion nearer than ever before. The colonies founded by the British at Jamestown and Plymouth had brought within reach the eventuality of having to guard the Spanish possessions against the British as well. Dutch and British navigation on the Atlantic was vastly increasing and the future foreshadowed conflicts of the interests of Spain and Holland on the one, and Spain and England on the other side. The Cuban authorities, wrought up and kept in a perpetual state of tension by their experiences with the buccaneers, had become morbidly susceptible to danger of any kind. The appearance of a foreign ship in the neighborhood of Cuban waters sufficed to fill them with the gravest apprehension, lest the stranger might harbor hostile designs. These apprehensions were justified, for the Dutch soon resumed their operations against Cuba. It was reported that Maurice of Nassau himself had set out with a powerful squadron, though no historian has any record of it. But in July, 1638, Cornelius Fels, who was by the Spaniards called Pie de Palo, appeared in the Bahama Channel, and from that point sailed for Havana at the head of a fleet of some twenty Dutch vessels enforced by some filibusters. Pie de Palo took his post at a convenient place to intercept any message sent by Governor Riano to Mexico or Peru. Near the coast of Cabanas the fleet of the Spaniards, commanded by D. Carlos Ibarra and composed of seven badly armed galleons and hookers, came across the Dutch. Ibarra formed a battle line extending his vessels so as to flank the enemy. Pie de Palo with six of his galleons bravely attacked the Spanish ships _Capitana_ and _Almirante_, being under the impression that they carried a great quantity of coined money and bars of gold and silver.