At the end of August a large Spanish fleet, consisting of some thirty great galleons and thirty-six transports with troops for Flanders, set sail from Corunna. On 6th September it was attacked in the Channel by a Dutch squadron of seventeen ships, and a running fight was kept up, the Spaniards passing eastwards off the English coast. Tromp, engaged in blockading Dunkirk, heard the cannonading, and on the 8th he joined the Dutch squadron with fifteen sail, when a fierce battle took place in the Straits of Dover.[593] The Spanish Admiral, Don Antonio de Oquendo, having expended all his powder, took refuge with his shattered galleons in the Downs on 9th September, whither Tromp followed him. Great anxiety was felt in London, first of all lest the powerful foreign fleets should refuse to strike to the small English squadron under Sir John Pennington, and then lest they should begin hostilities in the King’s Chamber. On the former point doubts were soon set at rest. Tromp at once took in his flag in the presence of the English ships, a “civility” with which Charles was pleased. So also did the proud Spaniard, but only after preliminary refusal and demur; and Pennington’s insistence that the standard of Spain should be lowered was made a subject of complaint at Madrid.[594] Anxiety on the second point was protracted, and it was not diminished by the reports that were received that the French fleet was coming to reinforce their allies the Dutch. Pennington, in the most emphatic manner, had forbidden hostilities within the King’s Chambers, and he assigned the northern part of the anchorage to the Spaniards and the southern part to the Dutch. For several weeks the belligerent squadrons remained in the Downs facing one another. The Spanish Admiral, a few days after his arrival, succeeded under cover of night in despatching to Dunkirk some of his smaller vessels laden with soldiers. Tromp and Oquendo appealed to Charles through their respective ambassadors, “and then ensued an auction, the strangest in the annals of diplomacy, in which Charles’s protection was offered as a prize to the highest bidder.”[595] On the one hand, he demanded £150,000 from Spain, and better treatment in the business of the Palatinate, as the price of securing the safety of the Spanish fleet.[596] On the other hand, he declared himself ready to abandon the Spaniards to Tromp, if France would come under a binding promise to place Charles Louis at the head of the army which had been commanded by Bernard of Weimar--as a means, of course, to recover the Palatinate.[597]